I’ve been working on issues of poverty for more than 20 years, and so it’s ironic that the problem that and question that I most grapple with is how you actually define poverty. What does it mean? So often, we look at dollar terms — people making less than a dollar or two or three a day. And yet the complexity of poverty really has to look at income as only as only one variable.Because really, it’s a condition about choice, and the lack of freedom.

And I had an experience that really deepened and elucidated for me the understanding that I have. It was in Kenya, and I want to share it with you. I was with my friend Susan Meiselas, the photographer, in the Mathare Valley slums. Now, Mathare Valley is one of the oldest slums in Africa. It’s about three miles out of Nairobi, and it’s a mile long and about two-tenths of a mile wide, where over half a million people live crammed in these little tin shacks, generation after generation, renting them, often eight or 10 people to a room. And it’s known for prostitution, violence, drugs. A hard place to grow up. And when we were walking through the narrow alleys, it was literally impossible not to step in the raw sewage and the garbage alongside the little homes. But at the same time it was also impossible not to see the human vitality, the aspiration and the ambition of the people who live there. Women washing their babies, washing their clothes, hanging them out to dry. I met this woman, Mama Rose,who has rented that little tin shack for 32 years, where she lives with her seven children. Four sleep in one twin bed, and three sleep on the mud and linoleum floor. And she keeps them all in school by selling water from that kiosk, and from selling soap and bread from the little store inside.

It was also the day after the inauguration, and I was reminded how Mathare is still connected to the globe. And I would see kids on the street corners, and they’d say “Obama, he’s our brother!” And I’d say “Well, Obama’s my brother, so that makes you my brother too.” They would look quizzically, and then be like, “High five!”

And it was here that I met Jane. I was struck immediately by the kindness and the gentleness in her face, and I asked her to tell me her story. She started off by telling me her dream. She said, “I had two. My first dream was to be a doctor, and the second was to marry a good man who would stay with me and my family. Because my mother was a single mom, and couldn’t afford to pay for school fees. So I had to give up the first dream, and I focused on the second.” She got married when she was 18, had a baby right away. And when she turned 20, found herself pregnant with a second child, her mom died and her husband left her — married another woman. So she was again in Mathare, with no income no skill set, no money. And so she ultimately turned to prostitution. It wasn’t organized in the way we often think of it. She would go into the city at night with about 20 girls, look for work, and sometimes come back with a few shillings, or sometimes with nothing. She said, “You know, the poverty wasn’t so bad. It was the humiliation and the embarrassment of it all.”

In 2001, her life changed. She had a girlfriend who had heard about this organization, Jamii Bora, that would lend money to people no matter how poor you were, as long as you provided a commensurate amount in savings. And so she spent a year to save 50 dollars, and started borrowing, and over time she was able to buy a sewing machine. She started tailoring. And that turned into what she does now, which is to go into the secondhand clothing markets, and for about three dollars and 25 cents she buys an old ball gown. Some of them might be ones you gave. And she repurposes them with frills and ribbons, and makes these frothy confections that she sells to women for their daughter’s sweet 16 or first Holy Communion — those milestones in a life that people want to celebrate all along the economic spectrum. And she does really good business. In fact, I watched herwalk through the streets hawking. And before you knew it, there was a crowd of women around her, buying these dresses.

And I reflected, as I was watching her sell the dresses, and also the jewelery that she makes. that now Jane makes more than four dollars a day. And by many definitions she is no longer poor. But she still lives in Mathare Valley. And so she can’t move out. She lives with all of that insecurity, and in fact, in January, during the ethnic riots, she was chased from her home and had to find a new shack in which she would live.

Jamii Bora understands that. And understands that when we’re talking about poverty, we’ve got to look at people all along the economic spectrum. And so with patient capital from Acumen and other organizations, loans and investments that will go the long term with them, they built a low-cost housing development, about an hour outside Nairobi central. And they designed it from the perspective of customers like Jane herself, insisting on responsibility and accountability. So she has to give 10 percent of the mortgage — of the total value, or about 400 dollars in savings. And then they match her mortgage to what she paid in rent for her little shanty. And in the next couple of weeks, she’s going to be among the first 200 families to move into this development.

When I asked her if she feared anything, or whether she would miss anything from Mathare, she said, “What would I fear that I haven’t confronted already? I’m HIV positive. I’ve dealt with it all.” And she said, “What would I miss? You think I will miss the violence or the drugs? The lack of privacy? Do you think I’ll miss not knowing if my children are going to come home at the end of the day?” She said “If you gave me 10 minutes my bags would be packed.” I said, “Well what about your dreams?” and she said, “Well, you know, my dreams don’t look exactly like I thought they would when I was a little girl. But if I think about it, I thought I wanted a husband, but what I really wanted was a family that was loving. And I fiercely love my children, and they love me back.” She said, “I thought that I wanted to be a doctor, but what I really wanted to be was somebody who served and healed and cured. And so I feel so blessed with everything that I have, that two days a week I go and I counsel HIV patients.And I say, ‘Look at me. You are not dead. You are still alive. If you are still alive you have to serve.’” And she said, “I’m not a doctor who gives out pills. But maybe me, I give out something better because I give them hope.”

And in the middle of this economic crisis, where so many of us are inclined to pull in with fear, I think we’re well suited to take a cue from Jane and reach out, recognizing that being poor doesn’t mean being ordinary. Because when systems are broken, like the ones that we’re seeing around the world, it’s an opportunity for invention and for innovation. It’s an opportunity to truly build a world where we can extend services and products to all human beings, so that they can make decisions and choices for themselves. I truly believe it’s where dignity starts. We owe it to the Janes of the world. And just as important, we owe it to ourselves.

