"After the Rwandan genocide, a church from Atlanta started sending over eggs, and ended up just distributing eggs in a small community outside of Kigali. And this seems like a great thing to do, right? The church wanted to help after the genocide, but Jean, a few years before, had started a small egg business himself. His business was starting to grow, was starting to take off. And then, all of a sudden, in one summer, there become this surplus of eggs that were flooding the market in his area. So, Jeano described that he couldn't compete with a free good. And so, this desire that the church had, to really take care of a need, it did take care of a need, but the problem is that it put Jano out of business... ‎The easiest thing to do is to have an abundance of things, and to give it away, and that’s going to make a difference for today. But it’s much more difficult to make a long-term impact. It doesn’t happen by just giving them something. It happens through relationship, it happens through long-term investment of time and resources to build up individuals, so that they can take care of their own needs and take care of their own families." - Peter Greer, President of Hope International

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Related Voices ↓

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  Peter Greer — Microfinance & Effective Charity

  President CEO, Hope International, USA

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Related Issues ↓

• Charitable Giving
• Dignity & Capacity of the Poor
• Entrepreneurship

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