Preference for the Poor
Experience the Love of God
When distributing resources or implementing development programs, IPG prioritizes those who are most vulnerable.
We strive for everyone to encounter Christ and feel His love and compassion. We strive to make God present and evident through our work.
Sacredness and Dignity of the Human Person: An individual’s worth comes from God, and is not contingent upon achievements, social status, or any other external factors.
Stewardship
Impact
Partnership
Subsidiarity
Sustainability
Empowerment
We commit to efficient and effective time and resource management to deliver maximum benefits to communities.
IPG is intentional about planning, program design, monitoring, and evaluation. We work with our Partners to improve our approach for sustainability and impact.
We partner with dioceses and ministries because they know the needs of their local community and can ensure program approaches are appropriate and sustainable.
CCO prioritizes input from at the local level, where communities have a greater understanding of their own needs and can exercise control over their lives.
CCO designs programs so they will eventually be managed and funded by the local community.
CCO empowers the poor through community training and planning, which allows for greater local ownership and resiliency.
Spiritual Outreach
Vulnerable Children
Disaster Response
Health Education
Water
Micro-enterprise Food Agriculture
Human Dignity Scripture makes it clear that every person is made in the image and likeness of God. We are all God’s children no matter where we were born, how big our bank accounts are, or our social status. We are called to recognize the sacred and holy presence of God in every person, promote a culture of loving encounter, and act as witnesses to God’s loving presence.
Shelter
Common Good We are all created as social beings, and we can pursue the common good by giving voice to the needs of the marginalized and vulnerable. This requires solidarity — treating others as our brothers and sisters — so everyone can flourish as vibrant members of the Body of Christ.
Spiritual Outreach
S
Holistic Development: Holistic development recognizes that societies are more developed not when people “have more” but when they are empowered to “be more.” It empowers all people to participate in the fullness of life — supporting cultural, economic, political, social, and spiritual wholeness.
IPG diagram_newest.indd 1-4
Spiritual poverty may lead to a lack of motivation, self-esteem, or a sense of purpose needed to pursue education, job opportunities, or personal development. The constant struggle to make ends meet, the stress of financial insecurity can lead to feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, and a diminished sense of self-worth. When a family’s physical and spiritual needs are addressed together, the solutions are more sustainable. This approach is at the heart of Integral Human Development, the foundation of Catholic Social Teaching. IHD stresses we must approach our neighbor as a whole person whose many needs — material, spiritual, emotional, etc. — are interconnected.
Disaster Response
Food
When man-made and natural disasters strike impoverished communities, it exacerbates an already desperate situation. Local Catholic ministries are often located in the impacted areas and are ideally located to offer timely and appropriate assistance.
In developing countries, many children don’t get enough to eat. Children become lethargic, suffer stunted growth, and fall victim to hunger-related illnesses that can even be fatal. Children drop out of school, fail to develop mentally and physically, and find themselves trapped in lifelong poverty.
We support these ministries with life-saving funds and material aid like shelter, food, generators, and sanitary kits. Once the immediate emergency has been addressed, we look for ways to prepare the community to withstand other shocks and emergencies through long-term development through the local church.
Our partners understand the challenges facing their communities, and they direct nutritional aid to the children, families and vulnerable groups who need it most. The meals provide critical support for programs in schools and orphanages and provide families a lifeline during natural disasters.
Water:
Shelter
Education
Extreme poverty, diseases, natural disasters, and droughts often lead to children being abandoned or orphaned, resulting in extreme vulnerability. Without caring communities, children are often exploited, trafficked, and abused.
During the dry season, shallow wells run empty, forcing families, usually women and girls, to seek water from distant sources. The rainy season can bring relief, but it also may create a runoff of contaminants that poison the water supply. Intestinal illness runs rampant, especially among children.
Despite recent gains, four out of every 10 children have no formal education. Twenty-five million girls and boys of primary-school age will never get the chance to learn to read or write in primary school.
We support ministries that provide care for infants, toddlers and older children in a secure home with access to health care, enough food, education, and the chance to develop strong and healthy relational bonds.
IPG works with our local partners to ensure clean drinking water and sanitation is available close to homes, schools, and clinics. We provide hand-pump wells and pit latrines, or where appropriate, more advanced water and sanitation systems.
In developing countries, poor shelter facilities mean weaker health and education systems, insecure and vulnerable family homes, and unreliable places of worship. This results in a local community struggling with poor social cohesion, elevated levels of preventable diseases and inaccessible education options.
Vulnerable Children
Shelter facilitates key development priorities in impoverished communities. Families have a safe and secure home to raise children. Schools and health clinics are accessible within walking distance. Communities have a gathering place for worship and outreach.
Education projects vary from building safe schools and teachers’ housing, to paying teachers’ salaries and providing scholarships. We focus on accessing education, high retention rates, and graduation to secondary school.
Agriculture
Health
Micro-enterprise
The poor often lack the skills, tools, and inputs for a healthy crop. They are susceptible to droughts, crop diseases, and invasive insects. A lost harvest means going to bed hungry, inability to pay school fees or provide medicine when children are sick.
Mothers in poor communities often lack access to nutrition and prenatal care during pregnancy, resulting in one out of every seven babies born underweight. Without proper nutrition, children’s physical and cognitive development suffers, and too often perpetuates the cycle of poverty.
Lacking accessible finance opportunities, poor families often struggle to exit the poverty cycle and improve development outcomes for their children and families. They require capital and training to grow their incomes and improve their livelihoods, send their children to school, and pay for needed medicine.
Priests, sisters, and lay missionaries are striving to bring improved health care opportunities to the communities we serve. We work to empower health facilities to provide examinations, deliver healthy babies, distribute necessary medicines, provide emergency nutrition, and perform critical surgeries.
We provide microloans, farm animals, supplies and training to needy but hardworking individuals. A microloan, or microcredit loan, is a small loan given at low or zero interest to people who have no collateral credit history. Many families in developing countries depend on such businesses, often agricultural in nature, to boost their income levels.
We provide training and material support so farmers can increase their crop yield, diversify their produce, and implement sustainable methods that boost profitability to help families improve financial security. Small scale revolving loans help communities become more resilient to shocks.
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