During the "Helping Without Hurting in Africa" workshop in Kampala last week, we discussed many issues and looked at how to alleviate poverty and support the vulnerable. Some of the topics included:
- What is poverty?
- Broken Relationships in Africa
- Fighting Poverty Through Reconciliation
- Relief, Rehabilitation, and Development
- Broken Systems
- Prosperity Gospel
- Benevolence
- and much more
One afternoon, we were talking about ways we could better support people with physical disabilities and a few church leaders were finally grasping that many people are outcast simply because there are no wheelchair ramps and accessibility points. So, just after that discussion, we were given a scenario:
"If a donor gave $1000 USD to our training group today, how should that money be spent to benefit our group and improve our training location?"
The group was divided into two. Males and Females - and what happened next blew me away.
The men spoke in percentages and the ladies spoke in figures.
The men wanted to collect membership fees from the attendees, to invest in a future sustainability project. Then they created a list of items and percentages:
Training materials - 10%
Furniture & Accessibility - 10%
Consultant
Location 10%
Running costs 20%
Investing 50%
Membership adds 9,900,000
Identify our training group - 20 women
Budget - 3,600,000 Ugandan shilling ($1000 USD)
1. Toilet improvements - lights, locks, soaps - 1,000,000
2. Venue is too hot, therefore 1,000,000 for more fans or A/C
3. Meals should include fruits/juice - 500,000
4. More inclusive out of classroom activities
5. Improve the projector screen - cloth 30,000
6. Provide welcome packages - notebooks, pens, sweets - 500,000
7. Need of a wheel chair ramp - 500,000 or change venue
The ladies still had money to spare.
I think it would have been good to have a third committee formed of both men and women, just to see the outcome. Neither party understood the other at the time of presentation. Some people said they would never send a donation if they knew there money wasn't being spent on the assigned area. And others said that women never dreamed of tomorrow. That they just spend the money for today.
The manual for the course summarized this scenario in this way: "When trying to help a community, it is very important to have people participate irrespective of their gender, education, race, age, religion, or disabilities. To disregard any group in the community will result in missing vital information and possibly cause us to hurt some people while trying to help the community."
Sadly I learned that even our little roleplay hurt the community. A wonderful Bible school hosted the training, and it receives all of its funding indigenously. There were church leaders and NGO workers who came from projects who are used to foreign aid or support, and so their list of expectations was higher and more entitled. The self esteem of a few of the hosts was injured because of the assignment, when the ladies berated the toilets. (Which I learned earlier in the workshop - people believe they have hosted well if their toilets are clean and presentable, and that was the highest expectation on the list). I just want to finish by saying, the hosts did a fantastic job hosting us for 5 days. They worked hard, the venue was spacious, the food was delicious, they had a photographer, a meet and greet committee, and overall it went very well.
People left informed, challenged and ready to implement a lesson learned. My goal is to help our church in Gulu develop a policy for benevolence and giving.
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