A co-worker just hit me up for a donation. For Haiti, she said. See, her church is arranging to send a group to Haiti to help build houses or something like that, and her daughter wants to go. And each person who goes has to pay $X (I forget the total, but it’s in the hundreds) to cover their airfare and lodging and food expenses and what all.
And instead of thinking “How great that she wants to help” I just think “What a waste of money!”
Because it seems to me that what you are actually doing is spending a lot of money ON YOUR DAUGHTER so she will feel good – and possibly have someting really nice to put on her college applications next year – and all the Haitians will be getting out of it is ten days worth of unskilled labor by a teenaged girl.
Really? This is a good use of money?
Because I am SURE that there are thousands of jobless Haitians who would love to be paid to work on rebuilding. I don’t know what their wage scale looks like, but I’d be gob-smacked it those hundreds of dollars that wouldn’t be spent on plane tickets and food etc. wouldn’t cover far, far more hours of labor than the ten days your daughter will be there for.
None of which I said to coworker directly. I just said I donated for Haiti through the Red Cross and left it there.
I totally agree and react the same way to these “missionary” trips abroad. There’s value in white, relatively privileged kids from America going to a place like Haiti, but call it what it is – a vacation/educational experience that you’re asking me to pay for, especially if it’s to a place nicer or more exotic than Haiti.
It’s disingenuous to portray it as simply an act of charity. As you point out, the funds could be put to much better use if that is your goal.
I spoke to a charity worker one time to who told me that the people who are really dedicated to helping people in the third world despise these missionary tours. The locals get a lot of uninformed people who think that their good intentions will work miracles, rather than achieving anything practical. He told me of one African village where a group of Americans showed up and insisted on digging a new well even though the village didn’t need one. They apparently had it in their head that Africans are thirsty and by god, they were going to dig a new well because that was what they had been all fired up about when planning their trip.
They got the well half finished before their time ran out and they went back home. The villagers were left with a big hole in the ground and had to work at filling it back in so the kids wouldn’t fall in.
No, I agree with you. It’s one thing to send, say, doctors to such a region when people are in desperate need of medical care and good medical supplies. It’s another thing to send unskilled labor like in this case.
Yea, I’d say this is more about padding her college/work resume, and maybe opening her daughter’s eyes to the plight of developing countries, than actually being of much help to the Haitians.
I agree with you that it would make more sense to pay Haitians to do the work than import an American teenager, but tourism IS a good thing for the local economy too. At least they’re putting money into the local economy with the costs of the lodging and food while they’re there.
Who knows, maybe the experience will teach the teenager something about the world and inspire her to join the Peace Corps or something later.
…or at least to have more compassion for the less fortunate.
For those reasons, I wouldn’t call it a total waste, but I agree that it’s kind of silly to pretend like it’s some totally selfless act of charity either.
I agree with Disbang – there is some value in exposing privileged white kids to less fortunate parts of the world, but only if it changes the privileged white kids’ worldview. Their labor is going to be virtually worthless*.
There’s possibly other value in this is if the organization is smart enough to understand the true value of the labor, and treats it like a walkathon – the point is to get the participants to raise money (beyond the cost of the event) that would otherwise never be raised.
Some organizations may be well-organized enough to have enough real skilled labor on hand to make the unskilled labor not completely useless, but I suspect they’re in the minority. I think even for a 2-year, supposedly trained Peace Corps volunteer the real benefit is in helping the volunteer (who will go back and vote in a rich country) understand the world better.
Nope, you’re completely in the right OP. Haiti has no lack of unskilled labor. If you aren’t a skilled aid worker stay the f#@ out of Haiti. If you want to thump a bible, go someplace where there’s a working government and you can get water out of the tap. There are plenty of safer places in the the world - some right here in America - where crushing poverty can be personally experienced.
If In fact, Haiti is so dangerous for the unwary and so lacking in infrastructure, that most of the money will probably be spent on personal security so none of the precious white people get their asses shot off by local mobsters or run their Jeep into a ravine. Oh, and did you know about the cholera epidemic? The State Department advisory which advises against travel to Haiti ?
