Support to Third world countries (not a aid request)

Wook

as far as I can remember I have seen request for aid towards third world countries... We have several organisations doing their best to cope with the problems in a third world country..we have programs on TV (preferably during 'dinner') that shows us bone thin kids living from leftover rice that the birds didn't see...
We see maimed and disabled people starving..and so on.
I for one am one of those guy's that would flick away and see something else. Regular visits to my house by a representative for any charity organisation makes sure I am still aware and informed that half the world is dying because of food shortage and war.

I do believe we should help the people in need...
but...is it really justified when I see the food bought by us , the people and governments being misused and sold by local Mafia.
Sold to buy weapons so they can continue their clan wars...
How much does reach the people who have nothing ? Why do they keep having children..? (that they need to feed).
In all these years I hear the same countries crying for help..over and over again...and all I see is War on the news in the respective countries that needs aid. I am all for 'give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, teach him how to fish he'll eat forever' but how much time do you need to teach?

Do you see any improvement ? what would be your opinion of supporting these countries? Why does it not get resolved ?

mike65

I belive in compassion fatigue, I ca'nt belive that those adds of children with flying buzzing round thier eyes have any impact any more. I tend to be a little sceptical about how much of my money will, a - reach the needy and b- make any practical difference.
You hear so many stories about 70-80% of monies going in "administration" and worse.

Mike.

pro_gnostic_8

Like the thread starter, I'm another who reaches for the remote control when the "starving kids" appeals appear on TV. It wasn't always like this tho'.............there was a time when I was actively involved voluntarily in fundraising for 3rd World charities.

Nowadays, I'm just jaundiced and untrusting of the whole business. Why should I bother making a donation towards the relief of famine in Zimbabwe while Mugabe is currently purchasing 250 fighter jets at a cost of 50 million each.

Instead, I throw a coupla coins to the tramp in the street.

Biffa Bacon

People in the Third World don't need more aid - they need more guns, so they can overthrow kleptocratic dictators like Mugabe, Kim Il-Jong, Saddam Hussein etc.

Shinji

I make a couple of monthly donations via direct debit to third world aid organisations I believe to be reputable - basically missions type groups, except without the lame religious baggage ("convert to christianity and we'll give you food").

I do the same for a couple of other places that I think are good causes, and I'm involved with an annual event that raises a few grand for the NSPCC. As far as I'm concerned, that's pretty much it as regards "organised" charity... I don't give to collections on the street (obvious exception being some of the various national flower days) and I don't give to door to door callers. And yeah - if the starving children ads were to come on while I was eating, I'd flick away. I know there's great suffering and injustice in the world, that doesn't mean I need to suffer the injustice of being put off my dinner....

Kalina

I've got a small amount coming out of my bank account every month and going to Concern. Hopefully it's being put to good use but I really don't know if it is or not. Apart from that money I don't donate anthing to the 3rd world. Like pro_gnostic said the governments of these countries are buying fighter jets while their people are dying so what's the point??
I do support local charities that mean something to me and where I'm sure the money goes to the people who need it. My cousin is Downs so I support them, my best friend's brother has MS so that's a priority. And cancer charities, everyone is affected by cancer so that's another important one.

Xterminator

Its a difficult situation alright.

When I was out of work, I was offered a job by a "collection agency" where they bought a charity fanchise every couple of months.
Basically they changed the charity they were collecting for every so often. As the collector I would keep 33% of ever penny donated, and I was led to believe the agency kept somewhere in the region of 66%.
That doesnt leave an awful lot to the charity does it?

Now this collection was legal, and had the cards with permission from the Garda etc for there collectors.

I didnt stay long, but now whenevwer I am asked to contribute to a charity, I always remember that experience.

X

neuro-praxis

We should all be doing something.

I can empathise with being apathetic to ads that are intended to grab the emotions - I don't really know how useful they are.

No matter how you look at it, however, we all, each and every one of us, has a responsibility to do something to combat third world hunger and debt. We live disgustingly rich lifestyles in comparison.

This is something I feel really passionate about. I attended a series of seminars recently in Kilkenny on what I, as a Western individual, can physically do to affect problems of social injustice while living here, and it has really fired up something inside me.

Myself and my friends (the majority Christians) have been reaching the age where it's possible for us to go on missions trips abroad and the kinds of things we have been seeing and experiencing in Africa and Eastern Europe are horrendous. Last August, a close friend of mine visited Uganda for 6 weeks where he witnessed 5,000 dead bodies laid out in two public buildings in an area affected by genocide. The bodies had been hacked and mutilated and thrown into a pit. Three years on, the locals, have dug up the bodies and laid them as respectfully as they can, without coffins or make-up artists or suits or anything. It's site laid out with rotting bodies on the outskirts of the village.

