Ways to Reduce Poverty — Revisited, Approach #5 - Build Assets and Hold Onto Them
This approach focuses on learning about and understanding all the assets that are available in a community. Assets can include people, skills, buildings, nature (like parks and rivers), etc. If a community can identify all the assets in the community, those assets can be used to help people in need.
Here are examples of what is happening in some communities:
- a program to help people buy and repair their own cars (assets identified to make this happen included a retired mechanic and an unused car garage)
- starting a “buy local” program or campaign
- pooling financial resources to create a “lending circle” program to help people get credit to start a business of their own (assets identified include people with business start-up experience and people who have ideas and interest in starting a business)
We’ve already seen some of these ideas listed in some community plans in Minnesota and we look forward to adding other ideas to the list!
As always, if you’d like additional information on all the approaches, please log on to Everyday Democracy’s (formerly Study Circle Resource Center) website at
http://www.everyday-democracy.org/en/index.aspx
and click on the poverty link under issues on the right hand side. From there you’ll see the link to the “Thriving Communities: Working Together to Move From Poverty to Prosperity for All” guide.