Group has ‘future without poverty’
By Danielle Bice / Contributing Writer –www.ntdaily.com
From small field trips to Mexico to fighting poverty in countries like Haiti and Peru, Future Without Poverty helps build sustainable communities by bettering the lives of those in need.
While the group makes plans to expand their projects to countries like India, there are still projects in Denton.
The organization builds partnerships with community programs, like the Denton Rotary Club, to organize service opportunities like delivering food to the hungry.
“We believe very strongly that you help individuals by doing one thing and one thing only –– to reduce poverty and to create jobs,” said Tom Benjamin, secretary and treasurer.
A Future Without Poverty summit held, Jan. 21, discussed project opportunities and further expansion of the organization.
“Around 1995, we started concentrating more seriously on taking students from UNT to fieldtrips involving service learning,” said Stan Ingman, vice president.
The organization started out with simple projects and now plans to expand to other developing nations in Africa, the Middle East and other poverty-stricken countries.
Future Without Poverty is a national organization. The Future Without Poverty UNT Chapter, contains around 30 members.
The group strives to help people find a job that fits each individual’s needs, Ingram said.
“We’re establishing a web store to sell products from micro producers from these countries,” she said. “That could be our means of supporting people.”
The organzation has helped projects, like the village of San Martin in the State of Jalisco, Mexico. The city had problems with property rights, water and energy.
“They were all squatters, and now they have land rights to their property,” said Ingman. “They’ve got water, some minimal access to energy, and life is just a tad better than it was.”
Denton Independent School District high school students are contributing to the group’s projects. Building solar panels and electric generators powered by horse movements help power buildings in deprived areas, Benjamin said.
“We’re finding that the students here are quite capable of engineering, designing and producing almost any project that we bring to them,” he said.
The Future Without Poverty community garden is an exhibition, showing the community’s efforts in being environmentally friendly said Amanda Coleman-Mason, advisor for the UNT Dallas Future Without Poverty Student Association.
“What we’re looking at is how each of us can give back to the community,” Benjamin said. “What we’re looking at is how do you work together to make the community better.”