Excerpt from that last link:
*U.S. citizens have been victims of violent crime, including murder and kidnapping, in Port-au-Prince. Some kidnapping victims have been physically abused, sexually assaulted, shot, and even killed. No one is safe from kidnapping, regardless of occupation, nationality, race, gender, or age. In a number of cases this past year, travelers arriving in Port-au-Prince on flights from the United States were attacked and robbed shortly after departing the airport. At least two U.S. citizens were shot and killed in such incidents. Haitian authorities have limited capacity to deter or investigate such violent acts, or prosecute perpetrators. *
I knew someone who was planning to take her three young kids (ages around 11, 8, and 4) to Haiti to “volunteer”. I don’t know if she ended up doing it, but Haiti’s still in pretty rough shape, so I guess they must not have.
You probably have no objection spending $10 towards a Christmas present for the co-worker who’s name you drew out of the basket.
You personal objective with what to do with $10 might not be for the benefit of Haiti, but’s wrong with helping out a co-worker’s daughter just for the benefit of friendly relations with your co-worker ? This is not a perfect world , but any small thing we can do to make others appreciate us especially those who we work with day in and out is worth it.
If you believe that her actions will do no good and some harm, you should try to prevent them. If you believe there is a non-zero chance this woman is sending her daughter to a situation of serious danger, you should try to prevent her from doing it, or at least not help her.
If I knew someone who was sending a teen to Nepal to climb Mt. Everest, I would want to know what sort of plan she had for coming home alive, before I gave any money to make it happen.
Most of the value in this mission would be to the kids who are volunteering, not to the Haitians. I’m sure that the kids who volunteer will have their eyes opened (or most of the kids, anyway) and that’s a good thing…but I think that there’s plenty of things that could be done with that money which would do more good for the Haitians.
Usually I just say “I’ve already made donations for the year, and my donation budget is empty” and leave it at that. I’m lying, because I DO usually have more to spend on charity, but I generally can find a great cause to use it up at the last minute. Heifer International is ALWAYS glad to get any donation that I’m willing to send. This organization helps people all over the world. They give animals and training in caring for the animals. It’s sort of like that old saying “Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for the rest of his life.”
On a semi-related subject, I’m always bemused when people think that I, a resident of Tarrant County, am all eager to donate to charities that only serve another county. Ummmm, if I’m going to donate to a local charity, I’m gonna donate to one that serves MY community first, unless there’s a catastrophe. I have nothing against the charities of Dallas County, but I don’t see dollars flowing from Dallasites to Fort Worth/Tarrant charities.
I’m glad to see that most of you don’t feel I’m being a Grinch or whatever.
You know, that’s something I didn’t consider. I was just looking at it as money from my ‘charity’ budget, and thinking it was poor stewardship to use the money that way.
But if I looked at it as just coming from my discretionary money, the stuff I spend on day to day purchases… yeah. Maybe I should have made a token contribution.
That’s a good argument for buying Girl Scout cookies or a candy bar to support the school band, but the difference is those sales efforts aren’t presented with a false purpose. It’s stated that you’re buying something to support the organization and the kid.
My problem with these missionary trips is that they’re presented as a donation to charity when they’re really asking me to finance a trip that is for their own benefit. I’d be more likely to donate if they were just honest about that.
Another vote for being highly skeptical of the value of this.
As I said in another thread - To me the whole model of this is based on traditional Missionary antics which is predicated on the concept that White folks are superior to non-White folks and are going to improve their lives by smacking them with the god book. Fast forward to today and we have thousands of earnest college kids taking a week or two to derp around poor-ville “helping”. Likely there is a sum of money going to someone who is wrangling all these dewey cheeked scions and sciettes, and that someone is making a decent living off of this racket. While the recipients of all this attention are faced with filling that whole-in-the-ground back in so their kids don’t fall into it.
…I say this as the parent of a college aged kid who is looking at all of the brochures to decide where they are going next summer to “help” people (and asking me to pay for it). Honestly, I’d rather they wanted to go party on a beach somewhere…