Mutual Care and Simplicity

As the Executive Director of Right Sharing of World Resources, I am regularly reminded of the interconnected nature of our world. I see this in our community development work, in which Right Sharing partners with groups of women in poor communities in Guatemala, Kenya, India, and Sierra Leone who want to form or expand very small businesses. We provide training, and then we provide a grant that establishes a revolving loan fund that the women themselves own and manage. Right Sharing Country Coordinators continue to mentor and accompany each group for three years after it receives funding, during which time it may receive a second, smaller grant and often shares what it has learned with other women.

I know that I am connected to each woman in the groups affiliated with Right Sharing. But when I started this work, I was worried. I didn’t feel the connection. How could I do this work with integrity if I didn’t actually experience that we are all part of one human family? During my first week of work, I was visiting a group of mostly Indigenous women in a remote village in Guatemala (shown in this photo). An elder wanted me to understand that the group was struggling to improve the lives of women. She used the word luchar for struggle. It’s a movement word that I’ve heard used by union or civil rights organizers in the U.S. The word shifted something in me. I could respond genuinely, “We are in the same struggle. You have your part, and we have our part. Luchando juntas. We are struggling together.”

This sense of connection is related to the Simplicity Testimony, which is the spiritual center of Right Sharing’s work. One way to understand the Simplicity Testimony is that the godly life is a materially simple life—that God wants us to own less stuff. Another understanding is that we are instructed to put God at the center of our lives, and to be wary that money and stuff can become distractions at best and idols at worst.

There is yet another understanding, which is new to me. The Kenyan theologian John Muhanji says that the U.S.-based understanding of the Simplicity Testimony urges us to choose less, but most Africans do not have the luxury of “choosing” less.

He says:

“The African relational worldview, often articulated through the principle of Ubuntu—‘I am because we are’—provides a natural foundation for reimagining simplicity. Ubuntu reflects the same spirit that animated early Quaker communities: mutual belonging, interdependence, and care. In African settings, those with modest resources often give generously, not from abundance but from a deep sense of communal obligation.”

I refer to this as the Ubuntu Simplicity Testimony. It isn’t transactional, as in “I help you and you help me.” It means I reach out to provide support where I can, and someone else will reach out where they can. Then I trust that support will arrive when I need it, and together we will thrive. It isn’t individualistic; it is communitarian. We see such an ethos around the world, especially in Indigenous communities. This is one thing Right Sharing women partners bring to us.

The Roja Self-Help Group in Tamil Nadu, India, offers a prime example of mutual care. This group is part of the Thisaigal Women’s Federation, which manages a revolving loan fund established by an RSWR grant. In India, one component of the program is the requirement that women attend the Gram Sabha at least twice a year. This is like a Vermont town meeting—it is a meeting open to all the voters in a region to be in conversation with local politicians, though it is mostly attended by men. After a woman attends a time or two, she understands that she, too, can bring community concerns or proposals to the Gram Sabha. The Roja group decided to ask that a road be paved. The old road often had standing water, making it particularly difficult for schoolchildren and elders to navigate. The women in this group weren’t focused only on caring for their families, but also on caring for their community.

In Sierra Leone, Bintu and her husband used to have a good business. Then her husband left and took the business with him. For several years, she was destitute. After joining the Mulegloma Women’s Group, she became the only bread seller in her community, and she now has a steady income. She is passionate about helping women avoid the poverty that she previously experienced. Everything she learns in the women’s group, she shares with a group of ten other women. They aren’t part of the group, and they don’t have access to the loan funds, but thanks to Bintu, they have access to the training she continues to receive within the group. This is Ubuntu at work.

In the U.S., Right Sharing calls us to be part of Ubuntu in our immediate communities and also globally. I care for you; you care for someone else; we struggle together to have a world that is good for everyone. At its best, our sharing is not transactional—I help you and you help me feel better about my own wealth. It is more of a “what goes around, comes around” relationship. Mutual care recognizes that we are all interdependent, that we will help others as we can, and that we will be helped when we need it. Together we will build the Beloved Community, a world where we live in relationship with people, with Spirit, and with the Earth.

Right Sharing calls Friends to consider the spiritual dimensions of money, simplicity, and consumption. We look together at how abundance, scarcity, and generosity are connected, and how to live into the true richness of Ubuntu.

Some queries for reflection:

• When have I experienced mutual belonging, interdependence, and care—the three together—in my Meeting or elsewhere?
• How can I simplify my life to liberate time and resources that I can dedicate to mutual care? Who can support me in making this change?
• How might my Meeting step more strongly into the Ubuntu Simplicity Testimony?

You can read more about Right Sharing’s workshops, resources, and events on our website: www.rswr.org/activities-resources.