On handout mentality

Recently, I was looking at working on a project based in southern Africa. It was a very worthwhile project which would open doors to a great many people, and I was deeply excited about it. The project leader, too, was delighted to have found someone who had been born and bred in the region and had an insight into the culture and current events, and a love for its people.

However, my involvement was cut short when it transpired that the project leader expected me (and other consultants) to work pro bono.

His view was that Europe-based consultants working on Africa-based projects do so as an act of charity. That's just the way it is. Didn't we know this? He simply could not imagine how rich westerners could be so churlish as to expect payment from poor Africans. I suspect this was the reason he sought out consultants in Europe rather than trying to find local people to work on the project in the first place.

This dependency mentality is an unfortunate side-effect of the big-hearted work of charities and aid organisations.

Hear me out.

I know many people who have gone to do charity work in poor communities and have found the people there unabashed to ask for (even demand in some cases) items of clothing or other personal possessions. They are so accustomed to rich westerners who 'give them stuff' that it has become an expectation.

It is one way of ensuring that these communities never achieve self sufficiency. Never ascend the steep slopes of our so-called flat world.

I would suggest that, instead of simply deluging these communities with our cast-offs and hand me downs, we should be looking to the longer term. This means engaging with community leaders to draw up a progamme by means of which the community is weaned off its dependency on external assistance. This means leavening the handouts with education, with skills training, and - over a period of time - shifting the balance, so that the community becomes increasingly capable of providing for their own needs. I would expect that, over time, the demand would be for less clothing, more manufacturing skills; less food, more agricultural skills; less this is how it is done, more how do you think we could improve on this. Fewer fish. More fishing rods. (I am not blind to the fact that fundamental needs such as food and clothing are a long way from learning consultancy, but I believe the principle holds because they are informed by the same ingrained practices and expectations).

Until such time as they reach a point where even the education and training are things they are able to do for themselves... and better than any outsider not steeped in the culture and the vagaries of the landscape.

Until they reach a point where, when they identify the need for external expertise they do not yet have (a) they are able to hire such a provider at a fair rate of pay and (b) the external provider's brief includes the mentoring of local people to take up the slack when the contract is over.

This is enablement. This is sharing, rather than giving away in an act of charity, which always puts the giver in a position of superiority over the receiver. This harks back to a previous post about Stephen Downes's giving v sharing argument.

I would have gladly mentored a few southern Africans and worked myself out of a job over time, but in the meantime I expect to be paid for my work. I have bills to pay and a family to feed... and I can't bear the thought of my people being so disempowered as to be dependent on handouts.

The deed is done!

For those who have been following the saga, my younger son has now been shorn in aid of charity.

I have posted photos and a video on the Facebook group, where group members can see it.

He started off looking like Stephen Downes and ended up looking more like Doug Belshaw. Quite a transformation!

Locks of love

A further development in the story of 'the big snip'. Thanks to my sister-in-law in the USA, I have become aware of a charity called Locks of Love that accepts donations of hair to make hairpieces for underprivileged children who have suffered temporary or permanent hair loss for one or other reason.

While they cannot accept dreads or grey hair (sorry, Stephen!), they will accept any ponytail or braid (plait) that is made up of hair that is 10" or longer. If hair is layered, the longest layer needs to meet the 10" mark, and the hair can be donated tied in several separate bunches.

At this stage, we're unsure whether our son's hair will make the 10", but we're certainly going to look into it. It would be lovely to think that the hair that he has sacrficed for one charity can be re-used by another.

Inculcating values

"Mom, will you shave all my hair off?"

"Good grief. Are you sure?"

"Yes. I've decided to do it for charity."

"Which charity?"

"The Bobby Moore fund in aid of bowel cancer. Johnny's Mom just passed her 5 year all clear."

"Okay. I'll do it. On one condition. I get to keep the longest lock and one of those gorgeous corkscrew curls that suddenly pop out from nowhere."

So, after four years of growing it, my son has decided (seemingly out of the blue) to shave his head on a #2 setting. The big snip takes place on Saturday 8 November. There is a Facebook group, should you wish to join and contribute. If you're a UK based FB friend of mine, you have already been invited.

I shall be heartbroken to see those locks go - especially since I shall be the one wielding the clippers - but I am prouder than I can say. I tried to persuade him to let me style it into something trendy, but he is adamant that, when you do something for charity, it has to be extreme and it has to be a sacrifice. Rendering yourself bald at the beginning of winter strikes me as ticking both those boxes!