Independent.ie > Lifestyle > Independent Woman

Don't be a mug when you're trying to help...

Aid worker Eileen Morrow on the smart way to make a differenceOvercoming obstacles: Eileen Morrow is a dedicated aid worker living in Nairobi

Javascript is needed to use most of these tools:

Print
Text size

By Eileen Morrow
Thursday Oct 15 2009

Irish travellers on far away adventure holidays sometimes get involved in aid work -- but too often the good intentions fail to make a difference. Here's why ...

Visiting Nairobi, the starting point of many an African adventure, the extreme poverty can alter your views and priorities in life. As a Kenyan resident, I've met countless people out here armed with little more than good intentions embarking on aid work. While some have made a difference, too many become disillusioned about aid and, in the worst cases, bitter with the very people that they set out to help.

I'm a charity worker myself, so it always makes me sad when people turn cynical as there is still so much need out here.

Picture this: on holiday in Kenya, you visit a village in the Rift Valley where you meet Mary -- a sunny, scraggly eight-year-old with bright eyes and a large disarming grin. You ask her about school and she tells you she doesn't go. Her parents tell you that they have no money to send Mary to school.

You visit the local school and find the classrooms are dark and falling to pieces; kids are crammed five to a desk and share one book. You realise that Mary's not the only child in need. You return home and through heroic fundraising efforts are able to construct new classrooms and equip them with benches and books.

A year later you're back and find that Mary has dropped out of school again. Her parents say she is needed to help carry water and the nearest well involves a 12km round-trip. You raise the money to sink a borehole in the village and give the village chief money to buy fuel for the pump. Now everyone in the village has access to clean water within 500 metres. Mary attends school. You come back to Ireland again feeling a well-justified sense of pride.

You return the following year to find Mary's dropped out of school again. The water pump is not running, as the chief used the fuel money to pay for his wife's hospital bills and no one complained. At this point, most people would throw in the towel.

But you are made of steelier stuff and ask the community what is happening. They tell you the drought killed their cattle and they're lucky if they're getting a solid meal a day. The government was supposed to distribute relief aid but corruption allegations have made international donors reluctant to engage.

You don't have the money to buy everyone in the village food and your friends back home wonder why they are being asked for more money when they've already given so much. Gradually the donations trickle off.

Five years later, Mary is 15 and married to a much older man not of her choosing. In preparation for marriage, she has undergone female genital mutilation, a horrific traditional practice with serious health risks. The well has been abandoned and the school run down and missing desks and textbooks. You are told the local MP has pocketed funds intended for fixing the well and the school.

You feel like your best efforts were spurned.

You're also shocked at the brutal aspects of these people's culture. You give up.

So where did it go wrong?

Well, here's what you did right. You were right to support the wider community and not just Mary's family because there are many other poor families in the community. Mary is who you feel most connected to, but her problems are the community's problems. If you helped only her, it would create serious jealousies and resentment in the community.

You were also right to improve access to education and clean water as these lead to improved health which in turn boosts life expectancy. As life expectancy increases, economic prosperity also increases.

Now here's what you did wrong. Firstly, you worked alone. You didn't co-ordinate with the government and so money intended for constructing and maintaining basic infrastructure was siphoned off elsewhere.

You also assumed that the community were too poor and too unskilled to change their lives, and so effectively you further disenfranchised them. A bit of investigation would reveal community groups and concerned parents working to address the same problems.

They may have lacked the skills and resources needed to get going, but this could have been resolved if you had invested time to train them. If you had let them lead the projects, you would find that the school and well were still used and maintained 10 years later.

You would also find a much deeper and more important transformation -- a community glowing with confidence and the knowledge that they could change their lives for the better.

You can't fix poverty by just throwing money at it. It's caused and maintained by inequality, injustice and cultural practices.

To be effective, aid needs to address all of these issues over a sustained period of time.

There are no quick-fix solutions, but please don't stop supporting overseas aid. It works: significant progress has already been made towards reducing extreme poverty and millions of girls have escaped Mary's predicament as a result.

It's just that millions more still need your help.

Eileen Morrow is East Africa programmes coordinator for World Vision Ireland. Originally from Dundrum in Dublin, she has spent the last three years living in Nairobi. You can read her blog at www.eileen-morrow.blogspot.com/ This Saturday is the UN Day for the Eradication of Poverty www.worldvision.ie

- Eileen Morrow

Irish Independent