Listen with respect
Begin with local priorities and recognise the expertise already present in a community.
Our approach
Local leadership.
Long-term thinking.
Our role begins with listening to the people who live with the challenges every day.
Working in partnership
Communities shape
their own future.
Our partners understand their communities in ways an outside organisation cannot. We work alongside them, supporting the skills, relationships and enterprise they identify as useful.
Circuit’s Christian faith motivates its commitment to love, integrity, collaboration and learning. We welcome participation across backgrounds and beliefs.
Our principles
Consider the consequences
Ask how an intervention affects livelihoods, relationships and the local market.
Be willing to learn
Reflect honestly, invite feedback and adapt when circumstances change.
Listen to what help changes.
The principle of “do no harm” asks us to look beyond an immediate result. Does support strengthen local capacity? Who benefits? Could it unintentionally make life harder for someone else?
A higher income matters. So does having a voice in decisions, being able to raise a concern and choosing a different path. These are standards we want our work to be judged against.
Read Circuit’s reflection on doing no harm ↗The thinking behind the work
Faith expressed
through practical love.
Our Christian faith is a reason to care about people’s everyday lives: the price of a harvest, a family’s security and the freedom to make a decision.
In The Shape of Love, Circuit co-founder Stuart Corlett explores how following Jesus calls us to compassion, honest relationships and respect for another person’s beliefs. He argues that practical help must leave people free to disagree.
A fair question for every project
Does this support give people more influence over their lives? Can their feedback change the plan? Are we valuing the knowledge and effort they already bring?
Those questions keep our purpose grounded in the lives of the people we work alongside.
Read The Shape of Love for free ↗Further reading: popular edition, chapters six, nine and ten. The book explains an approach to development; it is not an independent evaluation of Circuit’s programmes.
A lasting connection
Help turn a harvest
into more possibility.
Put your support behind local people, fairer trade and the patient work of building stronger livelihoods. Give once, or become a Circuit Connector with a monthly gift.
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