The problem with little white girls and boys

[Eugeniefs]

I wanted to volunteer somewhere around the world when I was younger but the money asked by the organisations was so high that in the end I decided to do what I could, when I could personally, which is what I have been doing since then.

Great article, great thread, thanks for sharing this with us. So many people don't see the situation from this perspective, particularly those BIG organisations trying to take your money. All that money wasted. A bit like buying charity Christmas cards and finding that only 2% actually arrives to where you want it to go, the other 98% is 'admin fees'.. grrrr

 

[drescape24]

Of course there are always people to help back home, I am afraid you don't understand the point. Pointing out the naivete of white people is not racist. In this case the story is about a person who has realized that there is a better way to help and describes that way.

For example, sending a bunch of young missionary kids so they can feel good about helping the poor for a week is naive and a waste of money. Sending people who are skilled and teaching others to help themselves is a better approach.

The point that the o.p. starts the tread with the problem of little white boys and girls is wrong. I feel bad for the o.p. that bought as a youth onto the ideas spoon feed to them by schools and other institutions that they can preform goals they don't have the background to accomplish. Instead of saying " the problem with little white boys and girls" while they are trying to help and spending their money in an attempt to do a good thing. The o.p. should belittle the youth. Instead she should have kept.it to the institutions who are profiting from organising the trip. Don't blame the children, their only acting on the educational brainwashing, hold the highet powers feet to the fire not the well intended youth.


drescape24

 

[windeguy]

The point that the o.p. starts the tread with the problem of little white boys and girls is wrong. I feel bad for the o.p. that bought as a youth onto the ideas spoon feed to them by schools and other institutions that they can preform goals they don't have the background to accomplish. Instead of saying " the problem with little white boys and girls" while they are trying to help and spending their money in an attempt to do a good thing. The o.p. should belittle the youth. Instead she should have kept.it to the institutions who are profiting from organising the trip. Don't blame the children, their only acting on the educational brainwashing, hold the highet powers feet to the fire not the well intended youth.


drescape24

I agree the problem is with the organizations and also the parents who really should know better.

 

[Hillbilly]

This has HB's Stamp of Approval

Been there and done some of that. Seen too much.

When we get the doggone land we are going to build an orphanage, but not with volunteers. The vols can serve to raise the money, not lay bricks..

Ask Stevi about her experience in Montecristi....


HB

 

[Criss Colon]

No Comment!
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[dv8]

charitable actions are always about self validation as well as do-gooding. i get that wasps like the gal who wrote the article have learnt something, gained experience and whatnot. but at what price? if all the charitable funds were diverted 100% to charitable acts we would have no poverty already. instead, a large chunk of those funds is used to teach first world teens that the life in third world country is hard. no s**t, sherlock. they could have learnt that much watching a documentary on nat geo.

i dig trips like those organized by profe: professionals working in their own field to better the lives of others. but unskilled teens? useless. they can just as well stay home, listen to romeo santos and spend that couple of bucks on bachata lessons.

 

[pauleast]

No Comment!
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I concur.

 

[wrecksum]

I spent more that 35 years in Africa, and none of it was charitable, in fact I was being paid quite well most of the time. I reckon that the companies we made and ran made far more contribution to the local economy and hence, the local people than a thousand years of teenage tinkering.

We employed and trained thousands of local staff, all in the name of economic greed as some folks here would put it, and supported a pyramid of families, still benefitting from that today via health and education of their children which our companies facilitated by paying them a salary, not giving for free.

Sure we made profit, not always, but that was the goal of course.

I have seen the confusion, mirth,despair,unrest,suffering,social strife and more inflicted by do-gooders and if there is one thing I have learnt, it's that all of these well-meaning greenhorns know nothing about the people or the country they are 'ministering' to.
It's for their own 'feely goodiness', nothing more, and as long as they do no real harm, why not let them do it.
The Africans love a good laugh.......

 

[JohnnyBoy]

There is a school of thought that problems can be solved by throwing money at it. Realistically the charities that have the most lasting impact aside from medical missions are mircro banks that help develop an economy. If you give someone a house or clothes you have only taught them to get something without working for it. If for example in the DR you gave a class on budgeting capital expenditures and a small LOAN not a gift to a budding entreprenuer you have done more than a hundred spoiled naive do gooders.
The problem in the developing world is that access to capital and industrial goods is so limited that unless you are relatively wealthy you have no chance of acquiring any.

 

[the gorgon]

There is a school of thought that problems can be solved by throwing money at it. Realistically the charities that have the most lasting impact aside from medical missions are mircro banks that help develop an economy. If you give someone a house or clothes you have only taught them to get something without working for it. If for example in the DR you gave a class on budgeting capital expenditures and a small LOAN not a gift to a budding entreprenuer you have done more than a hundred spoiled naive do gooders.
The problem in the developing world is that access to capital and industrial goods is so limited that unless you are relatively wealthy you have no chance of acquiring any.

are you alluding to micro loans, Johnny? if you are, then please link me to just ONE study that shows that microfinance has led to poverty reduction, anywhere. every study i have read finds that it is a failure everywhere it has been tried.

 

[bob saunders]

Still an Elusive Goal: Measuring the Impact and Success of Microfinance ? Knowledge@Wharton

My brother ran a micro-finance operation in Cuba for a year, and had above 90% repayment. Because part of the loan agreement including setting up a viable business plan and using a business mentor most of the enterprises at the time were successful but since then the Cuban government has played havoc with the rules they set up for private businesses so I'm not sure how they are doing now.

