Over 767 million people around the world are still living under the international extreme poverty line of $1.90 USD a day. It is estimated that a person dies of hunger or hunger-related causes every ten seconds, and a large majority of these are children under the age of five (The World Bank Org). Poverty robs people of their basic human rights, such as access to food, clean drinking water, shelter, education and healthcare. Without a doubt, international aid is a crucial component in the alleviating extreme poverty. However, international aid organisations are faced with a double-edged sword of extreme global poverty and outdated perceptions of charity work.

A gross misconception of charity work is that aid organisations are throwing donations into vulnerable areas, causing economic and political dependency. In fact, the greatest threat to solving the poverty crisis are foreign investors capitalizing on poverty-stricken individuals. When residents of low socio-economic areas rely too heavily on outside influences, they relinquish the control of their resources and more importantly, their future. They allow others to make decisions that don’t often work in the best interest of the community. The reality is, people in developing countries often have ample amounts of natural resources available to them, but consistently lack the skills, knowledge or experience to use these resources to benefit their economy. So while outsiders are exploiting these commodities and forcing dependency, millions of charities around the globe are working hard to give power and autonomy back to the people.

Each day, Mahboba’s Promise works to break the cycle of poverty in Afghanistan by empowering its citizens to create and manage their own sustainable economies. With over 39% of Afghans living below the poverty line, their goal is not only to assist people in earning more money. It’s goal, rather, is to provide people with more options and opportunities to further their lives and to encourage self-reliance in the future.