In 2012, DNA trainer Chris Ampadu and his Samaritan Strategy Africa (SSA) team in Ghana became the first-ever non-American organization nominated for World Magazine’s Hope Award for Effective Compassion, considered among only four other finalists.
While Chris and Samaritan Strategy ultimately were not chosen for the award, Marvin Olasky (World Magazine’s editor-in-chief) and his wife, Susan, reported extensively on their work. Click here to read Marvin’s story from the September 2012 issue.
We recently came across an 8-minute audio story about Chris that Susan produced. “He is starting a worldview movement,” she says while describing how the teachings of SSA lead to long-term, wholistic transformation and a sustainable emergence from extreme poverty.
Click below to hear the story:
“Samaritan Strategy trains people in Africa to see that Jesus came to change all of life,” Susan says in her report. “It teaches the value of hard work, of loving your neighbor, of growing in a balanced way.”
Susan’s report highlights the “wholistic clubs” SSA encourages churches to form: groups of local church members who serve their surrounding communities in creative, practical, God-honoring ways using only local resources. She focuses on a group of women who, despite the obstacles of finding stable employment in Ghana, diligently make brooms, soap and baskets to sell in the market. Their church uses the profits to fund community projects like digging a clean-water well to serve dozens of local neighbors.
“That’s a new way of thinking,” Susan says. “They didn’t wait for the government. They didn’t wait for an international development group; they did it themselves.”
She goes on to say: “Samaritan Strategy believes these small steps teach responsibility, helping to break the cycle of dependence. It is bringing hope to this part of Africa, and that’s why it is the first-ever Hope Award winner in the international division.”
