Empowerment vs Rescue

I had several good, if brief, conversations with friends today that has woven an interesting tapestry of thoughts in my mind this evening. Virginia Woolf was able to construct an entire new way of writing by following her stream of consciousness. I'm setting the bar much lower for myself and am going to aim for expressing my thoughts without tripping over my own logic. The conversations were: A discussion on the nature of empowerment. A repartee on the cross section of humanity found in airport terminals as it pertain to the concept of survival of the fittest. And a rant about the Baptist missionaries accused of human trafficking in Haiti. It left me with questions. Who is in need of rescue and who is most capable of survival? Are the needy necessarily the weakest? Do they need (or even asking for) rescue or do they need empowerment? How do rescue and empowerment look different in action?

"Rescue" is a powerful word. As with anything that holds power, it can be misused. I look at all that I have seen coming out of Haiti the last few weeks--both in person and on the news. Truly, I have seen people in need of rescue. Anyone who saw the 5 year old boy pulled from the rubble eight days after the earthquake, arms stretched to the heavens, knows that he was in need of rescue. He was helpless. Without rescue he would not have survived. However, when we make a blanket statement that an entire people are in need of rescue, we make assumptions about our own superior instinct for survival and the others' helplessness. We steal their ability to claim empowerment. 

I believe this was the error in the missionaries' ideology when they traveled to Haiti to "rescue" children. While they are still only accused and nothing has been proven in a court of law, there seems to be strong evidence that they planned to find children (parentless or not) to save them from the ravages of Haiti. Clearly, the missionaries could not see the ravages a child would experience from being stripped away from family and community. The phrase "self-righteous" was used in my conversation about these missionaries today. It's a loaded term and so I'll take the plank out of my own eye first. I have been guilty of being self-righteous in my proclamation of who needs help and rescue. Sitting across from a client in pain, I sometimes fight the urge to say "Just do X, stop doing Y and you'll be fine." My job, I remind myself, is to help them use the tools to craft their own solution. When I allow that process to unfold, I'm always reassured when they crafted a solution or way of being that was more appropriate than my gut instinct of "STOP THAT!" That is the difference between "Rescue" and "Empowerment."

What a different story it would have been had those "missionaries" gone in like so many others there and asked "How can support you in getting your needs met" or "How can I advocate for you?" We assume...I have assumed...weakness where there is actually great strength. Who is the stronger, more powerful mother? The mother sitting in a tent tonight with her 6 children, rationing her own water so her children won't be thirsty or a mother, like myself, sitting in a suburban home with kids tucked into bunk beds. Our fortune as a nation does not ensure our survival any more than the misfortune of another denies their strength. I sat in a room with 83 Haitian children...none older than 12...every single one stronger in their survival than pampered, sheltered me. Survival of the fittest? They've got me beat. 

But truly that's not the message. It's not about who is stronger, weaker, self-righteous, or pitful. Empowerment is the process of not only recognizing our own strength, but identifying strength in others, each of us filling in the gaps where we need help. And what a weight off our shoulders to know we don't have to rescue everyone. We simply need to empower and, in turn, let others empower us. We lean in together and join our strengths. It's a synergy thing.