(This marks the last in a series of ten articles about systemic change and Vincentian family by Fr. Robert Maloney, Chair of the Systemic Change initiative in the Vincentian Family.)
Experience teaches that “quick fix” solutions, while temporarily helpful, prove inadequate in the long run. Beyond them, we must examine the whole socio-economic situation in which the poor live, and then intervene in such a way that the system as a whole is modified. Such an approach is necessarily interdisciplinary and involves many different actors within society: the poor themselves, interested individuals, donors, churches, governments, the private sector, leaders in business, unions, the media, international organizations and networks, etc.
Modern science focuses on “systems†whose parts continually interact with one another and influence each another, for better or for worse. Physicists and astronomers, for example, view the universe as a system. If a star explodes, everything else in the universe feels the effect. Medical science views the body as a system. A bad kidney affects the blood, and bad blood affects all the other organs. Economics and sociology view society as a system. If the elements that influence the lives of people within the system (family, institutions, jobs, housing, food and drink, health care, education, moral values, spiritual development, etc.) function together positively, people thrive; if one or several of these elements are lacking, the whole system begins to break down.
An illustration of how systemic change worksEach of us lives within a socio-economic system whose parts interact with each other. If the system is working well, it favors personal growth. If not, it thwarts growth and accelerates decline. If, for example, I don’t have a job, I don’t earn money. If I don’t earn money, I can’t buy food for my family. If my son doesn’t have sufficient food, he suffers malnutrition. If he suffers malnutrition, he can’t study well. If he can’t study well, he won’t graduate from school. If he doesn’t graduate from school, he may not get a job. If he doesn’t have a job, he doesn’t earn money. So the circle begins again.
Similar things can be said about housing, sanitary conditions, health care, and other basic human needs. The elements in a poorly functioning system influence one another and move a person, step by step, deeper into poverty. The challenge for a systems thinker is to know where and how to break the circle. As the viewer of the famvin.org site has seen in the stories recounted here over the last ten weeks, the point of insertion, or the break-through point for changing the system, will vary.
In Akamasoa, Fr. Pedro Opeka began by creating jobs. These, in turn, generated revenue. Gradually, people were able to buy food, build homes and send their children to school. Their lives improved dramatically. In San José de Ocoa, water was the key. Clean water brought improved health. Irrigation brought crops that provided nourishment and also revenue. Revenue led to better homes and sanitation. With the Homeless People’s Federation of the Philippines, micro-credit was the key. It enabled people to buy land, build homes, and organize other projects like digging wells, creating a sewage system, and opening shops. Each project began at a different point of insertion, but each resulted in a systemic change.
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