When reading leads to doing (good)

Amidst the wastelands of bad news spotting our planet, there are also greenbelts of good news arising from intrepid individuals who demonstrate how we can make our world a better place rather quickly. There are John Wood and Greg Mortenson, who build far-flung libraries and schools where they are critically needed. And there is Paul Polak, who founded an organization now helping millions earn their own way out of poverty.

Twenty-five years ago you would have found Paul Polak a middle-aged psychiatrist in Denver. Already he was exhibiting some unusual methods, including paying house calls on the homeless. (One of his patients was living under a loading dock.) Polak sought to understand the situations of his patients in their worlds so he could be a better doctor in his clinic.

Besides being intensely curious, he was also confident in his abilities to imagine unusual solutions and to make things happen. It seems he gained his confidence from an early age, growing up as a Czech emigrant in Canada and being a resourceful young strawberry farmer.

Field notes from the tiniest farms

In his book Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail , we read how at midlife he began traveling widely to visit the world’s poorest people, in order to have face-to-face conversations. This took him to the far corners of Nepal, India, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and into the fields, since virtually all of the poorest people scrape their existence out of tiny one-acre farms.

It’s fair to say that Polak got carried away with interviewing these people. Had he been writing a Ph.D. dissertation, his advisors might well have been satisfied with 20 interviews, but Polak conducted hundreds—and ultimately thousands—over the course of 25 years. He also read about world poverty and subsistence farming, but it was his fieldwork that molded his ideas.

“I have learned more from talking with these poor farmers than from any other thing I have done in my life,” he writes. “Everything I have to say in this book depends almost totally on having interviewed three thousand poor farm families….”

To say Paul Polak has a certain understanding of the world’s tiny farms is to say Tiger Woods has a certain understanding of golf courses.

Cultivating the seeds of entrepreneurship

What Polak has concluded from his listening labors seems at once obvious and also profound: Most extremely poor people in the world don’t make enough money on their farms. They need to change the ways they farm, adopting such tactics as growing high- value, labor-intensive crops in the off season, which can be done with affordable irrigation technology, seeds and fertilizer.

Confronted with a jarring disconnect between what traditional aid efforts have attempted and what poor farmers say they actually need, Polak pitchforks the myth that it is possible to donate people out of poverty. What works is unleashing the poor farmers’ own entrepreneurial abilities, which they generally have in good supply. What works is selling them tools they can afford and helping them use these tools to earn their own wealth.

The idea that companies should earn money selling products to the world’s poor outrages some people in aid organizations, Polak admits. But if you view the poorest people as customers, your perspective changes. Good companies listen hard to what customers have to say. While these customers have little money to spend, they do have some, and there are hundreds of millions of such customers ready to buy things that make economic sense to them.

Listen hard to one-acre farmers and you’ll hear they need inexpensive water management. Polak’s organization has enabled the purchase of millions of cheap treadle pumps (that the farmers can pedal), crude but effective water storage systems, and shockingly cheap drip irrigation tubes that waste nary a drop while suckling plump vegetables.

Once the poorest start making some money, it’s interesting how they spend it. Polak shows how income earned by Nepalese farmers first was used to purchase food, then invested back into agricultural production, and then allocated to the education of their children. Education beat out clothing, festivals, home improvement and even medicine.

30 million on a dollar a day

Like John Wood’s Room to Read foundation, Polak’s International Development Enterprises focuses on quantifiable results. This has been instrumental in its winning its second major grant from the Gates Foundation earlier this year, for $27 million. IDE has a specific goal of ending the poverty of 30 million dollar-a-day families by 2020.

In 2007 the restless Polak launched a second organization, D-Rev, to focus on designing products for the ninety percent of the world’s population neglected by most businesses and, therefore, most designers.

Paul Polak has taken charge of his education as few have. At a point in life when his peers would typically spend more time with other well-heeled professionals on verdant golf courses, Polak spent his time in the company of poor farmers on parched soil, listening to them explain how they needed an inexpensive way to store monsoon water.

After reading his book and watching his interviews, I see a man wealthy in experience. A man with an inner glow and an impish grin who enjoys being a contrarian, fortified with the confidence of knowing he’s on the right path.

