Week 12: Self-Reliance and Microcredit

     Being a member of the Church of Latter-day Saints from birth means that self-reliance has been taught to me my entire life. The idea of self-reliance is that you, as an individual, develop the skills that you need to in order to provide for yourself. I remember having Wednesday night Young Women's activities be lessons on how to sew on buttons, can peaches, change a car tire, in order to learn self-reliance. Microcredit is the practice of providing small loans, often to individuals in impoverished or underserved communities, who lack access to traditional banking services. Sometimes small business will use microcredit in order to become self reliant. 


    I found the video about how self-reliance can lift people out of poverty interesting. Overall though I don't think that the only cure to eliminating poverty can eradicate poverty entirely. For example people with extreme cognitive disabilities will never be able to have self reliance, and if we as a society don't help those people they would be doomed to live in poverty. 


    To be honest on the topic of self-reliance, I really don't care about it. I've been poor my whole life, and on the flip side of that I've been self-reliant my whole life. From 13 onwards if I needed clothes or shoes I bought them myself, the exception being Christmas. If I've needed something I've had to work for it. And, this need to be self reliant has been kind of a hinderance. I could have gotten my education much earlier if I hadn't have needed to be self-reliant and work full time in order to provide for myself. Then again the drive to get my education in the first place is also a form a self-reliance. 

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