在埃塞俄比亚农村，一条宽达三个足球场的河流就能阻挡孩子前往最近的诊所。问题在于：没有桥梁可以绕过这些水域。
一座简易的人行天桥就能解决这个难题，然而发展中国家的无数社区却缺乏这种简单的设施。
“通往繁荣之桥”组织致力于解决这个问题。这家总部位于丹佛的非营利组织建造人行天桥，为偏远社区提供获得医疗保健、教育和经济机会的途径。
“这虽然不是帮助人们摆脱困境或摆脱贫困的唯一途径，但它肯定是一个催化剂，”通往繁荣之桥执行主任艾弗里·邦解释说。
“通往繁荣之桥”项目已在14个国家建造了近百座桥梁，致力于为世界各地的社区带来积极的社会变革。研究表明，平均每座人行天桥可使社区学校入学率提高12%，当地医疗机构就诊人数增加18%。在人行天桥开通后的两年内，周边社区的女性就业率提高了24%，企业数量增加了15%，人均收入平均增长10%至20%。
桥梁也是一项低风险、高性价比的投资。“我以前参与过水利工程，”邦说道，“但它们的失败率高得惊人。如果80%的项目在头两三年就失败了，你真的应该好好想想，我做的到底有没有用？”而桥梁的影响则显而易见。1万美元的投资就能建成一座人行桥，至少能为社区服务30年。
下次上班通勤时，不妨思考一下邦提出的问题：“如果你在日常通勤中都不知道如何在没有桥梁和道路的情况下到达工作地点，你又怎能指望埃塞俄比亚中部的人们会有什么不同呢？”
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here's to building bridges between. whether with concrete or with Story!
Commendable, blessings at a low costs. Congratulations.
and wasn't this the way missionaries went in to help folks and ended up feeding them new ideas and paving the way for the USA (Hawaii in mind here- other nation grabs started with "good will " flags flying as well) to come in , to supporty its interests aka the interests of business? Unless help has a zero strings attached contract..this is pure hype. Look at the 2d lives of many young people and realize it as a failure to attend to 3d and more life (Quantum Physics can help us out a lot here! We are not thriving under our old thinking. For despite adaptations, the old beliefs that set us up to be "here" are now looking really wrong minded, they fall short of what many now hold to be true- ok if one is multi disciplined in research one sees the patterns and starts to recognize the dis-ease. We cannot heal to we see the dis-ease! Others out there?