My best friend has been in Uganda all summer laying water pipes around the mountains to pipe water to people's homes (which are mud huts). She has been working on a daily basis with people who don't have enough to eat or drink. However, the area they are living in is improving. The infant mortality rate has dropped to 0.5% because of the hygiene rules the local folks have been taught by western groups who are working there, along with access to water and instructions to boil it three times before drinking, etc.

The individuals in these countries are not purchasing arms. It's their governments. We cannot possibly blame the civilians who are uneducated and starving.

What we need to be doing is campaigning to cancel world debt. All the food being produced in the harvests each April by these countries is sold immediately to pay off the never ending debts.

We also need to start buying everything we can fair-trade. You can get coffee, tea, biscuits, chocolate, cereals, bananas, honey, fruit juice, sweets and crafts all over Dublin that are traded fairly.

Make up some gift boxes for Operation Christmas Child. These get sent to poor Eastern European kids with nothing. It costs about €15.00 to make one, which isn't much. If anyone is interested in this, pm me and I will put you in touch with the organisers of this project.

Donating money to third world aid charities is good and necessary, but it is wise to investigate the charities before doing so.

This month, the Christian Union in Maynooth are doing the 10k walk to raise money for the children in Belarus, we're having a sleep-out for the homeless tomorrow night, and a whole bunch of other social justice events this year so that we might have an actual effect on social problems, local and world-wide. This stuff is not hard and usually fun - anyone can, and should, get involved.

<rant>Shinji - you have a severe prejudices towards people you know nothing about. If you were involved in Christian charities (as I am) you would know that there are who Christians give up their whole lives to work for nothing for the needy in the world - and it's no bargaining system, believe me. You are outright lying with your nonsense of "Convert and we'll feed you" - the message is entirely the opposite - it's "We love you because God loves you".

I get so angry when I hear attitudes like yours. Mother Theresa was a dedicated Christian who opened up hundreds of hospitals with free care and volunteer workers all over India to care for the sick and poor, and there was no goddamned bargaining system involved.

I have friends working in Romania right now who run a school and care centre for children who are abused by their parents - and they're Christians. Do you think they make the children "convert"?

I work in conjunction with a Christian company called ACET - Aids Care Education and Training who work and fundraise to provide care for people living with and affected by AIDS. Who cares what they believe? They deserve love and respect and help.

If you knew, Shinji, exactly how much work is being done by Christians in Ireland, the UK and all over the world, with no pay, for years on end, you would shut your mouth pretty quickly.

And don't bother spouting any crap about paedophile priests. I have never had any connection with any individuals like that. Or any crap about religion causing wars. It's people who cause wars, not religion. </rant>

Everyone can do something. Please stop being apathetic. Get onto a team and go somewhere and actually physically help. Make donations. Keep yourself informed. This stuff is so so important.

amp

Neuro-praxis, this thread is not about religion, Shinji made a passing comment that he prefers to give to non-religious charities.

And even if he was slightly scathing about religious charities there's no need to rise to it. Stay on topic please and turn the other cheek. Same goes to anyone else who tries to turn this into to a thread about religion.

The topic is "Support to Third world countries (not a aid request)", let's get back to it.

neuro-praxis

Amp...that isn't what your post originally said. You edited your own reply to say something entirely different to what you said at first...why didn't you just post a second time?

I haven't made this about religion. This is a thread about giving to third world countries, and like it or lump it, that's an important issue for Christians. Shinji made a "passing comment" that was grossly untrue, and I felt the need to correct him. I should have the freedom to do that. Every single thread on Boards.ie goes off topic to a degree and I think your reply was unreasonable.

Don't tell me this is a non-religious thread and then tell me to "turn the other cheek". What hypocrisy!

If you apply the phrase "turn the other cheek" to defending the people who have sacrificed their lives for the sake of victims of third world poverty, then it's clear you have no idea what "turning the other cheek" means.

But we'll leave that for another discussion; this isn't a religious thread after all.

pro_gnostic_8

Originally posted by neuro-praxis
We should all be doing something.

I can empathise with being apathetic to ads that are intended to grab the emotions - I don't really know how useful they are.

It's not so much apathy but a certain squeamishness and sense of guilt that makes me switch over. I find these visuals just too upsetting.

