The book “Who owns poverty? ” written by Martín Burt, the founder of Fundación Paraguaya, was presented to special guests of the Gustavo González Foundation, in order to show the results obtained in over three decades of work in Social Development programs , in more than 30 countries, during a discussion group at the Hotel Villa Morra Suites. The organization of the event, in charge of the Gustavo González Foundation, had the support of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, with the presence of Dr. Lars André Richter, legal representative of the aforementioned organization in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

“With the book, Who Owns Poverty?, we are proposing to the world a new way of empowering families,” said Martin Burt during the presentation. The founder of Fundación Paraguaya put poverty in our country into context along with his experience with social work from his organization.

To carry out this meeting, the organization considered that the promotion of the work that PhD. Martin Burt has been carrying out is timely and important. Burt, who in recent years has been recognized -as well as the Fundación Paraguaya,- in the international field by several universities and organizations, such as the IDB, which awarded in 2018, the Juscelino Kubitschek Visionaries Award, as the most innovative organization in all of Latin America.

“The real capital for a country is talent. The Stoplight (Poverty Stoplight) rescues the innate talent of each person so that they can decide what is right or wrong, and what are their priorities,” said PhD. Burt at one moment of the presentation of his book. He also highlighted the poverty traps generated by programs such as Tekopora, noting that it is not against welfare, but that it should be done with a different approach.

He reflected that, “the only thing that giving money away achieves is a political patronage and also causes dependence, the negative idea that its members are useless, that they will never get ahead, is transmitted to the family,”  he also said that government programs are superficial by measuring only the income of money per household.

“To talk about eliminating poverty, we must start from another angle, abandon the idea that the State certifies who is poor and who is not poor, and that each person becomes aware,” he said. After the presentation, an interesting debate was held with the people who were there.