The other night my wife and I were watching television when a familiar humanitarian plea appeared.  There was the face of a little girl, saddened and dirty from hunger and poverty, the underlying lyrical song…”The children are the future”…and a voice over by some current day celebrity, a crackle in her voice, as she spoke about the millions of children around the world who are suffering.

My wife looked at me and said; “Really!…I don’t mean to be crass, mean hearted, or cruel; but how long have we been sending money to help save these children?…Thirty, forty, or fifty years and we still have a problem?…With all of the technology, innovation, and experience we have, why are we still doing this?…Seems like we need to change the way we are doing things.”

I looked at my wife and said; “You are absolutely right.”

We talk about Corporate Social Responsibility, and a whole lot of “Green” certifications that not only protect the environment but the farmers and workers in foreign nations that pick and process crops, sew and manually manufacture goods, yet the faces of starving children still stream across our television screens.

Massive amounts of money is spent by consumers, charitable organizations, companies, and governments in efforts to solve problems yet, they still exist and are compounded almost daily by forces of nature, war, and population growth.

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day…teach him to fish and you feed him for life.”

Are we just giving or are we teaching?

How do we change this cycle?

Is there an answer?