Career Suicide

 This past weekend we spent an exhausting 2 ½ days helping build 50 homes in 2 days. Yes, those numbers are correct. And we built them without power tools – digging holes with iron poles and your hands is not something I necessarily need to do on a regular basis, but it was great to take part. We built that way because if the families we were helping don’t have machines, why should we? Un Techo Para Mi País (UTPMP) is a large nonprofit organization founded in Chile and currently working in 19 countries throughout the Americas and soon to open an office in Madrid. While the US and Madrid offices were born specifically for fundraising,  Chile has transitioned from constructor to fundraising/operations. Why? Because they literally built so many homes that there is no longer a need for the type of housing they offer. The current director said they are all trying to commit “career suicide” as we climbed a mountainside cornfield to visit a family’s new home.

Each time our camp gathered this weekend for announcements or to take a moment to try and grasp the reality in which the families we were building for live, one of the leaders or staff invariably mentioned UTPMP’s fervent hope that there will be a day when they are no longer needed, when they become obsolete. What more appropriate goal could any nonprofit have? If the goal is development - is serving the needs of others in order to alleviate those needs – shouldn’t eradication of that particular need, and therefore of your own services, be the ultimate goal?

If you are truly in the business of serving the needs of others, the hope should be that one day that need disappears. When I think about the kinds of programs and organizations I want to work for I search for and strive for sustainable development – not flash in the pan fixes. Don’t give clothes, lets figure out how to establish a business to make affordable clothes in that community/country – jobs, GDP increases, and the clothes. Don’t just give meds to treat diarrhea, fix the source of the illness – water, food etc. Either prevent the problem from existing or provide a solution that will survive after you leave – fostering jobs, growth and pride among the community where it matters most. I hope that every time I embark on a project in development, I can create/be part of something so sustainable that I work myself right out of a job, or at least that the mission is forced to change. What a great world that would be.

...I will also be setting up a personal donation page for my jobless self (Mom & Dad, aren’t you excited?)