Sauri, Kenya is the first village to benefit from the Millennium Village Project begun 18 months ago. Based at Columbia University, the program is teaching Sauri’s 5,100 villagers how to farm and be successful. And it is working. Associated Press reporter Chris Tomlinson says: the village has "doubled farm output and gone from depending on handouts to donating food to the needy."
The poverty experts now based at the village point out that it costs ten times as much money to give the poor a hand-out as to create self-sufficiency across the spectrum. There is no hunger in the village anymore, the people are empowered, they are ready to join the marketplace with their cash crops, and the experts will be leaving soon.
(Kudos, once again, to AP for delivering another enriching story through the media!)