If you want to help people, give them jobs. A normal human being in their right senses would rather work for a thousand dollars, rather than be handed ten thousand dollars for doing nothing. People don’t want someone to solve their problems for them, they actually want someone (or an institution) to empower them to better take charge of their own affairs. When someone has decent work, with some discipline, they will be able to solve their basic needs and can then begin to turn their attention upwards. You should not join the bandwagon that thinks job creation is the exclusive domain of the government. You can create jobs.
The best way you can help people is by creating jobs for them. Gainful employment is the single most powerful tool for sustainable poverty elimination. It is easier to create jobs for 1,000 people than to teach 1,000 people how to become entrepreneurs via skill acquisition. When you create jobs for 1,000 people, all of them get paid. When you try to teach 1,000 people to become entrepreneurs, the statistics say that we expect around 90% of them to fail within two years. So, this is not about skill acquisition schemes. People lack the discipline and capacity to make anything tangible from the skills you give them. They need a place, where they must turn up for work every single day.
Your ability to create jobs is not dependent upon your personal wealth. It depends on how passionate you are about your world. If you are serious about being a salt and light of your world, you will find out that you need people to be economically empowered. You need to remember that if you do not engage the people in your world productively, something else will get their attention. When the disciples of Jesus wanted to shift the responsibility of providing for the crowd that had gathered around. Jesus commanded “you feed them” (Mark 6:30-44). In the same spirit, stop thinking a government or rich man is coming to create jobs. You can create jobs. Embrace the responsibility, and you will see a way.
