Empowering destitute people towards transforming communities

4.3Personal development problems

This refers to a range of personal development issues affecting people’s potential to become destitute or to stay destitute.

4.3.1Lack of education, knowledge and skills

Lack of these contributes to destitution in two ways, namely (1) by disabling already destitute people from finding jobs and a steady source of income, and (2) by raising up a generation of unskilled young people who are at greater risk of becoming destitute, because they did not enjoy access to good education.
According to Meyers (1999:84) it “is obvious that poverty is caused in part by lack of knowledge and technical information”. Linda Siegle (2006:1), in an article entitled “Missed opportunities: The case for investment in learning and skills for homeless people”, is quoted as remarking:

Learning changes lives, transforms communities and can bring people from the margins to the mainstream of life. We abhor the waste of human potential that Crisis’s research highlights. Every day that goes by without this investment delays changes in homeless people’s lives and increases social exclusion and entrenchment into a homeless lifestyle.

In the same article, Shaks Ghosh (2006: Foreword) is quoted as commenting, “Our work at Crisis gives us first hand experience of the massive difference that learning and skills can make to the lives of homeless people”.
In South Africa, with its legacy of apartheid, lack of education is much more prevalent among certain population groups, thereby contributing to poverty amongst those groups. As Gewertz (2005:1) observes, until 1995 when apartheid ended in South Africa, the government spent 12 times more on the education of white children than on black children. This blatantly discriminatory policy has left a troublesome legacy of prevalent poverty among black people in South Africa: they simply lack the education needed to make progress.
As well as increasing the skills of destitute people and improving their employability, engagement in learning and skills activities can also improve mental health (SEU, 2004:5) and reduce problematic substance misuse (Addaction, 2005:1) or committing offences (SEU, 2002:3). Hope (2006) considers that education, training and employment are the key routes out of poverty and homelessness.
Warnes (2007:298-299) explains how engagement in learning and skills development helps to bring an end to homelessness in a number of ways:

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  It builds confidence and self esteem – and through these the belief that positive change is possible.
  
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  It gives people structure, purpose and meaning in their lives – all of which are essential first steps to goal-setting and achievement.
  
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  It equips people with the skills necessary to interact successfully both in work and non-work settings – and thereby their chances of ending their social exclusion.
  
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  It tackles boredom and widens social networks – thereby helping individuals to leave behind negative past behaviours and peer influences.
  
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  It improves the ability to access and make use of services – thereby increasing independence and ensuring that wider needs are more likely to be met.
  
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  It improves employability – and thereby the chance of ending financial exclusion.
  

4.3.2Lack of access to knowledge and information

This analysis can be linked to the concept of marginalization as postulated by Friedman (1992) above. The premise is simple: the poor, especially the destitute living on the streets, do not have access to the internet, newspapers or other sources of information that could guide them to services or employment or any number of other helpful insights. For example, figures from Internet World Stats (2007) indicated that only 7.4 percent of the population of South Africa enjoyed ready access to and routinely used the Internet in 2006, and that this small group typically consisted of the more affluent members of our society.

4.3.3Lack of meaning and identity

Seltzer and Miller (1993:76) refer to “a desire held by many individuals to understand life from a deeper frame of reference than social circumstances”. The basic question is, “why am I here, and what is the meaning of life?” It would seem that for most destitute people their sense of “who they are” as persons is tied to making sense of their lives (1993:82).
Seltzer and Miller (1993:83) extend this point:

The reasons for asking questions on the meaning of life are tied to the basic elements of human dignity. To become aware that we have lost the capacity to choose leads us to ask who, in fact is in control, and why we have been deprived of this basic right to make decisions for ourselves. To see everything as chaotic and unpredictable drives us to search for something understandable, stable, and constant in the midst of the terror and flux of our daily lives. To be stifled in expressing or living out who we feel ourselves to be – and to be cut off from the community that used to give our lives coherence – pushes us to ask deeper questions about the self, and about the community of faith or meaning that seems so hidden by our current alienation and isolation (:83).

4.3.4Lack of access to “culture”

According to the World Bank (2007:1), development processes intended to reduce poverty must understand culture, or take culture into account, for two reasons: (1) culture influences what is valued in a society; in particular, it shapes the “ends” of development that are valuable to the poor; and (2) culture influences how individuals, communities, informal and formal institutions respond to developmental changes, so that knowledge of culture(s) is a means to effective poverty reduction.
The term “culture” is used or defined in two ways within the World Bank (2007:1). The first, wider, definition describes the particular shared values, beliefs, knowledge, skills and practices that underpin behaviour by members of a social group at a particular point in time (with potentially good and bad effects on processes of poverty reduction). The second definition refers to the creative expression, skills, traditional knowledge and cultural resources that form part of the lives of people and societies, and can form a basis for social engagement and development of enterprise. These include, for example, craft and design, oral and written history and literature, music, drama, dance, visual arts, celebrations, indigenous knowledge of botanical properties and medicinal applications, architectural forms, historic sites, and traditional technologies. 
Culture serves as a point of reference for an individual (creating a sense of belonging and purpose) and as a valued basis for conduct or action. The premise is that “good culture” should help to keep people from becoming destitute, whereas “bad culture”, like the “culture of poverty”, will promote poverty and destitution. In the case of the destitute, they are often so isolated and impoverished that they have little access to culture or cultural values that can serve as an anchor against the storms of life. On the other hand, if we accept the “culture of poverty theory”, when people become entrapped in the “culture of poverty”, they will tend to adopt a culture that confines them in poverty, instead of helping them grow out of poverty and destitution.
It should be stated that even the destitute express themselves culturally, and even the poorest of the poor have some access to culture. However, when access to cultural resources is denied or destroyed to some degree, or where cultural expression that would empower people out of destitution is denied, we are talking of a lack of access to that culture which would empower people not to be destitute.

4.3.5Wrong worldview

Worldview refers to the way in which an individual will view her or his world. According to Wikipedia⁷, the term denotes a comprehensive set of opinions, seen as an organic unity, about the world as the medium and exercise of human existence. This includes various dimensions of human perception and experience such as knowledge, politics, economics, religion, culture, science, and ethics.
The Christian thinker James W. Sire (2004:15-16) defines a worldview as:

…a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic makeup of our world.

He suggests that “we should all think in terms of worldviews, that is, with a consciousness not only of our own way of thought but also that of other people, so that we can first understand and then genuinely communicate with others in our pluralistic society”. (2004:15-16).
An example of a detrimental worldview would be evident in the comment, “poor people have no chance in this world, so why try?” Regardless of the degree to which such a worldview holds true, it will influence the actions of the person holding that worldview. The opposite is also true. For example, persons holding on to a worldview that sees opportunities and grasps them, are more likely to succeed in whatever they attempt, and less likely to become destitute.

4.3.6Generational carry over of “culture of poverty” tendencies

The basic premise, developed by various authors from Lewis (1959) to Landon (2006), is that a faulty culture (of poverty) is carried over from generation to generation, and then becomes the accepted norm – thereby keeping people trapped in that culture (see above).

4.3.7Adaptation to life on the streets

From the work of Morse (1982) and Hopper et al. (1982), adaptation to life on the streets refers to the tendency that destitute people, as they adapt more and more to life on the streets, will become less and less capable of transition or reintegration back into society (see above).