I really do applaud your efforts but all I can feel is a sense of powerlessness. After years of fundraising and contributing and the whole Africa situation just seems to get worse and worse. Every year, a new catastrophe .....................each one worse than the previous. No end to it, no hope or sign of finality. I contribute 15 euro -- it saves one child from starvation but another 100 die. Next year, same scenario/worse statistics.

I despair of it all.

Wook

It's a bit easy to blame the governments of these states for purchasing arms..(which they do!) but if remember correctly during the clan wars , they were ordinary people being extremely viscious. I didnt see an dressed up goverment official picking up a machette and hacking away.
Is it not the public that chooses the government ?
I know in a country as you have many in Africa you kinda have problems selecting a good political party..because theyre probably aren't any.

as Pro gnostic said , i don't see any improvement...nothing whatsoever...so that could mean a couple of things..

-they dont want to change?
-the organizations don't do a good job?
-our and their goverments like it just the way it is.?
-they don't see the bigger picture (kinda hard with a empty stomach to think about tomorow)?
-Our strategy in helping these third world countries is ...'crap' ?
-any others ?

And removing the third world debt , to be honest i do not believe in it...you remove the debt and the first thing they will do is ask for funds..in a couple of years time , they will once again have builded up a debt..of that i am sure off

amp

Originally posted by neuro-praxis
But we'll leave that for another discussion; this isn't a religious thread after all.

How very christian of you. Go off topic again (which includes replying to this) and I'll crucify you .

Excelsior

I'll help because Richie was in Rwanda where he saw the effects of genocide, not Uganda.

pro_gnostic_8

An aspect of the Third World charity issue that seriously disturbs me are the TV ads.

Isn't there something obscene about filming a starving child on the brink of death to show as a promo...... no matter how meritorious the motive may be. Telling the mother of that child that her soon to be dead offspring will be shown to Westerners in a bid to raise money to save other children is of little consolation to her. It's like filming a housefire victim aflame to advocate the use of smoke alarms.

Something else that bothers me are the A-list celebrities doing their charity chic gig around sub-Saharan Africa. Is it a cynical exercise to gain and maintain exposure or is it genuine concern. Whether or which, it's puke-inducing to see these fame junkies surrounded by a cast of starving people spewing out soundbytes to an MTV style media pack. When the day is over, they scoot back to their mansions in Killiney, etc.

neuro-praxis

Thanks for pointing out my big fat error Excel. I can always count on you.

About despairing: I realised at the seminars I went to that it's much easier for me to shrug and say, with genuine helplessness, "There's nothing I can do." This means that I don't have to change anything about the way I live.

But there most definitely are things we can do, and if we look at it in a utilitarian manner, we'll see that our actions genuinely make an impact, however small, in the third world.

Don't cop out. But fair trade. Support some charities. Go on a missions trip and physically help while you're still young and healthy.

Wook

I think it would make more difference if we the western world would once again take those countries and colonize them ..once again..install a government and leave in 30 years or so.
but now , it feels like bringing water to the sea...

Victor

There are few legitimate means of aid (a) education and empowerment (b) crisis intervention. Most of the rest is sating our consciences, disempowering the poor and disadvantaged and propping up inappropriate governments.

Originally posted by Biffa Bacon
People in the Third World don't need more aid - they need more guns, so they can overthrow kleptocratic dictators like Mugabe, Kim Il-Jong, Saddam Hussein etc.

.... and the likes of the local school teacher, doctor, farmer, small business man, housewife or child in Rwanda. Providing guns will only create new autocrats. :rolleyes: And BTW North Korea isn't a third world country.

Trish

Two years down the track and who knows, maybe you will recieve this email. Anyway, I think it is admirable that you are out there helping people and I wish to start doing this myself. If you get this can you email me at chikkotron68_nz@yahoo.co.nz and tell me some organisations that I can join to help those in need in Africa and South America. I know some spanish so I may be more helpful there. I'm not christian but have no quelms at joining a christian group, I do believe in the higher power, I think everyone needs that. Thanks... trish.x

DadaKopf

It's also important to keep in mind that last year we ploughed €370 million of taxes into our national development agency, Development Co-operation Ireland. That includes all bilateral aid programmes and funding to the UN and EU. The Department of Finance also channels money into the IMF and World Bank.

Every country has its own reasons for providing development assistance and many are to some degree politically or self-motivated.

pro_gnostic_8 wrote:

Isn't there something obscene about filming a starving child on the brink of death to show as a promo...... no matter how meritorious the motive may be.

