Have you noticed the commercials of the sad African children on your TV lately? What about the people at the mall who stop you and just want a minute of your time?
NGOs who raise money for international aid are everywhere. They try to make us all feel bad for that poor, dirty African child who is conveniently photographed in dirty clothes, with snot running out of their noses and flies on their face.
This summer, as many of you know, I spent some time in Ghana. Kids are dirty because there is hardly any grass and they work and play all day. They have snot running out of their noses because they don’t use tissue and there are flies everywhere.
I’m sure I was covered in them at any given point in time on a hot day. This is not to say that all ads for international aid feature sad children.
There has been a significant change in the way children who need sponsorship are portrayed. Many of them are now photographed with big smiles on their faces and it’s because you gave your money to help them.
NGOs use marketing strategies. They want to hook the person into donating to their cause by progress they can show you. For organizations like World Vision, sad kids make people feel bad – so you want to sponsor them – and happy kids make people feel good about themselves because of their donation helped a child.
Many NGOs that deal with international aid for children let you choose the child you want to sponsor specifying the country they live in, their age, gender. They also give you a list of their chores and activities. In other words, you’re shopping for a child.
If you’re sponsoring someone out of the goodness of your heart, does it really matter what they look like or where they live? In some cases, yes, because you have a personal connection to that country, but in many, you choose your child judging by how cute they are or how sad they look.
Sponsoring a child and aiding a community are two different things and are not always bad but they do have consequences. If one child in a community of underprivileged children is sponsored, this child may become shunned by others because they are now “better off” than the others. It could also be a good thing.
This child will now have opportunities that the others won’t. For example, they will be able to go to school and become educated. This means that in the future they may be able to get a better job and later in life, help that community.
I recently found out that the school I worked at on Pediatorkope – an island in Ghana – only had the school I worked at and a hospital because of World Vision. They gave 1.8 billion cedies (their cedi is our dollar) to build a hospital, a school and housing for nurses who come to live on the island.
Other good things came out of this, too. An organization from the U.S. found out about the island’s school and hospital and installed solar panels so these new buildings would have electricity. They also gave each family with a school-aged child one or more rechargeable lanterns so they have free lighting and don’t have to spend as much money on kerosene and batteries.
In this case, the international aid wasn’t desperately needed, but it made a lot of people’s lives easier.
It gave the community a chance to get to a doctor faster without having to pay for transportation off the island.
More children were able to go to school because they don’t have to pay transportation fees. But with every good intention comes a fault.
Since the facilities were built in 2000, little has been done to maintain them. I would say this is because of both financial constraints and because trained professionals do not want to move from the city to a rural area that is underdeveloped.
For example, the school had a bat and mould infestation in the ceiling and door frames and window panes were falling. The only way to access money is with the signature of the head master, but the school doesn’t have one right now because no one wants to accept a job on the island.
Not all NGOs are bad. Some do really great work that benefits a lot of people. All I ask is that before you reach into your wallet, research where your money is going, think about what the repercussions of this aid could be and how much of your money is actually going to the cause you want to support.
