What follows is a brief description of the Project:

Through its involvement in community education in various countries in Africa, the Educational Support Services Trust (ESST) has been challenged on many occasions by Heads of State and other people in positions of power (Ministers, High Commissioners, community leaders) to develop a community-based project which will address the issue of poverty at grassroots level in a new and effective manner.

PEP is the outcome of more than two years of research on

• the phenomenon of poverty
• the characteristics of entrepreneurial thinking within the wider context of critical and creative thinking
• the development of new perspectives and mindsets

Against this theoretical background ESST conducted structured interviews with thousands of people in poverty-stricken areas, e.g. informal settlements and rural areas, as well as people who find themselves "on the street". In this way we could draw up a poverty referential framework depicting people within real-life situations, e.g. those who are really poor and destitute, those who see themselves as poor but still have some means of surviving (maybe through dependence on family members or friends), those who have job-related skills but cannot find work (in the traditional way), those without hope (or knowledge) of securing any income, those who are very keen to find a way of making a living, etc.

From our research the common denominator of "poor" people's thinking can be summed up as an inability to think differently and develop a new perspective on possibilities, coupled to an inability to act.

The Poverty Eradication Project is based on a 64-page end users' handbook, LET US OVERCOME POVERTY, supported by a 16-page GROUP LEADERS' GUIDE:

LET US OVERCOME POVERTY

 

GROUP LEADERS' GUIDE

 

Example of pages from LET US OVERCOME POVERTY

 

LET US OVERCOME POVERTY can be rightly described as the first authoritative handbook on entrepreneurial thinking at grassroots level. What ESST did, in fact, was to extract the gist of its interviews and create four persons who find themselves in the plight of poverty. The publication relates their case histories step by step up to the point where they have become successful entrepreneurs.

LET US OVERCOME POVERTY is meant to serve as input material to get people interested and excited — to get them to think, to get them to act.

The methodology underlying the Project is the well-researched and proven ESST methodology of shared learning and shared meaning-making — also drawing people who cannot read into the discussion process.

The material will be made available in the languages of choice.

The implementation of the Project will be done in a structured and controlled manner through the intervention of Group Leaders, without impeding spontaneity and individual initiatives.

The implementation cycle will stretch over a twelve-month period, which will include monitoring and writing up progress and reporting back at least every three months.

PEP is aimed at bringing about real and lasting change by building on the enormous potential which exists within communities but is unfortunately not explored.

PEP is designed to be an All-Africa initiative, and will be endorsed at the highest level by the countries concerned.