Can We do good better | pwlavictoria-main

Can we do good better?

Yes, we can!!!!

Our mission for La Victoria is shifting. We are focused on introducing change that has long-term benefits for the people in La Victoria, we will do it by raising up leaders on the ground from and in La Victoria. We will seek out ways to help them develop long-term income for themselves, their families, and their communities.

This is the direction that many mission/relationships are taking, and it is also a proven model recommended by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The main purpose is to help our brothers and sister there develop and maintain their dignity while assisting with projects that have long-term sustainability.

These are some of the publications that give insight into how missions and relationships migh work better:

Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference

Most of us want to make a difference. We donate our time and money to charities and causes we deem worthy, choose careers we consider meaningful, and patronize businesses and buy products we believe make the world a better place. Unfortunately, we often base these decisions on assumptions and emotions rather than facts. As a result, even our best intentions often lead to ineffective—and sometimes downright harmful—outcomes. How can we do better?

When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor ... and Yourself

Poverty is much more than simply a lack of material resources, and it takes much more than donations and handouts to solve it. When Helping Hurts shows how some alleviation efforts, failing to consider the complexities of poverty, have actually (and unintentionally) done more harm than good.

But it looks ahead. It encourages us to see the dignity in everyone, to empower the materially poor, and to know that we are all uniquely needy—and that God in the gospel is reconciling all things to himsel

Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help, And How to Reverse It

Veteran urban activist Robert Lupton reveals the shockingly toxic effects that modern charity has upon the very people meant to benefit from it. Toxic Charity provides proven new models for charitable groups who want to help—not sabotage—those whom they desire to serve. Lupton, the founder of FCS Urban Ministries (Focused Community Strategies) in Atlanta, the voice of the Urban Perspectivesnewsletter, and the author of Compassion, Justice and the Christian Life, has been at the forefront of urban ministry activism for forty years. Now, in the vein of Jeffrey Sachs’s The End of Poverty, Richard Stearns’s The Hole in Our Gospel, and Gregory Boyle’s Tattoos on the Heart, his groundbreakingToxic Charity shows us how to start serving needy and impoverished members of our communities in a way that will lead to lasting, real-world change.

Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence

Short-term mission trips are a great way to impact the kingdom. Yet they can lack effectiveness because of mistakes or naiveté on the part of participants. In this insightful book, David A. Livermore calls us to serve with our eyes open to global and cultural realities so we can become more effective cross-cultural ministers.