[pjc_slideshow slide_type='Our_Philosophy']

Our Philosophy

Better Lives’ mission is to help disadvantaged children grow up healthy, educated, and trained to earn an income. We work with schools and families that share this mission in order to find solutions to poverty that are holistic, collaborative and sustainable. These solutions are designed to let the schools, families, and children set their own pace for life improvement.
[expand title=”Holistic +” trigclass=”comtitle” targclass=”comtarg” elwraptag=”div” elwrapclass=”comdiv”]Using a holistic approach means understanding and addressing people’s diverse needs. This includes basic support needs like security, water and food, spirit development needs for children to mature into caring and trusted adults, and skills needs like knowledge and productivity to become self-reliant. When all of these needs are fulfilled, children can act with confidence and courage and help others to improve their lives.

The Better Lives building blocks are a holistic and flexible way of thinking about how to support children as they negotiate their lives. There are sixteen blocks, with four on each level of SUPPORT FOR MOTIVATION, SPIRIT OF EMPATHY, SKILL FOR PRODUCTIVITY and SUCCESS FOR JOY. We focus mainly on programs that support the Health, Education and Income blocks.

SUPPORT FOR MOTIVATION
Home – Accept and bond with family in a comfortable home, and with friends and community in a safe environment.
Health – Have clean water, nutritious food, hygiene, shelter and exercise.
Responsibility – Understand and control emotions, and be disciplined and organized so that you can be responsible for obligations and actions.
Motivation – Be enthusiastic, energized, willing, able and encouraging.

SPIRIT OF EMPATHY
Gratitude – Be grateful and at peace with beliefs, thoughts, words and actions.
Caring – Seek and share understanding with respect, patience and humility.
Trust – Consistently speak straight and honestly, and do what you say.
Teamwork – Communicate, collaborate, and coordinate with your team members.

SKILL FOR PRODUCTIVITY
Education – Listen, learn and retain education, vocational training and experience.
Productivity – Focus on solving problems and supplying people’s needs with quality ideas, skills, services and products.
Income – Earn, budget, save and invest for future growth.
Leadership – Prioritize, plan, nurture, inspire, delegate and inspect what you expect.

SUCCESS FOR JOY
Confidence – Prioritize, plan and prepare well so you can believe in your abilities.
Courage – Be assertive, conserve energy, ready to give your best and never give up.
Helpfulness – Help and mentor others, create jobs and protect the environment.
Achievement – Experience the joy of fulfillment, contentment and enlightenment!

[/expand]
[expand title=”Collaborative +” trigclass=”comtitle” targclass=”comtarg” elwraptag=”div” elwrapclass=”comdiv”]We take a collaborative approach to working with our local partners, and they do the same with the families and schools they work with. Collaboration starts with building relationships of trust and mutual benefit so that all parties have a stake in success. When families and schools contribute to success together, they feel a sense of shared ownership for the project. As people become more involved, they are able to share knowledge and best practices with other families so that more people can improve their lives.

We collaborate with our partners, who do the same with families and schools, in a way that supports their ownership of the programs. This collaboration amongst interested parties is based upon:

Relationship
Based upon trust, responsiveness and mutual benefit so that there can be an enduring collaboration between the partners, families and schools.

Ownership
By the families and schools to help each other and their children to be healthy, educated and able to earn an income.

Knowledge Sharing
So that families and schools can benefit from sharing and using best practices that improve everyone’s lives.

[/expand]
[expand title=”Sustainable +” trigclass=”comtitle” targclass=”comtarg” elwraptag=”div” elwrapclass=”comdiv”]

5 Step GraphicA sustainable approach is critical to moving families and communities towards food and economic self-reliance. The programs are designed to be sustainable by improving the quality of:

Local water and soil
Food supplies
Income
Housing
Education

The programs are implemented with a strategy of lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Fit for Purpose solution design augmented with ongoing Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) so that the communities have the best opportunity to sustain them.
[/expand]