I’d very much like to hear your thoughts on this man who has traveled such an unusual journey. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

Comments

[Cauleen Viscoff]

Steve, when I taught college Ethics, I used a book called "Doing Good-the Limits of Benevolence" by Gaylin, Glasser, Marcus and Rothman. It is a series of essays, that among others, targets our society's treatment of 'the poor' and poverty.

One of the points made is that we rush to those help those we feel need our help and then we decide what we will do for them. In the midst of our 'Doing Good' we fail to ask those in need, just what they do need... why? because it makes US feel good... never mind the recipients.

I love what Mr. Polak does... he ASKS what they need... and most of us would be surprised at how modest those needs may be. Recently I read about a local gal who traveled to a third-world country and came back to raise money for something completely different than the person she interviewed there said they needed...

Seems to me we all need to read Mr. Polak's book and I am grateful for the insight you have given us. Perhaps this will give us the impetus to Do Good for others instead of for ourselves.

gratefully,

Cauleen Viscoff

[Annabella]

Hello,
First off I would like to congratulate you on your blog. I am an avid reader and hopefully soon to be educator so I am thrilled to read about your blogs and the messages you send to everyone. Each week I am looking forward to receiving your e-mail.

I too, would love to be of help. I currently live in Florida. I am glad to say that there are public libraries who have implemented a program for illiterate adults. I have volunteered for teaching adults how to read, but apparently there aren't many people, both for volunteers and adults who are in need of this help. What can I do to create awareness?

Do you have any other suggestions for helping out?

Thank you and once again I admire your mentality.
Annabella Vizcardo

[Claire]

What a fascinating life perspective Paul has. In reading about his life, I feel compelled to read his book. I hope our local library has it in stock. These are the kinds of people I enjoy knowing about.

As someone who works with people in need through our local church, I also firmly believe you cannot donate people out of their current situation. You also have to give them the tools to help themselves.

Some people are so used to handouts that they cannot envision another way of living. We must help them regain their self-respect and vision a better way of life for themselves and their families.

[Marie Severin]

God bless Mr. Polak! The world needs people like him. I'll definitely read his book.

Steve, you're doing a fantastic job. I enjoy reading your blog. May God continue blessing you with good health so that you can be around for a very long time.

[Mark N]

Your insight is most helpful to me at this time in my life. I was on business seeking new career hopes in Seattle and was staying near Pioneer Square, this allowing me to walk to the office for the next four days saving on a rental car expense and being green. In addition, it was providing me the joy walking and the fresh cool Washington states air. Much to my shock was the very frequent and most potent smell of urine along the streets. The cascade of street people: sleeping, begging and foraging for food from the discards of tourist was most humbling to experience. I have seen this face before, that of the poor, in Mexico, and the EU, I asked myself as I walked pasted them, but why. Why are so many people hurting in this way and all the normal stuff that enters one mind when immersed in such surroundings? I pray for them.

I went about my days. Looking forward to a walk at the end of each day along the waterfront to take in the summer snow capped Mountain View at pier 66. But each day I would see, and hear the face of the poor on these walks. Thinking that the long summer days make nights short and air cool for people to make it on the street. Pushing my sadness for them deep within me so I could soon forget them, focusing on my own issues and hoping I could close and land a new career, then I could help them even more.

On my last night before my walk, I stop by the hotel front desk and request a wakeup call. I notice a bowl of candy and pick out two, thinking this will hold me over till I get back; it’s only a 4 mile walk. I was out the door and within three blocks. I see a women’s hand out. I give her my candy. She thanks me.

I feel good. That is until I read your blog tonight. I think Polak is on to understanding the poor and what they seek. Like all of us they seek understanding by achieving for themselves.

Humbled in Boca

[Darlene Kostrub]

The inquiry on how to create more literacy awareness in Florida is a great one. There are two organizations that I would recommend contacting. Statewide literacy awareness activities are coordinated by the Florida Literacy Coalition out of Orlando. Their director is Greg Smith and he may be contacted at 407-246-7110. In Southeast Florida, the Palm Beach County Literacy Coalition is very active in awareness initiatives. You can contact them at 561-279-9103 or go to www.pbcliteracy.org.

I was delighted to see mention of Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea. He will be the featured speaker at the March 27, 2009, Love of Literacy Luncheon in West Palm Beach, Florida. He is an outstanding literacy advocate and we are delighted to have him with us for that occasion.

Thanks for the excellent discussion generated.

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