CHARITY VERSUS DEVELOPMENT





“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
-Reverend Martin Luther King, 1967 [1]  http://www.globalresearch.ca/charity-versus-solidarity-do-development-ngos-do-more-harm-than-good/5343236
Charity can be defined as giving to help make people’s lives better while community development is moving beyond charity to walk together and help improve people’s lives. Today, lots of people prefer to do charity than being committed in partnering to improve people's standard of living.  Community development does not only improve the lives of others around us but also helps to improve ours as partners. https://attackpoverty.org/2011/charity-vs-development/
The following table according to Cooperative Baptist Fellowship best describe the differences between charity and community development.

Charity
Community Development
Meet a need
Empower people
Doing 'for'
Doing 'with'
What you think they need
What they say they want
Arrogance
Cooperation
Over/under
Equal
Not necessarily personal relationships
Personal relationships
Individuals/families
Systems
Short-term
Long-term
Single event
Change
Immediate fix
Long-term
Network
Net-weave
Doing justice
Doing reconciliation
Mercy for one
Mercy for masses
Dependence
Self-worth
Easy success
High risk of failure
Pities people
Respects people
Projects
Process
Develops dependence
Develops interdependence
Tell them
Ask them


This table is a proof that the best we can offer is initiating developmental efforts than just pitying persons and throwing down leftovers on them.  
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