Honors Program, Bonners join for ‘Poverty, Inc.’ event

Waynesburg University is focused on serving with organizations like the Bonner Scholar Program serving with non-profits around the tri-county area. While willingly serving what the university wants to teach students, wariness also must be utilized to avoid irresponsible non-profits. To teach this wariness, the Bonner Scholar Program and the Honors Program are presenting a screening of “Poverty Inc.” and a discussion panel.

“A lot of quote-on-quote ‘aid organizations’ are in fact running operations that are beneficial to themselves, but not really beneficial to the people they are supposed to be aiding,” William Batchelder, director of the Honors Program, said. “When you have a school such as Waynesburg that is so focused on faith, learning and service, it’s really important for us to be smart about what service looks like.”

“Poverty Inc.” is a documentary focused on the effects of fraudulent aid organizations and their effect on the people they are supposed to aid.

“These are essentially real-world case studies,” Batchelder said. “A lot of the time, the result is not what people hope or think. It’s worse.”

Last year, Batchelder reached out to Adrienne Tharp, coordinator of the Bonner Scholars Program, about joining forces. For both programs, Tharp said, education on the topic is essential to what the Bonners Scholars and Honors Programs do.

“[Bonners] talk about a lot of these issues and topics in our meetings, in trainings and different things we do,” Tharp said. “So it really lined up with the mission of both programs. I think it’s good for students to hear other sides to topics and issues, to be really well educated and versed and seeing there are two sides.”

The panel will discuss the topic and issues presented by the film. The panelists include Melinda Walls, W. Robert Stover chair for entrepreneurial leadership; Cassie Dorscy, program coordinator for entrepreneurial leadership; Michael Miller, director of “Poverty Inc.”; and Tharp. The reason why the eHive staff is involved, Batchelder said, is because entrepreneurialism is a factor in eliminating poverty,

“One of the thrusts with “Poverty Inc.” is that it’s important not to get in the way of entrepreneurialism in the developing world and allowing people to do for themselves,” Batchelder said.

Batchelder earned a grant from Acton Institute, a think tank in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that runs summer courses where Batchelder attended.   The grant guaranteed Miller to come to the screening and panel.

“What the Acton Institute have done through the Waynesburg Honors Program is funded through President Lee’s office, they have funded this visit for Michael Miller himself,” Batchelder said.

Miller is a Research Fellow at Acton University. He is also the founder of PovertyCure, an Acton initiative to develop poverty-stricken areas by producing entrepreneurialism solutions. Batchelder said if this event succeeds well enough and “if we have this good relationship with Acton, we can do some of the PovertyCure stuff as well.”

The “Poverty Inc.” screening and discussion panel is Feb. 28 at 7 p.m. in Alumni Hall on the third floor of Miller Hall. All students, faculty and staff are allowed to attend and admission is free.