29 March, 2024

KORE””Chicken Coops and More in Haiti

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by | 7 December, 2011 | 0 comments

This is one of the first recipients of a KORE Foundation chicken coop in Haiti. It allows him to own a business that can multiply his subsistence salary by seven times.

By Dennis Bratton

KORE Foundation is a unique ministry that pursues sustainable solutions to extreme poverty within the Christian community of Haiti. One billion people in the world””and half the population of Haiti””exist on $1 a day or less. Extreme poverty is simple to define, but it is hideous to behold. It is debilitating. It does not allow dreams or hopes. It strikes and crushes the most vulnerable on earth. It is time for the church to consider a reasoned Christian response to this destructive burden.

Jesus acknowledged economic realities in his ministry (Luke 4:16-30). He offered care for both the physical and the spiritual person (Matthew 4:23). The Great Commission (Matthew 28:19, 20) and the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-39) suggest a seamless harmony for the church. We can craft a single strategy to wrestle for the souls of men and champion a solution for the plight of the poor.

 

Handouts Aren”t Helping

When there is a natural disaster, the church responds in generosity, often sacrificially. Compassionate relief efforts by the church sent millions of dollars to Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake. But relief dollars are all but gone. Many relief organizations are leaving Haiti, but the poverty persists. Some say it is getting worse. Sprawling tent camps still dot the land and house an estimated 600,000 Haitians.

Health and human rights officials warn of another crisis: a population explosion of tent babies. Dr. Henia Dakkak of the United Nations blames it on “transactional sex going on as a coping mechanism for young girls to survive poverty, to address some of their needs.” Even before the quake, more women in Haiti died before, during, and after childbirth””and more babies died before their fifth birthday””than anywhere in the Americas. According to Astrid Viveros of the Kellogg Foundation, 80 percent of the orphanages operating in Haiti have reported human rights violations. Haitian poverty brings hunger, poor nutrition, disease, illiteracy, unemployment, hopelessness, and a culture of dependency.

Recently elected Haitian President Michel Martelly was quoted in the Miami Herald as saying, “We cannot continue with this humiliation of having to extend our hand for help all of the time.” It”s painfully obvious handouts, however well intentioned, haven”t changed much at all. Isn”t there a way out of extreme poverty the church can facilitate? To truly help the poor, the church must consider appropriate steps beyond relief.

 

Sustainable Solutions

The Christian world is beginning to develop creative, sustainable solutions to extreme poverty. One beyond relief initiative KORE is taking involves a chicken coop. It”s called small-holder poultry enterprise. A Haitian Christian who is stuck in poverty receives training, a loan, and his or her own small business. The coop provides food and income security for a family. It is a realistic tool for poverty alleviation. It is a fully sustainable and expandable model. It even offers the hope of an economic foothold for the local church.

KORE works with Haitian churches and Christian missions to identify candidate families who are active in their church home. Men and women who are potential owners must attend training classes on raising healthy chickens, ethical business practices, and biblical stewardship. Upon completion of classes and evaluation by instructors, successful candidates are offered a loan contract that funds construction of their own 10-by-20-foot chicken coop, as well as the first two cycles of chicks. The business model anticipates seven cycles of chicks per year, with loan repayment beginning at the end of the third cycle and completed in two years or less. Farm extension agents provide continuing instruction and oversight through the life of each loan. The repayment schedule includes principal and interest, catastrophic insurance coverage, and a management fee for extension agents. Loans are given to groups of 10 to 12 at a time. Once loans are repaid, the funds are made available for new owners, and the process continues.

The current cost to begin a chicken coop is $3,000. The loan includes a standardized prefab metal coop, designed in Jacksonville, Florida, and shipped to Haiti. KORE is scheduling construction teams to work with Haitian owners, churches, and orphanages in 2012. Teams will pour concrete pads and build chicken coops with a Haitian family or orphanages. Go to www.korefoundation.org for information or to schedule a group trip.

A 10-year glance at the promise of a $3,000 chicken coop is surprising. In this single economic investment, five small-holder business owners are funded. The original loan is granted, paid-off, and reloaned every two years. Unlike relief dollars that are given, spent, and must be replenished, dollars invested in economic development never stop working.

A conservative estimate is that coop owners will earn about seven times their previous annual incomes. In 10 years, that means the original $3,000 investment can result in total income of more than $75,000!

Imagine 50 or 100 new coop investments annually, stacked on top of continuing loan transactions. Imagine hundreds of employed Haitian Christians learning to be faithful in stewardship to their local church and ministries. In a simple chicken coop there is the seed for an economic landscape change for the Christian poor in Haiti.

Collaboration is a key word for many nongovernmental organizations and parachurch ministries working to alleviate extreme poverty. If two groups are spending $10 each to accomplish something, many are now exploring the real possibility that each can spend $5 and, working together, get as much or more accomplished. This is a positive and necessary movement. Limited funding has mandated that ministries look for sustainable approaches to long-term needs. It”s expensive to keep “giving people fish.” It just makes more sense to “teach them to fish.”

Kore is the name of a man Hezekiah hired in 2 Chronicles 31:14. He was assigned with stewardship oversight of freewill offerings that came from a magnificent capital campaign. It took months to collect and count the tithes and offerings that were given! Kore was charged with distribution of funds to “old and young alike,” with special attention given to families and little ones.

KORE Foundation focuses its efforts toward families and children. The goal is to enable a sustainable solution to extreme poverty. K is for kindness“”the touch of Christ in a practical way; O stands for opportunity; R“”resources are made available for sustainable enterprise“”E“”a Christian response to extreme poverty.

 

A Tool of Faith

KORE is a new ministry, but sustainable enterprise as a tool of faith isn”t new at all. There are many books available on the subject. The Poor Will Be Glad by Peter Greer and Phil Smith helped shape the main idea of KORE. And there are a growing number of Christian leaders committed to helping the poor through sustainable options.

Doug Priest, director of Christian Missionary Fellowship, offered guidance, encouragement, and a functioning example in early development of the KORE mission.

KORE is fortunate to work with the founder of FISH Ministry, Edsel Redden, who has operated a self-funded feeding program for children in Haiti for more than 20 years. Redden brings unselfish and invaluable knowledge, experience, and commitment to the table.

KORE has partnered with The Tim Tebow Foundation to raise funding for chicken coops. Secular foundations have responded to this sustainable model, knowing it is focused on helping the Christian poor and working through local Christian churches. Businessmen and women, as well as civic organizations, that have given relief donations for years, are excited about an opportunity to engage in a sustainable economic solution to extreme poverty.

It is naïve to think one chicken coop will change the world. It is also discouraging when you think of 1 billion people trapped by $1 a day poverty. Maybe we can”t help them all. We can, however, help many of them. Nothing much will happen quickly, but doing something sustainable today will impact the future.

“Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “˜Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?” (James 2:15, 16).

When James wrote the next verse”””Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (v. 17)””he was referencing a specific example of how to put faith to work. It would seem the church must have some kind of faith reaction to poverty.

Most of us believe it is appropriate for the church to respond to extreme poverty. The decisions we face are between continuing emergency-driven relief efforts or investing in sustainable solutions. We must decide if it”s acceptable to consider poverty alleviation as an appropriate ministry along with evangelism and discipleship. Our choice is between giving more handouts or offering brothers and sisters a way out of their poverty . . . the dignity of self-reliance offered as an act of faith.

 

Dennis Bratton is the director of KORE Foundation, Gallatin, Tennessee.

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