Paradigm Shift offering godly ethical business training to men and women in Haiti. Ethical business training for small business owners is key to self-sustainability.
Microentrepreneurs don’t need charity. They need someone to help them use the gifts God has given them.
Paradigm Shift serves 130 churches who have catalyzed 1,800 volunteers who trained 10,000 entrepreneurs who have supported 50,000 dependents. Entrepreneurs incomes have grown. Their kids have better access to nutrition, education and healthcare. Volunteers combine their faith and work in a vibrant way and have grown as a result. But this is just the beginning.
PARADIGM SHIFT VALUES
A description of core values of Paradigm Shift curriculum and training practices.
BUSINESS TRAINING:
Cash is not the only constraint
Sure, an unlimited credit line would help, but many micro-entrepreneurs are not constrained by cash alone. More often than not, the roadblocks lie in business knowledge, expertise and experience.
Knowledge is the multiplier
Knowledge is a missing link for many entrepreneurs trying to make their business a success. Sharing knowledge is like sharing currency. As entrepreneurs’ knowledge balance increases, they invest back into their businesses, multiplying their effectiveness.
Starting and sustaining a business are totally different
Talent and tenacity are indispensable in any business, but it takes a different skill-set to grow it. With an idea, a business is born, but only good planning and hard work are able to sustain.
The fundamentals are foundational
Budgeting, record-keeping, marketing and more are the fundamental building blocks needed for any business to thrive. Higher education is a dream but short bursts of experiential business training tailored specifically for adults are essential.
DISCIPLESHIP:
Poverty is more than material
We all experience poverty in some way. Material poverty is easy to see, but beyond that is motivational poverty, spiritual poverty and relational poverty. The rich and the poor both have something to give and something to gain.
Work is worship
Communities reflect the beauty and creativity of God through business. Work existed before brokenness. Work exists after redemption. And work is the primary way we serve one another and ultimately is an act of worship.
Taking a long term view of wealth
Material wealth lasts for a while, but being rich toward God endures beyond. “Wealth is a worthy pursuit, but you’re a fool to only pursue cash…” Jesus paraphrased in Luke 12.
Three words that change everything
Each entrepreneur is on a journey of finding success beyond their businesses. Regardless of an entrepreneur’s faith journey, Jesus gives three words towards achieving success: “Come follow me.”
MENTORING:
Seeing the forest through the trees
When micro-entrepreneurs are in the midst of running their businesses, outside perspectives can be the very catalyst that helps identify opportunities, partnerships, risks and potential for the future.
How else do you get a baby named after you?
No seriously… Entrepreneurs have chosen baby names after their mentors. Mentors and entrepreneurs drop their defenses and economic, social, racial and religious differences dissolve in the context of relationship.
These faces have names
Moving beyond being numbed by the numbers, mentors are compelled to invest themselves in the mundane to the major decisions facing entrepreneurs’ lives and businesses. This defined time communicates value, worth and dignity for a promising micro-entrepreneur.
Inspiration meets application
Aristotle said, “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” Mentors encourage new ways of doing things, new ways to innovate and new ideas that challenge the status quo.
For more information on the Paradigm Shift Program, visit here.