Southern Mutual Help Association, Inc.
Southern Mutual Help Association, Inc.
Rural Recovery
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All contents © 2008 Southern Mutual Help Association, Inc., all rights reserved.

Neighbor Works

Southern Mutual
Help Association:
An Agent of Change

By Anne C. Bizalion, Co-Founder, with Henry Pelet and Lorna Bourg, Co-Founders
Written in 1996 with minor update, 2004

SMHA WAS FOUNDED IN 1969
TO BE AN AGENT OF CHANGE

A multiplicity of factors were at the origin of Southern Mutual Help Association in the Summer of 1969. These factors include the various oppressive systems of the time and the personal experiences of each founder.

SMHA was born out of the distress and oppressive conditions found in the Louisiana cane fields where, even under benevolent administrations, the goal was to maintain the status quo. This situation, which affected over a 100,000 people on the plantations, was virtually unknown to most people in the State. The conditions on the plantations were so pervasive that, as a matter of justice, they were not to be serviced, they had to be changed.

SMHA was also born out of the challenges and the public tensions that underlined the War on Poverty: the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act said one thing, public officials enforced something else. Intensive hostility and confrontations across the land compounded the situation.

WE WERE BORN OUT OF STRONG CONVICTIONS AND OUR PASSION FOR JUSTICE

Several of us had previously confronted the failures of the War on Poverty, of policies that did not change people’s lives because they were based on service, not on real change. When we began to make changes, to involve people into real decision making, we were fired. Across the South programs were taken over and became tools for the creation of a service system, not for making substantive change.

The shared experience of the War on Poverty was compounded by our personal experiences of racial segregation, sexism, war, labor relations... It was a time of social upheaval.

WE ARE WHO WE ARE BECAUSE OF OUR ROOTS

We understood and became more knowledgeable and sensitive to the real causes for the existence of marginalization and poverty.

We became even stronger in our passion for justice and our determination to implement a new approach to the problems so obvious on the plantations, more elusive (disguised) in today’s marginalized communities. Justice and innovation are at the core of who we are.

THE COMPOSITION AND BACKGROUND OF OUR BOARD WAS IN ITSELF A STATEMENT OF CHANGE

We worked with and bonded with people of like convictions: The first Board Members were Blacks and Whites at a time of racial segregation and black separatism, women and men when male supremacy was the rule and largely went unchallenged, members from diverse religious affiliations (or none at all) at a time of denominational tensions. We were labor union activists, plantation workers, survivors of the War on Poverty. We had experienced that public policies are designed to maintain the status quo, to keep marginalized and oppressed people - especially people of color and women - in ignorance and dependency.

We knew that our Board was strongly committed and had to be so because we were on the cutting edge, outside the mainstream of thoughts, because we were challenging the mainstream. Board members were deliberately chosen, successfully in most instances, for their ability to withstand a siege, to be regarded as being outside the mainstream thinking.

On occasions we had members who did not have the same agenda. The Board had to be strong to be faithful to its mission. Even though we wanted to insure diversity, these Board members had to be removed.

SMHA’S MISSION

Our mission is to help people develop strong, healthy, prosperous rural communities in Louisiana. Our special focus is with distressed rural communities whose livelihood is interdependent with our land and waters. We work primarily with pervasively poor communities, women and people of color. We help build rural communities through people’s growth in their own empowerment and the just management of resources. Southern Mutual Help Association helps rural communities to devise solutions to intractable problems.

OUR STRUCTURES AND STRATEGIES

We wanted to insure diversity, commitment to justice, commitment to be an agent of change. We understood plantationism under its different forms. We were sometimes faced with the dilemma between being inclusive of all stakeholders and not losing a focus on our mission. We understood also that the Board had to be strong to carry out its mission. Hence the careful selection by the Board of future Board Members.

Our basic convictions included:

THROUGHOUT OUR HISTORY THIS PASSION FOR JUSTICE prevailed, leading to many critical decisions made for the sake of justice:

SMHA AS AGENT OF CHANGE NOW

We have defined our present role in our (1994) Strategic Plan with local communities.

We have a broader perspective to work with all segments of the community in order to build sustainable communities in a healthy environment: Low income communities, farmers, fishers often experience inter- related problems which call for common solutions.

We have been invited to take a broader role as agent of change in the State and the Region. More than ever, Southern Mutual will be an agent for change as it works with communities to identify and promote policies and creative approaches needed at the local, state and national levels to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. Advocacy, education and innovative public policies are a key part of SMHA’s special Rural Recovery Response.

We have developed models of community development that can be replicated.

We have created a wholly owned subsidiary, Southern Mutual Financial Services (SMFS), to provide affordable capital and development services.

We have developed more efficient ways of working and to use new technology.

We have initiated new models of cooperation with banks and other organizations (Churches, non profits, etc.). We have been selected to be part of a new partnership model between the USDA, LISC the Federal Home Loan Bank, the Fannie Mae Corporation and a local bank.

OUR ROLE AS A COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION (CDC)

To enable local communities to become equal partners, to make their own decisions: the development and empowerment of local communities are facilitated by their setting up their own structures at the local level.

To have more impact and to create economies of scale while keeping "mud on our boots"

We are challenged by the need We are also challenged to: In order to meet these challenges we must evaluate our own positions, capabilities, needed adjustments. We need to increase our own capacity to respond to the calls placed upon us both by the communities we are already working with and by the new challenges that are facing us. SMHA's work takes on increased importance in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. SMHA's more than three decades of experience in community development uniquely qualifies it to lead the special Rural Recovery Response.

SMHA AGENT OF CHANGE IN THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY?

We have to decide who we are going to be. The strategy may change, the mission is the same.

How will we stay on the cutting edge today and tomorrow?

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We became even stronger in our passion for justice and our determination to implement a new approach to the problems so obvious on the plantations, more elusive (disguised) in today’s marginalized communities. Justice and innovation are at the core of who we are.




More than ever, Southern Mutual will be an agent for change as it works with communities to identify and promote policies and creative approaches needed at the local, state and national levels to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. Advocacy, education and innovative public policies are a key part of SMHA’s special Rural Recovery Response.
The conditions on the plantations were so pervasive that, as a matter of justice, they were not to be serviced, they had to be changed.









We need to increase our own capacity to respond to the calls placed upon us both by the communities we are already working with and by the new challenges that are facing us.