From Quick Fixes to Lasting Solutions

The culture of instant gratification is fuelling the damage being done in the aid industry. When we approach a problem already trying to think of the solution, we miss all the steps in between – the vital listening and engagement that is needed to make any solution a permanent one. I recall an excursion I had with an Irish woman named Jo.

We went to visit a little boy she had met previously on the street in order to buy some rice to take to his family. It seemed like a kind gesture.

But when we got to the temple he was surrounded by friends, and when they asked if we could buy them some rice too, Jo responded, ‘No, we’re only here to buy rice for our friend.’ I felt awful, and I vowed I would never be part of exclusionary giving in such a communal society. What good would it do, to feed his family for a month but watch so many others go hungry? And what skills were we teaching that boy?

He and his friends would grow up with an expectation that hanging around tourist areas of the city and befriending unsuspecting foreigners would lead to their family being fed. His relationships with his friends would suffer. The dignity of his family would suffer. The boys may get into trouble for loitering in the tourist hotspots, skipping school in order to beg, so that when they grow up and they aren’t cute children that tourists will help, they will be young men with no education and their family still starving. I have seen firsthand what happens to these street children when their prospects dry up – drugs, glue-sniffing, and a complete lack of direction.