A Framework for Understanding Poverty

by Ruby K Payne

  The mission of aha! Process-to directly impact the education and lives of individuals in poverty around the world-leads to a role in this revolution. Communities are awakening to the reality that they do not offer a sustainable way of life to their children and are looking for direction. Equity and critical mass impact the changes that are taking place. If a community allows any group to be disenfranchised for any reason (religion, race, class), the entire community becomes economically poorer (Sowell, 1998). When poverty reaches the point of critical mass in a community and efforts to reverse the problem don't succeed, the people with the most resources tend to move out of the community, leaving behind enclaves of poverty. At this point the community is no longer sustainable.

  Responding to the impending crisis with the mindset that created it and with the strategies that have been used to address poverty to date is to invite more of the same results: more poverty and more communities at risk.

  aha! Process defines community as any group that has something in common and the potential for acting together (Taylor-Ide 2002). The rich social capital that peaked in the post-World War II era-and that has been on the decline since-must be restored (Putnam, 2000). The barn-raising metaphor for communities where citizens contribute to the building of the barn with their particular skills, gifts, and talents must replace the vendingmachine metaphor, which is currently in use. The vending-machine metaphor reduces community members to consumers or shoppers who put 75 cents into the machine expecting 75 cents of goods and services in return. With that mindset, it's no surprise that we find people kicking, shaking, and cursing the vending machine.

  The additive model holds that:

  ? It's better to be a barn raiser than a consumer.

  ? All three classes must be at the table.

  ? Communities must have a shared understanding and a common vocabulary to build critical mass that is willing and motivated to make the necessary changes.

  W Strategies must cover all the causes of poverty-from the behaviors of individuals to political/economic structures.

  r Communities must build intellectual capital.

  l2 Long-term plans of 20 to 25 years are needed.

  a Quality-of-life indicators must be monitored and reported regularly in the same way that economic indicators are monitored and reported.

  CONCLUSION

  aha! Process offers a unique understanding of economic diversity that can give individuals, families, and communities new ways of solving problems. It is the hope of aha! Process that ioo years from now poverty will no longer be viewed as economically inevitable. Two hundred years ago slavery was thought to be an economic necessity. It was not. One hundred fifty years ago it was believed that women were not capable of voting. That also was not true. We fervently hope that by 2100 individuals and society at large will no longer believe that poverty is inevitable. It is only by applying an additive model that we will understand and address both poverty and the underlying factors that have perpetuated it.

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