According to Acton, the current mindset on poverty relief took root during the colonization era, when local cultures were dismissed as “primitive” and their inhabitants as “natives” who needed to be told what to do by “advanced” Westerners. Other cultures may have problematic worldviews—as we do—but their people aren’t dumb. But those old prejudices have stuck, like gum on the bottom of our shoes. “Poverty, Inc.,” Acton says, “challenges viewers to question fundamental assumptions and see people in the developing world not in terms of their lack, but in terms of their dignity and creative potential.”
"Poverty Inc." is a documentary. If anyone has seen it, please comment here.
When in college, I walked to work through a very poor neighborhood. One friend from there had the attitude that he wouldn't ever be given a chance. Some dogs may have helped change this - we were going back from downtown, and I needed to hurry to get to classes on time, so was trotting ahead of him. As I passed some dogs, they barked at me. The next day, he complained that even the dogs barked at him. I pointed out that they had barked at me also, and quoted the proverb, "The dogs bark, but the wagons keep rolling on." The application is that anytime anyone tries to better themselves, there will be detractors to explain why it can't work. Listening to them never helps.
Some years after graduation, I visited back, and found he was doing well. It may be flattering myself, but perhaps that proverb helped him.