 

[Criss Colon]

Consider the SOURCE of the "OP"!
I suggest you go visit "Pipa's" website.
Most of her "Blogging" is about her "D" cups, Bikinis, and giving herself "Brazilian Waxes"!
Her "White Guilt" story is "Just THAT"!
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[Dan Spinnover]

Mixed feelings

I would say that sometimes giving money to a person helps. But don't make them dependent on you.

In my experience, I've seen many Dominican businesses come and go. They 'go' usually because the owner eats the seed. They consume the money they should have been re-investing in the business.

Other times the Dominican or Haitian may convince the donor that they know how to run a business. Well-intentioned people might then believe them. But in reality, they don't really know what it takes. For example, they might hire family (or close friends) to work. Then they find out that family does not like to work hard, or the hired help eats the seed. The owner can't fire them - well because they are family. The truth is, if they are starting a business with someone else's money, it's easy to be sloppy. They lose nothing, in a sense, if it goes under.

In a different scenario, sometimes, many times poor Dominicans will come and ask a 1st world person- white or black who come to help - for money. The attitude that the Dominicans may present is: if you don't help, I don't know if I can go on. This "help me now, because I know you have money" attitude is why many 1st world people get that attitude that they can change a country in a week. Nevermind that somehow the Dominican or Haitian struggled and survived, and is now 30+ years old...

Somehow they made it up to then without them. How did that happen? (sarcastic)

To summarize, I believe that it's good to give money. I'm not against that. It just that it needs to be done:
-personally. Don't give it to a big organization that uses 70% or more for administrative costs.
-on occasion. Don't give so regular that they just depend on the giver for survival and not work for themselves.
-smartly. If it's to start a business, even if the person who is receiving the money says that "they know everything of how to run a business" (seen this a lot), it still needs to be a long-term, teaching, hands-on project. At least until the business is established.

 

[pauleast]

Consider the SOURCE of the "OP"!
I suggest you go visit "Pipa's" website.
Most of her "Blogging" is about her "D" cups, Bikinis, and giving herself "Brazilian Waxes"!
Her "White Guilt" story is "Just THAT"!
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Precisely !

 

[Dan Spinnover]

To add.. one excellent way to help someone with money is to sponsor them to go to school - to college. They receive your money and use it for tuition, books, living expenses, etc... When they finish, they have something tangible, and so does the sponsor.

Tuition is inexpensive here. UASD (pronounced: WAS) is an almost free college - the first college in the Americas. Universidad Aut?noma de Santo Domingo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Dan Spinnover]

sorry, my bad... The way to say the name of the university is WAASSSS (as in wasp, without the p).

 

[mountainannie]

Consider the SOURCE of the "OP"!
I suggest you go visit "Pipa's" website.
Most of her "Blogging" is about her "D" cups, Bikinis, and giving herself "Brazilian Waxes"!
Her "White Guilt" story is "Just THAT"!
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gee, CCCC, I did not find any of that., but I guess you sort of have a nose for it.

What I found was this

"I was born in NYC and grew up in Westchester, NY. At 14, I left home for Miss Porter?s, an all-girls boarding school in CT. While in high school, I helped, along with an amazing group of men and women, to found a summer camp for HIV+ children in the Dominican Republic which I am still very passionate about. I deferred college for a year after graduation to serve as the Youth Leadership Fellow for the Jane Goodall Institute?s youth program, Roots & Shoots. After travelling around the world speaking, mentoring young leaders, working with teachers, and becoming buddies with Jane, I attended Lewis & Clark College for a year. After my freshman year I transferred to Barnard College, and then dropped out in the summer of 2013, after my sophomore year, to commit full-time to BrightCo."

And really, the content of what she is saying deserves to be judged on its own merits, not by whatever judgements you may have of her.

Her points are well taken.. that volunteers without qualifications are simply wasting their time thinking that they can do something that they cannot do.. and that without language skills, they are not of much use.

She does have guilt from having actually been there done that.. not from being white .. as she puts it " Sadly, taking part in international aid where you aren?t particularly helpful is not benign. It?s detrimental. It slows down positive growth and perpetuates the ?white savior? complex that, for hundreds of years, has haunted both the countries we are trying to ?save? and our (more recently) own psyches."

What she leaves our.. which is important, I believe, is the impact and the experience that seeing the poverty most likely has on the volunteers who participate. For some, perhaps, it may not touch them. For others, Bur it must at least make them aware of the difference in their privilege. It is one thing to read out poverty. It is a very different thng to see it up close and spend time with the people and understand that it is only an accident of birth that provides us with the difference of lifestyles.

 

[mountainannie]

here is an interview with her in Forbes

The Fixers: A Generation Born Without AIDS - Forbes

 

[mountainannie]

The name rings fairly big bells along the Main Line of Philadelphia

Biddle family - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

bimbo, not......

 

[jaxter]

With so much help being needed in their home country, you gotta suspect the motives of these missioners. Charity begins at home. I've noticed in the DR most of the folks want your money not you. They are more comfortable around their own and rarely try to learn a different culture. As soon as you give them anything they rush back to the barrio. When that lil bit is gone,
they slink back around looking for more. I love the people because they are easy to understand. But it is what it is.