In The River They Swim — Essays of Enterprise Solutions to Poverty

“In The River They Swim” is a book collection of twenty-nine essays on enterprise solutions to poverty that includes a foreword by Dr. Rick Warren. Published this Spring (2009) by Templeton Press. What these authors have to say has additional meaning today during the current economic rescission, global warming, the scarcity of raw materials, and over-population on Earth.

Part one is called The Journey. Part two has essays under Strategies For Prosperity and Part Three’s essays are in the section that’s called Globalization.

Dr. Rick Warren’s foreward entitled “Fighting Poverty with Purpose” has brief profiles of the contributors. Another list of the twenty contributors is provided, each with an entry listing their major accomplishments. Dr. Warren takes issue with poverty in the way poverty “demeans dignity, shrinks the soul, wastes potential, and inflicts suffering on over half of our world’s population.” He considers poverty a leadership issue, and how America can no longer dictate changes to the world.

The range of authors in this book brings together many various viewpoints from around the world. From Paul Kagame (President of Rwanda), Dr. Ashraf Ghani, Ambassador Luis Alberto Moreno, Dr. Donald Kaberuka, Sally Christie, Michael Fairbanks, Malik Fal, Marcela Escobari-Rose to Elizabeth Hooper.

From the Introduction:

This book is the antithesis to the search for solutions in the next big theory of global poverty. It collects the voices of leaders and field practitioners who have witnessed the complexity of creating prosperity in poor countries….it tells the story of CHANGE in the microcosms of emerging businesses, industries and governments.

The main theme of the book is, of course, the elimination of poverty in poor countries. “This book is, in great part, about what it means to cull the wisdom of localities to find answers to the world’s greatest challenge. It is about establishing new rules of engagement with local leaders … [for] creating wealth for the world’s poorest people…[and] about nontraditional solutions….”

The Contents page lists the title of each essay and its author. I could not read this entire anthology in one sitting; nor could you. Some essays require time-out for thinking over its subject. The style of the different essayists range from “easy reading” to one that’s labored yet worthy of one’s time.

Many of the essays touch upon Blog4Brains previous postings. If the reader liked those postings, then he or she will enjoy the entries in this book. Try these two essays: “Nature is Destiny, and the More Nature, the Worst the Destiny” by Sally Christie (first-person narrative) and the one called “Changing Mindsets” (…with determination and the right mindsets, change is possible).

I found this important collection of essays similar to a survey course in graduate school about hands-on ways to rid poverty in poor countries. The essays are written in the first-person which makes them a delight to read, especially those with humorous passages.

This book of essays can be purchased from Amazon.com for $16. Click here to visit Amazon.com

–30–