Which is more obscene, the fact that a development agency would tug at a TV audience's heart strings to mobilize resources for aid, or the fact that Western countries are usually inculcated in the processes that have caused these awful things to happen? NGOs in Ireland are concerned that these advocacy strategies continue construct the majority world in a way that sustains Northern countries' moral and cultural superiority over 'them' and efforts have been made by organizations like Comhlámh and researchers as Kimmage Manor to change that. That means that organizations in Ireland, including DCI, are at least partly motivated by our own narcissistic sense of self-importance about our cultural values, for example the way DCI perpetually recycles this myth about Ireland's intrinsic missionary spirit and our experience as a colonised nation. It's hard to get around this dilemma, though, because not telling 'truth' about the situation in the world in a way that attracts Irish attention, no matter how grim, negatively affects the ability of national agencies or NGOs to gather the resources needed to provide assistance.

Then the question emerges: what kind of assistance is the 'right' kind of assistance? And what are the values and interests that underlie those justifications?

Victor wrote:

There are few legitimate means of aid (a) education and empowerment (b) crisis intervention. Most of the rest is sating our consciences, disempowering the poor and disadvantaged and propping up inappropriate governments.

Crisis intervention can be used politically - we saw that in the case of Rwanda, Bosnia and Serbia, it's happening in Sudan. Aid after natural disasters can also be provided or withheld on political grounds. Education can involve a form of cultural colonialism (it's seen this way in various African and Arabic countries) and empowerment, well, that means many things to many people. As far as the World Bank is concerned, it means deregulation, privatization and service charges, which the poor certainly cannot afford. From the aid receivers' side (primarily governments), aid can be utilized to strengthen the local, regional or national power of individuals, groups or organizations, marginalizing the majority.

By the way, I'm not anti-aid, I just think the legitimacy of aid should be questioned.

Sleepy

I think at this stage we've been completely de-sensitized to these ads. I know I hardly bat an eyelid when I see them these days.

In between her religeous posturing and bickering with amp, neuropraxis makes a valid point about fair-trade. I honestly believe the only way we'll ever see an egalitarian world is with the abolition of trade tarrifs and barriers. If we could agree as a planet, instead of as a collective of nation states, to work towards the maximum utility of our entire population this would surely be the way to do it. No trade barriers would ensure optimal prices for both suppliers and consumers and that those nations that could produce given goods most efficiently would be the main supplier of that good.

But, when has the world ever been ruled by sensible economics? :rolleyes:

DadaKopf

Actually, there's some group in Ireland called Engage or something like that, that's trying to change the way those advocy campaigns come across.

I was talking to one of them and she said what needs to be done is to shift the campaigning away from (1) those terrible emotive images and (2) to concentrate on publicising issues instead of NGO brands.

sleepy wrote:

I honestly believe the only way we'll ever see an egalitarian world is with the abolition of trade tarrifs and barriers. If we could agree as a planet, instead of as a collective of nation states, to work towards the maximum utility of our entire population this would surely be the way to do it. No trade barriers would ensure optimal prices for both suppliers and consumers and that those nations that could produce given goods most efficiently would be the main supplier of that good.

Well, not quite. Developing countries should be allowed to protect their economies until they're robust enough to compete in the global market. Developed countries should abolish all barriers and subsidies.

However, there's still a long-run problem with that. Markets don't work very well and are prone to failure. The theory of comparative advantage simply doesn't work in the real world; without the right mix of interventions, trading relationships create conditions of inequality and dependency.

This was, in principle, vaguely acknowledged at the last round of WTO negotiations and has been part of UNCTAD's credo since the 1950s, really.

But in truth, there's no simple quick fix to the problems facing the majority world. Although I think we in the North really have to accept that if we're really committed to improving the lives of most of the people in this world, we have to prepare for some serious sacrifices and a near total transformation of how we structure and live our lives.

shotamoose

Sleepy wrote:

I honestly believe the only way we'll ever see an egalitarian world is with the abolition of trade tarrifs and barriers. If we could agree as a planet, instead of as a collective of nation states, to work towards the maximum utility of our entire population this would surely be the way to do it. No trade barriers would ensure optimal prices for both suppliers and consumers and that those nations that could produce given goods most efficiently would be the main supplier of that good.

Completely free trade would actually mean many of the poorest countries losing out to competitors who are more efficient but not as poor. At present the EU gives Africa trade preferences because it is so poor - completely free trade would remove this and hand the advantage in, for example, the sugar trade, to countries like Brazil. So no, I don't agree that free trade is the solution to world poverty.