Sitting out, killing time

[jianantonic]

It's near the end of match 4. The medicine I took this morning is finally kicking in and I feel a little better. I'm definitely in again for match 6, but probably not match 5...so I have another hour+ to kill. And I thought I'd like to sound off about something I've surely sounded off about in the past, since it's on my mind.

The caddies here are all volunteers from Habitat for Humanity, using the money they're earning working for the tournament to travel to some other country to do volunteer work. I think this is great. Bermuda is a very rich place, and also very small, and people who want to do charity work here can only do so much. So they leave the island to do their volunteering, which is a great expense, and yes, less efficient than just sending the money to where it's needed rather than paying to send people to do the work...but it's a valuable experience for the volunteers, too, so again, I have no problem with this.

I do have a problem with Americans and people from other countries with significant poor populations raising thousands of dollars to send a bunch of people to some other continent or tropical island to volunteer. I'm not saying there shouldn't be outreach to our foreign friends, but this is SO INEFFICIENT, and on top of that, just plain wasteful, when there's so much good that money could do locally. It's kind of a slap in the face to the people in our own communities who need help when we raise ten grand to send a group of kids to go help people elsewhere and do nothing for them. I don't see this as being charitable; I see it as being selfish. Calling it a charity so you can get other people to give you money to go someplace awesome. Yeah, you'll work a little bit, maybe even really hard, but is it ever worth the cost of sending workers abroad at the expense of the poor who could use that help right here, where it would go so much farther without the overhead costs of airlines and hotels?

If you're really serious about international aide, join the Peace Corps for a year, or if you can't swing that commitment, volunteer locally for the time you can afford, and send your plane fare to the international charity of your choice. That would be so much more helpful, and the only down side is you don't get a free trip to Costa Rica. The weight of this "down side" is directly correllated to the good intentions or lack thereof behind your mission trip.

So whenever some church group (it's almost always a church group) asks me for a donation to "send our kids to Africa to volunteer," I say I'll send money to Africa if your kids will go serve some dinners in the local soup kitchen or something. I've never understood why no one else is as annoyed by this practice as I am. Let's call a spade a spade. You're not raising money for charity. You're doing charity work so you don't feel guilty about asking others to pay for your vacation.

I started to write about this on my WOW blog, but decided against it and instead just wrote about Habitat for Humanity and taking inexpensive bus trips to disaster areas to help rebuild, and using your Spring Break to take a volunteer trip with a school group. My 67-year-old father rides a bus 20 hours to Mississippi every few months to camp in a tent and help with Katrina rebuilding efforts for a week at a time. He pays for his own expenses and there is very little overhead cost in a trip like this vs. vacation charity work that includes international plane tickets and hotels. So I'm all for the kind of charity travelling my dad does, and that's what I focussed on in that post, which will be up the next time I have internet access on my own computer, because I couldn't figure out how to do all the necessary formatting in the Mac browser.

Anyway, that's why I think missions trips are usually just selfish scams.

Comments

[quandary87.livejournal.com]

Technically you should probably be pissed at the HfH kids from Bermuda too... they could be more effective if they volunteered to tutor kids online in African through the Internet from Bermuda, or worked at something on the island donated the money.

I agree though. Things like alternative spring break and mission trips are a waste of resources, they aren't even charity and its just selfish. And you're right. It's not worth it. For the cost of one airplane ticket to somewhere in Africa or South American (say $600) you could pay 2 people for 1 year to do whatever you wanted to get done in those countries.

Sorry, I'm bored at work. How's the bridge coming along?

[jianantonic.livejournal.com]

I played in the first two and the last (of 6 8's) and we blitzed the last to put us in contention for 1st, but we needed another team to lose and they didn't...so we were 2nd overall. Not too shabby.

[jianantonic.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm not really annoyed with the Bermuda Habitat kids because they were WORKING to fund their trip, not asking for donations.

[(Anonymous)]

Good point, of course. When you work, you can do whatever you want with the money... and I guess its sorta admirable if you use it to help people, however ineffective you may be at it.

-Q

[jianantonic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I mean, make no mistake about it, they're taking a vacation -- but they're paying for it themselves and they're helping out. I do think it's important for people to see how the less fortunate live, and in Bermuda, everyone's pretty fortunate, from what I've seen here. Either that or they do a really good job of hiding their poor people.

[flamingophoenix.livejournal.com]

You're exactly right. My church had a youth trip in high school, but my parents didn't let me go because of exactly the points you're making--it's wasteful to spend that money on a plane ticket when all I know how to do that's useful is speak French. So I saved my babysitting money and made a donation instead, and now I'm glad my parents made that decision.

It's the whole "think globally, act locally" deal. There are enough suffering people in America. You'll be a lot more efficient if you help *them.*

Your point about the "please pay for my vacation" aspect is well taken, too.

Also, I will steal your suggestion idea if anyone ever asks me for money. :-)

Point to Ponder

[(Anonymous)]

One of the purposes a charity has in seeking hands-on participation from supporters is the effect of the participation on the donor. Working in the soup kitchen has more of an effect on a person than writing a check to the soup kitchen. You have more respect for your dad's commitment to Katrina relief than if he sat in C'ville and wrote an occasional check and mailed it. Other hands-on participants are also more effective advocates for their causes than are those who merely write checks. Charities want this effect, so they encourage the hands-on participation.

-- Kevin

Re: Point to Ponder

[jianantonic.livejournal.com]

Sure, but there's plenty of hands-on charity work needed locally, almost anywhere. Do the work locally, send the money saved to other places that also have people who can do the work locally. I don't deny that it can be beneficial to a volunteer to travel somewhere new and see first hand what's going on in other places, but I do still call it a vacation.

Re: Point to Ponder

[flamingophoenix.livejournal.com]

This is true, but I still think it's wasteful to spend $1500 to travel YOURSELF to a poor country, when the $1500 you spent on the plane ticket could be used to do SO MUCH MORE GOOD if you just donated it straight. Probably, even, when you factor in charity overheads.