About a year ago I attended a large Cincinnati workshop for nonprofits. I thought the speaker with the best lesson for smaller nonprofits was Ruby K. Payne, author of A Framework for Understanding Poverty.
Though criticised in some quarters for offering stereotypes in place of analysis, I have been struck over the course of the past year by the truth of what she writes, especially with regard to the primacy of relationships among people who live in poverty.
One example. This past weekend I read Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh. Mr. Venkatesh writes about his graduate-school field work in Chicago's most notoriously crime-ridden public housing projects. He worked closely with gang leaders, tenant association leaders, and youth program coaches in an effort to describe how people living in US inner-city poverty make it through each day.
Time and again, throughout the book, Venkatesh's experiences validate Ms. Payne's concepts.
I can recommend the lessons in these books to help educators and activists design better programs, and increase their effectiveness.
--pk---
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