To Benefit or Exploit?
We have a lot of volunteers stay at Finca Selah who have come to serve in one capacity or another. Most want or expect to get out and rub shoulders with the poor and less fortunate they have read about. I often get asked when I’m going back out into the jungle and when I respond that I’m not sure, they seem to assume that it implies I’m not doing anything of value. When I share the Dead Wheat approach of contextually appropriate solutions through capacity building principles and those initiatives we are currently working on, their eyes typically glaze over and they seem disinterested. They want to get out and help and I get that. They want to do the quick solution and put out the fires but there really are very little fires out there except the ones created by good intentioned clueless outsiders with short sighted goals.
I used to be a Rotarian. One day, after a discussion of what is real help, one of my colleagues said, ” well we’re in it for our own feel good.” I get that desire to feel good about the work you do, especially when you frame it as acts of service, but there are many different ways people get that good feeling. Some which benefit others and some which exploits them.
I would venture to say that most volunteers would initially agree that they want to make a real difference in benefiting others. But to do this effectively one must take time to gain understanding of the context of history, the culture and community. You must begin by understanding what a community is doing right to live as they have been for the extent of their history. Only after you gain understanding into the lives of those you desire to serve can you develop a road out of the situation that has led you to them initially, (sometimes the presuppositions we enter with often are dissolved into what is contextually a healthy way of life). But when having these conversations with volunteers it is often at about this point where they say, “yeah but I only have a week so I’ll just. . .” which somehow excuses any and all efforts from being evaluated for effectiveness. At which point the path the individual is on becomes clearer, to benefit long term or exploit.
While I was a Rotarian some gracious individual donated a large some of money to help a village in the jungle. The local Rotarian’s traveled to that village to evaluate the needs. While there they noticed the children walk for hours each day to go to the nearest school in the region which is in this town. The Rotarian’s see the desire for education (kids walking each day) and the struggle (lots of walking ungroomed trails) and they come up with an obvious solution. They decide to double the capacity of the school and build dorms so the kids can stay for a week at a time. Great idea right? So like all good capitalists they bolt forward with marketing and implementation. It all gets a little blurry from here forward. Children are corralled and photos are taken with the Anglos and the Indians to send to the donor and prospective future donors. Pictures of little malnourished kids walking down trails to go to school are taken and attached to letters about education being the solution to the problem. Buildings are built and pictures are sent out to proclaim effectiveness and more funds come in for the next project. They are in and out of the village like a lust filled man into a whore house, (there are many appropriate parallels with this analogy but I’ll digress and let you ponder those yourself).
Who determined the need for a bigger school? The people who live there? No, they are ignorant poor people right? What do they have to offer us educated elites?
I visited this town myself and spoke to some of the locals. They told me they didn’t have enough food during the last school year and kids and people in the community would go for a week at a time without eating. They realized that next year they would have double the amount of children and the food problems would remain the same. Meanwhile the educated westerners take their pics oblivious to the pressing real needs and that their actions will cause more to go hungry. Those oblivious westerners have achieved, once again, that good feeling.
If you’ve ever built a house you know that you need to install the electric lines, plumbing insulation etc prior to installing the drywall. It’s a simple building process of developing the greater idea of a completed house. Why is it that we do not connect with the importance of developing that simple process in helping those we deem less fortunate? I suppose it’s because we will never have to live in that house.
This is one of many stories as they are, unfortunately, more common than not.
Real solutions take time, money and a lot of work. If you have a desire to serve as a volunteer find that person or organization that has gained a broad understanding of the people they are working alongside. Join them, wherever they are in the process, in the bigger picture of bringing that community effort to fruition. Anything else is a waste of time, money and effort but even worse, it destroys peoples lives.
Check yourself and don’t be an exploiter.
