Human capital development key to poverty alleviation — Investor

An investor, the Mayor of Housing, My-ACE China, has stressed the importance of human capital development as key to poverty alleviation.

He explained that charity is an ineffective form of philanthropy because “if you give a man fish, he will come back tomorrow for another fish.”

China maintained that the best way to alleviate poverty through giving is to empower people, considering that “you can’t feed them all your life.”

He said, “So, charity of donation is actually charity of backing people (carrying people on your back). And the philosophy says you can’t back more than two people, but you can help a limitless number of people. So effective charity is key, and that’s what I will start doing.”

The real estate guru, who spoke during an honorary award and induction into the Rotary Club in Port Harcourt, said strategic donating is what will help many people out of poverty.

He said ineffective philanthropy would rather create highly dependent people, adding that education and psychological development are necessary areas for givers to focus on.

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According to him, this would help people develop grit (emotional intelligence and psychological development). He said this is because experts now say that emotional intelligence is more important than intelligence quotient.

He said, “It was about teaching people to have the intelligence quotient and the emotional quotient to build more during hard times. It was Frank Lloyd Wright who said the human race builds most notably when adversities are most against us. So adverse times are opportunities to build. If you have someone who will inspire you with education of your IQ (intelligence quotient) and your EQ (emotional quotient), then we’ll only do charity of capital.”

He said without EQ and IQ, capital is just bread.

“With EQ and IQ, capital is a seed that will be sown and yield a harvest, taking more people out of poverty and making them independent of that seed subsequently,” he added

“But when you give people seed without IQ and EQ, they turn their seed into bread. And when they eat their seed, they’ll come begging tomorrow. So that kind of charity is ineffective, and we are just doing it right now because we don’t have the chance and time for effective charity.”

He donated N1m to the group and also promised to support another program being organised for pregnant women.