We finished our welfare training today at the MTC. Last week we worked the entire week on Preach My Gospel and being visible in every way as a missionary. This week the focus was on serving as a welfare or humanitarian missionary. In this work you don’t mention the name of the Church but the fact that you are a representative of LDS Charities. No proselyting is allowed and is a taboo when working on welfare humanitarian projects. It was quite a contrast. Many times you don’t wear you badge or draw attention to the church in any way.
We spent Monday at Welfare Square in Salt Lake on 7th South and 7th West. We toured the facilities and then drove to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for a formal luncheon and training. We met Steve Peterson who is the director of worldwide welfare for the church. We sat at 3 separate tables with the staff members who work on major initiative projects. While we had nearly 100 senior missionaries for our first week, this week there were only 3 couples: Coffey’s from St. Louis and going to Hong Kong, Pollards who are from Thousand Oaks, California and are going to Moscow and us. The other two couples will serve as Area Welfare Specialists, while we will be the boots on the ground as Welfare Country Directors.
 |
| Elder and Sister Coffey, us, and Sister and Elder Pollard |
Tuesday thru Thursday was spent in intense training with welfare staff who reviewed their particular areas of responsibility. They explained the 6 major initiatives:
- Clean water projects
- Neonatal training
- Vision
- Wheelchairs
- Immunizations
- Benson Food Initiative and Short-Term Projects
We were also introduced to the software tracking system for projects which is called CHaS. We spent some time with it but we don’t have access to the live data or the area plan yet. The biggest problem is trying to help with training and education so they can become more self-reliant and not perceive our welfare projects as “give away” programs. We watched some powerful vides produced by an organization called poverty cure. The bottom line was they need trade and not aid. Somehow they need to develop their economy through trade and not develop further dependency on foreign aid dollars. Money has not solved the problems in Africa and in many cases it has made it worse by taking away their independence or the prospect of building their own independence.
Most of the projects are coordinated with other governmental agencies or non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) An important element of any successful project is the development of relationships rather simply the commitment of dollars. We are hoping to build upon successful relationships for future collaboration. We viewed several sample videos of relationship building and evaluating the successful implementation of guiding principles which were:
- Priesthood direction. We focus on projects that support welfare goals of priesthood councils
- Participation in the work brings dignity and ownership
- All receivers are the finders of solutions
- Volunteer service involves the poor helping the poor.
- Members volunteer time, talents and keep covenants.
- Strengthening others – most powerful contributions are non-monetary contributions
- Mistakes, struggles, opposition teach powerful lessons
- Giving things is rarely a solution. We must increase a skill, increase knowledge and increase capacity.
- Local solutions are important; we use local technology, labor, resources, vendors, etc.
- Outsiders’ solutions to local problems do not work.
In summary, we had very intense training for two weeks at the MTC but in the process we made new friends and were educated by some of the best instructors available to the church welfare department.
Even though we haven’t departed yet, we feel like our mission began in January when we received our call and we have definitely not been present since April 21st when we entered the MTC. We’re making final preparations and fly on Monday. We’re anxious to get officially underway.
No comments:
Post a Comment