Local News | Seattle man tackles global poverty | Seattle Times Newspaper.

I grew up in a upper middle class home, went to a private school, was generally cocooned in life, so poverty was something that really didn’t concern me, after I shouldn’t I really put all my attention to my career, my life, my education, my friends and family.

This is a story of how that perception slowly changed. For the better.

In 2003 I visited Tanzania, at the time I was visiting an girlfriend (now ex) who had volunteered for a student aid organization. My visit was at the conclusion of her formal placement at a remote village, the central project was the establishment of HIV screening centres. I’ll never forget that trip, I always recall reading the Tanzanian newspaper noticing how obviously most people were dying of HIV  and AIDS, the denial was palpable with many families paying for photo obituaries in the newspaper citing a ‘mysterious illness’ as the culprit for prematurely snatching a beloved son or daughter at a preciously cruel young age. This started to open my eyes. I was unaccustomed with being in a culture so acquainted with death and dying. I mean I was used to seeing accidents, murders and odd deaths repeated ad infinitum on the news, but this was different death was so common for so many families. It was all pervasive, the classifieds told the harsh, brutal truth. I realised that on that trip most Tanzanians were struggling to make ends meet, really struggling to live from meal to meal. Yet despite such vagaries and uncertainties many had a palpably more happier and radiant disposition than me. They seemed more confortable in their own skin. I knew something deep down was horribly wrong with the world and in a weird way I knew that by embracing and looking at poverty, those people in poverty who don’t take anything for granted and who know the value of really living,  could teach me a valuable lesson of life and unshackle me  from a n all-too-common western apathy consumed with fanatasized anxieties, petty jealousy and an over inflated sense of entitlement.

That trip changed me. Much for the better. I knew that deep down I spent time with people who appeared so much more lively and free than me, yet they by and large had no possessions and certainly had a lot more than me to worry about. I remember that trip well, most of the time I was thinking about petty, pathetic issues back home, petty friend jealousies, bitterness, anxiety and resentment. It was also the time when a recurring repetitive strain injury (RSI) started to magnify and significantly worsen. The relationship I had with my girlfriend  was also drawing to a close too. So there was plenty of things going on for me. And slowly I was being drawn to the fact that I really lived unhealthily in my mind, as I said many of the Tanzanians were clearly more desperate and needy than me, but they were in a way generally more free and relaxed in themselves than me.

So I returned home confused, bewildered and in pain. I won’t get into the long detail about the. Check RSI and Depression sites for more background. But I grew in awareness that poverty was not something “out there”, something foreign, it was all too familiar and too local. It began by seeing my own poverty and realizing that when I was unemployed – the RSI and depression episode forced me out of work for nearly two years –  I was a stone’s throw away from poverty. Had my parents not had sufficient financial reserves I could have easily become homeless, drifted into full-blown dug use , and ended up with a long stint at a psychiatric hospital. Considering this scary but plausible scenario, I fundamentally realized that  poverty was very much closer to home, it really was quite close to me. With this new realization I began to open up my eyes and notice the poverty which existed in my own backyard: Sydney, Australia.

Despite being an incredibly affluent country rich in minerals and populated by a hard-working, innovative, creative and entrepreneurial people 100 000 people slept homeless every night. 100 000! That’s nuts! Working in homelessness for the past 6 years has exposed me to the high levels of poverty and destitution experiences by many inner city Sydney folk. Too many too. I’ve worked for the past 6 years with some of the most desperate and needy homeless men and women of Sydney.

This exposure to poverty first in myself as a spiritual poverty, potential physical poverty and local poverty shaped and changed the way I embraced and accepted poverty. The more I began to attune into the human condition and how I was part of it, the more poverty couldn’t be neatly edited out or neatly categorized into some little benevolent purse I almost unconsciously feed out of virtue. I had to accept it and at the same time realise it is completely unacceptable and not something OK to tolerate or just put up with it. I had to do something to help reduce it and that was first discovering and helping with impoverished and destitute people in Sydney, the homeless. Some of which live in filth and squalor on a nightly basis.

Not soon after I worked at the homeless shelter I realised that so many people look down and laugh at people in poverty. That makes me sick to the bone, believe me. It’s a real bad sign of character to look down and laugh someone who struggles in squalor and poverty. My growing awareness and response to poverty ran parallel with the growth and development of my Christian faith (God).

Now for the last five years I feel like I guess I’m doing my little bit toward addressing the poverty situation. I know that deep down it is crazy to live a life comsumed with posession, greed, money and assests in which the majority of discussion and social interactions revolve about discussing ownership, objects and about  getting and accumulating more and more. This is the type of mindset which perpetuates the heinous gap between the haves and have notes in this world. I know that by conforting and tacking poverty I’ve also discovered an inner poverty which has been able to be finally clothed and accepted. In addition to my work in homelessness, community mental health and psychiatric hospitals my wife and I give to Compassion Australia on a monthly basis. Through this we’ve been able to forge a lovely connection with a beautiful growing girl in India.

I know that beating poverty means coming alongside the broken and the neglected and realising that the body of humanity is brusied, bleeding and in desperate need. It’s not that I’m some holy saint, far from that believe me, but I can definitely say that taking a stand against poverty and opening my eyes to the treasures of the broken has given me a new sense of freedom, liberty and understanding that while the world indeed is unfair, unjust and so many live under the yoke of oppressive chains, often it is these people who carry the key to unlocking my own poverty and darkness.

Thanks for reading my testimony.

Justin Bennett