(RNS) — After years of working for a Christian international relief group, sociologist and professor Kurt Ver Beek wasn’t satisfied with the tool kit available to most faith groups combating poverty. To him, mission trips, direct aid and even strategies like micro loans largely seemed aimed at targeting the symptoms of poverty, rather than its root causes.
In 1998, Ver Beek and his wife, Jo Ann Van Engen, became co-founders of La Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa (in English, the Association for a More Just Society). Based in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, the Christian nonprofit sought to understand and then dismantle the systemic barriers preventing communities in Honduras from thriving — namely gang violence, police corruption and government mismanagement.
Over the past several decades, that’s involved hiring investigators to track down gang leaders on a murder spree, working with mental health professionals to address the factors causing youths to join gangs in the first place, partnering with national religious leaders and top government officials to purge the national police force of corruption, and conducting and publishing audits on everything from the annual number of school days to how government programs used emergency funds.
In May, a new book, “Bear Witness: The Pursuit of Justice in a Violent Land,” documented the efforts of Ver Beek, his Honduran co-leader Carlos …