“My” Sari-Sari Store: An Experiment in the War on Poverty

Social scientists have many different views on poverty and the consequences of living in poverty. In my youth, I used to blame poverty on failed social and government policies. And, I believed at that the government’s failure to “cure” poverty resulted in many social problems like crime, drug abuse, and poor health.

However, as I grew older and as I worked with America’s poor, my view of the world began to change. Instead of seeing poverty as the result of failed policy, experience often showed me that poverty was also the result of the choices that the poor people made and not just the social circumstances that they lived in. And, after working with many, many poor people my thoughts on social problems also began to change. Rather than seeing the poor as “victims of society,” I began to feel that many of the victims were the victims of their own choices in life. And, I began to discover that many of the poor who did not fall into the traps of crime and other social ills, avoided those problems because of the alternative choices that they made.

In fact, I began to see that the social welfare system in America was more often than not the cause of perpetuating poverty and the problems associated with poverty. It was my experience time and time again to discover that so many of the poor had become dependent on the system, had developed an unproductive “entitlement” attitude, and engaged in behaviors that perpetuated poverty rather than lifting themselves out of poverty because they were waiting for government to solve their problems.

As I began development of my second blog, The Philippines Community, I began to expand my network of friends into all levels of Filipino society. I made it a point to plug myself into the poorest levels of Filipino society so that my understanding of life here would be complete. This involved developing friendships with the poor, visiting their homes and families, and becoming part of their social network.

It was not easy. And it was extremely frustrating at first. I was viewed by some as a rich foreigner and treated like a walking, talking ATM machine. It seemed that every time I turned around, I was being hit up for a loan. And yes, the requests seemed genuine enough … milk or medicine for the baby … and so forth. There were too many problems and the underlying cause … in the minds of some of my friends was their poverty. And of course, I was seen as a solution to that problem … because I was a “rich” foreigner.

However, it soon became clear to me that any “loan” that I made had little impact on their lives. It merely got them through the day, but not through their problem. They would be back the next day looking for another “loan”. Although I am sympathetic to the poor and my heart hurts to see a baby without milk or medicine, I felt that I needed to help my friends in some other fashion. So, I began an “experiment” with the closest of my poor friends.

I turned off the ATM. No more loans. At first, this resulted in a falling out between us. I suppose they saw me as selfish. And I saw them as freeloaders. The friendship seemed all but lost and I was ready to move on and try again. But something happened that none of us expected. My friend became seriously ill with a kidney infection. She had been suffering from attacks every few weeks and had been treating them with massages and pain killers. But now, she was carrying a very high fever and the pain was not going away. I inquired about her medical history and it became clear that she was prone to kidney problems.

After a little research, it seemed that her medical problem was most likely a severe kidney infection so I fronted the money for her to see a doctor. Sure enough, it was a kidney infection and I also paid for the medicine.  Within a few days, the kidney infection had cleared up. My friend and I had a long heart to heart talk after that.

I tried to make it clear that I was not unsympathetic to her and her family’s life in poverty. But I also tried to make it clear that by only addressing the symptoms, her problems in life would never go away. Maybe it was fate, but the example of treating just the symptoms of her kidney infection with pain killers and massage made it very clear to her what I meant. They relieved the pain for a while but did not cure the problem. On the other hand, a treatment of antibiotics and other medicines that addressed the cause of her illness solved the problem because it addressed the cause and not just the symptoms of her problem.

That seemed to trigger a light bulb in her. She began working on some “plan” and we would have frequent discussions about budgeting, money management and running a business. I explained to her that I thought that her family might actually have enough money to get out of poverty if they made different life choices and by budgeting more carefully. I told her about my Peace Corps experiences of teaching people to fish, rather than giving them fish.

I actually enjoyed the discussions, because I felt like I was teaching again (I didn’t realize that I missed it) and she seemed to be the eager student. A few weeks later, she announced that she was in the process of building a sari-sari store. She was budgeting more carefully and took what little savings she had and had invested it in the store. She had been engaged in research and had looked at many other stores, had scouted out a good location, had hired an affordable carpenter, and even had begun to plan her inventory using a budgeting plan that I had taught her.

I was quite amazed at the sophistication of her planning and told her that I thought she was very smart. She laughed and said that she had learned all of these things from me. Well, there is some truth to that, but I only taught her the basics. On her own, she did a lot more learning and research and planning that went far beyond what I had taught her.

The store will open in December. I’m hoping that she will succeed. I think for the first time in her life she was actually seeing a path out of poverty over which she had control. It won’t be easy for her. No small business is ever easy, but instead of begging eyes, I now see eyes with ambition and dreams and hope.

I asked her if her store had a name yet. I had to laugh when she said that she felt like naming it after me. And maybe one day, it will be a famous name like Robinson and Ayala, she said. Now that’s the kind of ambition and drive that a single mother of a child can have when given a chance to discover her own productivity and talent. The Philippines has many social problems associated with poverty, but I believe that answer to those problems are found in its people – if they only can discover what they are truly capable of.

(photo by RushManila)

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