I have never been a businesswoman and have always found economic theories as puzzling as double dutch. The only concept I could somewhat fathom was probably the supply and demand theory.
An old friend reconnected with us recently and asked whether we still needed help. He was one of those I regularly pounded with appeals for help till we somehow lost touch. He must have thought that perhaps by now we had become self sufficient! That is when the supply and demand theory sprung back into my mind after long time. In our work the demand always exceeded the supply, and how!
When we launched our new women centre barely a month ago we thought we would have a small creche, a small primary centre and a small vocational centre for women. In the span of four weeks or so the attribute small can only be ascribed to the space we have or te budget we initially made as we are flooded with children and women wanting to register and begin learning.
In our kind of work the demand will always be larger than the supply as sadly it is not easy to convince people to dip into their pockets and reach out to help others. As I said I am not an economist and maybe the rules of economics do not apply here, but I do feel that not reaching out to help others is being short sighted. A better educated and more aware population can only benefit each and everyone of us. On the other hand if the gap between the rich and poor, the have and have-nots, the privileged and underprivileged continues to widen at the rate we are seeing then all of us may have to pay a bitter price.