Brief History

In 2002 Servant Partners staff moved into an urban working class neighborhood with the aim of finding a sustainable method for community transformation.  They adopted a slow learning posture to understand the problems faced by the urban poor.  As followers of Jesus, and in keeping with Servant Partners values, they chose to live in simple homes, eat traditional meals, wear local clothes, learn the language, ask questions and make friends.  While initially partnering with another organization and working in the area of malnutrition, it quickly became clear that the root causes of poverty were not being addressed. 

We noted that only some of those in the slums with stable jobs were capable of thinking big-picture about themselves and their communities and were more able to consider long lasting changes.  However, those with stable incomes were few.  The business environment lacks funding, is burdened by corruption, and does not have the tools to creatively adapt to new social pressures.  Therefore, a new project is being started in this area.

New Project

The Servant Partners team has engaged with starting a community center in a poor neighborhood.  One of the more ambitious goals is to encourage a small business and entrepreneurial movement among the urban poor.  Starting small, the focus will be on vocational training as well as basic skills needed to run a small micro-enterprise business, including computer and internet skills to help bridge the “digital divide”.  At the same time, we will be doing community assessments to determine other subjects in which the community feels a desire to learn, likely:  health education, literacy and computer training.  All of these courses will be taught with a strong emphasis on business ethics (or Kingdom ethics), so that those passing through the program will have more successful businesses, as well as have a desire for civic values of giving back to the communities from which they came.

Because team members live incarnationally among their neighbors in the same area of the city, the project seeks to be a place where they get to know and walk with those they are seeking to empower.  The focal point is on empowering locals to help themselves for the long term.  This requires consistent discipleship and the power of the Holy Spirit to be successful.  As local people graduate from the community center’s programs, we hope to then recruit some of them to be ongoing teachers and mentors so that the program will eventually depend completely on local resources.

 Team

Currently the team is being lead by a couple with two young children who have been in the country along with one more SP staff since 2002.  Three additional teammates will be joining in early and late 2006.  In addition to the SP values, the team’s focus is on common scripture study, prayer, and discipleship.  Character growth is central to the purpose of being in the country, both for team members and for those we seek to work with. 

There is also a focus on the long term improvements in the community, over and above short term relief-style interventions.  This changes the focus from alleviating immediate suffering, to a more long term approach which may increase some difficulties and lessen the apparent success in the short term.

Currently, we are seeking more team members who have an interest and/or experience in development, specifically in urban community transformation.  At this point, we are specifically seeking people with administrative gifts as well as advanced computer skills (hardware and networking). 

For more information on this ministry site contact .