<sup>The Trap of Deprivation
Chambers discusses this phenomenon in great details in his classic book cited above. He shows in Figure 1 the interlocking web of factors that keep people poor. They include:

Material Poverty
The household has few assets. A small hut or house often made of poor material and poor workmanship; few poor furniture, unsanitary facilities; no land, no livestock; house hold often borrows for their livelihood; low labor productivity, small farm with minimal yield. Their stocks and flows of food and cash are very low, unreliable, seasonal and inadequate.

Physical Weakness
The poor suffer from severe physical weakness. There is a high dependency ratio – few earn income or produce to take care of the others. Several factors all contribute to this situation – high mortality rate, early death, disease, sickness and malnutrition, migration, disability long hours of tedious work and low farm productivity.

Isolation
Often the poor household is isolated from the outside world, trade and other economic activities, from discussion, communication and information. They cannot access government services/facilities because of ignorance and illiteracy. Their children do not go to school, do not do very well or drop out.

Vulnerability
The household has very limited buffers and hence highly vulnerable. Lives from hand to mouth and any disaster such as crop failure, flood or epidemics can be devastating. They borrow from relatives and few friends and often end up in debt spirals.

Powerlessness
The poor is particularly disadvantage. He/she is usually ignorant of his rights, lacks legal advice. Consequently, he/she is often exploited by the rich and powerful. He negotiates from point of weakness and often he is owed his wages for long periods.</sup>
 

Paradigm Shift

Lessons from development studies around the world reveal that efforts to develop a community must shift from building infrastructures to developing people – empowering them. We need to address those deprivations that shackle the poor to a situation of hopelessness and helplessness. It is a vicious cycle from which they are not often able to extricate themselves.

They need assistance to help them float once more. When we give a community economic power the members will build infrastructures for themselves.

Some of the things Issele-uku Association can do:

Economic empowerment

We need to focus on creating economic opportunities for our people. The good thing about this approach is that it does not have to be done as charity. It is to follow sound investment principles. Those of us here who are endowed with skills, knowledge and resources must now take the lead to foster economic opportunities for our people. This approach will result in establishment of business enterprises in our town and consequently create jobs. Jobs and economic activities will create wealth in our community. At the same time, our people will begin to acquire various skills as they strive to secure employment in local businesses. As this happens, some of them will soon acquire capital to start their own business. The multiplier effect of each business established in the town will create opportunities for others not directly employed by the particular business. It is strange that most of the successful businesses in our town are owned and run by non-natives- chemist shops, mini-markets, block-molding industries, construction sand supply, building material supplies, cassava grating factories, etc. Moreover, if you observe carefully, most of their staff are their relations who come from their town as well. Some of us here, either individually or jointly can establish any of these or other businesses such as computer service, electronic service and repairs, agro-allied industries.

Many of us here can access very cheap funds as loans. With high interest rates in Nigeria such cheap funds give us clear advantage in using such funds to do business in Nigeria. There are very few countries in the world where businesses generate the level of profit as they do in Nigeria. You can provide loans for entrepreneurs at home to establish new or expand their existing businesses. You can promote entrepreneurship development programs to nurture future entrepreneurs. There also opportunities to establish skills acquisition centers.

In some developing countries Home Town Associations (HTA) like the Issele-uku Association have applied the 3 + 1 approach to develop their community back home. This is a system in which the HTA partners with federal, state and local governments of their country to develop their area. In recent times, such efforts have attracted the attention of international aid agencies and Foundations to support their effort. You are eminently qualified and positioned to do same. The churches in our town can be mobilized to collaborate with this Association to make this happen. Afterwards, most of the development Issele-uku recorded in the past can be attributed in the main to the effort of Rev. Dr. S. W. Martin11 and his Baptist Mission.

Socio-cultural enlightenment

Several socio-cultural factors have been identified to contribute to the poverty of our people. For example, the large family size makes it difficult, if not impossible for parents to adequately cater for the physical as well as the social needs of the children. How about funding family planning enlightenment program? How about educating our people on the need for immunization against most of the common diseases? What about some cultural practices of our people that should be consigned to the wastebasket of history? Are you willing to document them and ask the elders for a review of those customs and traditions?

Political empowerment

The world was shocked in November 2008 when an African American was elected the President of the United States. To some people it looked like luck. A careful study will review that President Obama and his team did what man had to do and left the rest to God. He employed community organizing – getting the community to realize the people power that it has and how to use it to get what it wants. Issele-uku with a large population in Delta State has never organized herself to take advantage of her size. You can initiate the program.

For any sustainable development to occur, the people concerned must be active participants. They cannot sit and watch as observers while ‘outsiders’ come to build their place for them. Remember that what you set out to do is to change lives – significant change in behavior and condition of the community. It will not be easy. There will be opposition. Those who benefit from the status-quo will not support your effort.

You have to note that the venture you have embarked upon is not an easy one. However, with God, cooperation and determination we shall succeed. In the words of Niccolo Machiavelli12