Listening

Rye Barcott was a US Marine who became interested in what fuelled terrorism and inter-ethnic violence. He decided that the way to find out would be to travel to Africa and on his way to Rwanda the young man found himself in Kibera, a very large slum near to Nairobi. The young man learned Swahili and began talking to the young people and listening to what they had to say. It was at this point that Tabitha Festo, a nurse, pointed out that he had been talking to young people but had not listened to her. She told him that she had a plan to sell collard greens but needed a little money to get started. Barcott gave her the equivalent of $26.
A year later he returned and visited Tabitha’s shack and received a great surprise. Tabitha had used the money she made from the sale of collard greens to buy medical equipment and turn her home into a clinic. Ten years later the Tabitha Medical Clinic comprises 13 rooms with doctors and clinicians, X-ray and pharmacy and HIV counseling service with over 40,000 patients visiting each year. All this from $26 and someone who was willing to listen.

Barcott’s story can be found in his “It Happened on the Way to War” published 2011.

Unsweet Charity

Keith Waterhouse is the British writer of popular novel who died earlier this year. His 1992 “Unsweet Charity” makes an interesting point about the whole notion of charity. The fictional small town of Badgers Heath has an obsession with charities and good causes. Walk outside on any day and there will be people on stilts, or clown outfits, shaking cans and asking for donations to all manner of causes. The highlight of the year is their Bonfire night but this year the Bonfire Committee are approached with a new plan, a week long Bananaskin Week in which all the various energies of the community will be focused on a vast fund raising effort. But when it is proposed that rather than donating the money to a number of different charities, but rather to one “Children of the Brazilian Forest” , Eric one of the members has doubts. He doesn’t know anything about that particular charity or how much money will be wasted on administration. His colleague Barlow however replies that Eric is not really seeing the whole point of the enterprise.
Eric is willing to admit that, even if money is spent on administration, at least some of the money gets through and without it people would starve. But now Barlow points out that all this has nothing at all to do with charity. The whole point is not the starving children but that putting money in the tin can “makes us feel good”. After all, if people really cared about starving children they’d be down there in Africa or South America trying to help directly. But there is an easier way, simply write a cheque and then the world is off our back, and what’s more it gives is a rosy glow into the bargain. That’s why it’s better to give than to receive.
A very cynical point of view perhaps. But what about those Christmas cards we are receiving this time of the year with a very prominent message on the back that “the profits from this card are going to the following charities…” or “the sender of this card supports the following charity”? Christmas cards are a business like any other business and attaching them to a charity is, in a sense, a successful marketing approach and may indeed give the sender a rosy feeling into the bargan.