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Fighting poverty and crime: New approach to old problems

420 views · Published 3 September 2015 · 1:57 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: LOCAL 12 · 2015 · News & Politics

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CINCINNATI (Jeff Hirsh) -- Lessons from South America may help reduce poverty and crime right here in the Tri-State community.      A doctor at Cincinnati Children's Hospital medical center wants to come up with new ways to look at an old problem. Victor Garcia is the founding director of the trauma program at Childrens and is a pediatric surgeon. He's tired of seeing young gunshot victims coming in to the emergency room. More than two dozen youngsters have been shot so far in Cincinnati in 2015. Dr. Garcia met Wednesday, Sept. 2, with consultants who have worked in the South American nation of Peru and have been able to reduce Mal-nutrition by five percent in five years.   While the problem down there was not exactly the same as the problem locally, the approach (called Systems Thinking) can be applied anywhere. In simple terms it means standing back and analyzing root causes of a problem, not just symptoms. And it's involving those who are hurt. In the Tri-States case by crime and poverty; it helps provide answers. Dr. Garcia said, If we can reduce malnutrition in Peru by five percent in five years we can solve this issue here. And I would also say that imagine we've done that here we would also share it with other urban cities, Ferguson. Baltimore. Peru project consultant, Chris Soderquist, said, It's a challenge that can't be solved from the top down, with somebody coming in and saying this is the solution. It's the people who own the problem who can be involved in different ways so they can solve the problems themselves. While the plan may seem rather simple, it's kind of the old teach a man to fish rather than give him a fish. Those involved with System Thinking said it obviously hasn't been tried before so it was the time and Cincinnati was the place. Dr. Garcia said his goal was to start involving community representatives to work on the crime and poverty-reduction process. Follow Jeff Hirsh on Twitter @local12jeff and LIKE him on Facebook Follow us on Twitter @Local12 and LIKE us on Facebook for updates!

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