The Complexities of Helping Others

Is helping others actually helpful? Do helper individuals, organizations or entities actually provide help or does it just appear so? Sure, the questions have been asked before and should continue to be asked with a critical, ever-watchful eye.

Many societies and organizations help others. Whether through food, medicine, monetary, services, goods or otherwise, we have ample evidence of one or more organizations and societies pulling together to help those in need post-traumatic event such as with post-war reconstruction, floods, landslides, tornadoes, earthquakes, typhoons and reactor breach. Many of today's organizations from these helping countries and societies were specifically created in order to provide logistical and on-the-ground help to those in need immediately post-trauma, as well as, for middle to long-term recovery, transition and evolution. At question is the economies-of-scale effort investment, value and impact of the help. Helping is subjective. Financials are objective. Both are political. They do not easily meld together when it comes to meeting the needs of others. Helping is not without complexity, let alone controversy.

Through an international shipping logistics gentleman I am made aware of a church in the US who, wanting to help with famine efforts shown on a local news channel, contacted a church in Africa notifying them of their desire to be helpful and then sent an ocean-going container full of rice. The effort was of course valued. The US church, thinking the initial purchase of the rice and the transport fees being covered, sent the the container on the way while unknowingly failing to consider import/export border fees, transport medium change-over expenses and 'extra' fees sometimes associated with moving goods through corrupt countries. The African church was left to coordinate the 'last mile' of transport details, as well as, all remaining fees nearly equal to the value of the rice plus transport expenses. It turned out to be the gift that kept on taking.

To be helpful requires more thorough research, thought, understanding, planning and execution than initially anticipated when simply shipping the box.

Another gentleman in a first-world country decided he wanted to help all the shirtless people in Africa, so he started a company collecting one t-shirt, new or slightly used, plus $1.00 from each person to eventually send one million t-shirts to Africa to help with the plight of nakedness. Emotively this sounds noble to provide clothes to those who have no clothes. However, the effort was fraught with challenge. The cost of a container isn't one-million dollars. In fact, I personally know a family that moved a three-bedroom, three-bath, two-story double garage household in a 40-ft container from Iowa, USA to Zimbabwe, Africa by way of the Suez Canal and Durban, South Africa coming in at less than $20,000 for all transport, taxes, import and service management fees. How many t-shirts fit on a single 40-foot container I do not know. Additionally, the NGO and Aid Watch communities did not respond favourably to the situation rather counter-proposing that such monies be put into sustainable regional specific and context-driven solutions more applicable to the known individual country and regional problems at hand [Easterly2] [Fabian] [Jacobs]. Partnering with existing efforts on clean water, affordable medicine, education, food and sustainable wage earning were among the most popular counter-proposals. The company is now 'paused' according to the website [Sadler].

Yet another example of the complexity of helping. There is nothing wrong with a new NGO or Charity organization coming into existence particularly if the ability to execute exceeds that of existing organizations and/or it fills a yet unfilled niche. The revolt against this particular element was grounded in what may have been two perceptions including the helper's misunderstanding of true on-the-ground needs and what smelled to others like a revenue generating endeavour at the expense of others while marring the reputation of legitimate NGOs and Charity organizations. I've lived in Zimbabwe for nearly two years. I have never seen a shirtless person. I have, however, seen people who need access to clean water, consistent power generation, storage and delivery, affordable medicine, education, places to live and balanced meals. T-shirts don't solve any of these problems.

In a broad and informatively written book by Martin Meredith titled, "The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence", we learn of a situation in Somalia where German Red Cross workers were attempting to deliver food into the country for those in need only to be extorted by the eighty (80) hired gunmen who were supposed to be providing security for the effort. The security forces demanded 7x their agreed pay rate and disallowed movement of the shipment until granted. At the end of the all-day unplanned, unexpected negotiations the security forces received 3x the agreed rate and facilitated successful delivery of the goods [Meredith]. Even on the ground, helping is complicated.

To help is fraught with challenges that cannot reasonably or possibly be ascertained through television, radio, internet or other media alone. On-the-ground, in-person experience is required. And while helping existing aid organizations may be the best method of getting involved rather than attempting to go it alone with fragmented or incomplete knowledge, as discussed in a 2006 paper by William Easterly, even existing aid organizations are constantly challenged to evidence substantive progress and effectiveness [Easterly1].

It is important to understand far more details than superficially considered in a 60-second television or radio commercial showing some of the worst of all possible pictures of living conditions and children in a country you've previously not considered in existence. Though it may be important only to those who don't like to part with the money, products and/or services too quickly. It is entirely too easy to emotionally manipulate people into giving their money to an organization or cause because they do not think about the entire system implications. $35 per month auto-debited from my account? Sure. Where's it going? A website and glossy marketing materials do not a legitimate company make. $1 for a t-shirt to a naked child in a poverty-ridden country? Sure. $5 for a goat? Absolutely. I'll buy two.

Contribute to a situation financially. Ask questions first. Contribute to a situation by providing goods or services. Ask questions first.

For example, in a situation where clean water will be provided, it isn't enough to provide money that will dig a well, provide a manual pump and deliver clean water to people in need. How much of the money you provide goes to 'organizational administration' versus actual solutions to the people in need? Know anything about the population density or accessibility of the pump in the geography the solution is to be implemented? Are there actually people in the area the pumps will be installed? After the solution is implemented, how will it be maintained? Does the host government know this work is occurring and is approval provided? Is the organization you are about to support already working in this country? Are they working in any country? Does the staff actually have on-ground experience anywhere longer than a standard two to four-week holiday? Figuring out what questions to ask is time-consuming. Giving money blindly is not. The same critical thought process applies when providing products and services.

There is nothing wrong with an individual, organization or entity trying to help and we should be grateful for those willing to step up, get in there and be helpful. However, there is something wrong with the individual, organization or entity who helps without actually trying to understand if the help is actually helpful, let alone if the resources provided for the help actually make it to the imagined target-destination usefully and in a sustainable manner. Perhaps a charity organization's favorite donor is an uninterested, uninvolved one. "So go ahead, give your money. Just don't ask questions. Trust us, we have a cool website."

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[Easterly1] Easterly, William. "Are Aid Agencies Improving?". New York University. September, 2006.

[Easterly2] Easterly, William. "Nobody wants your old T-shirts". April 27, 2010.

[Fabian] Fabian, Christopher. "1 Million Tweetshirts - How to Fail Fast and With Scrutiny". April 28, 2010.

[Jacobs] Jacobs, Emma. "Botched Plan to Donate 1 Million Shirts Shows DIY Aid Pitfalls in Internet Age". May 12, 2010.

[Meredith] Meredith, Martin. "The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence". Free Press. 2006. Pages 472-473. ISBN-13: 978-0743232227

[Sadler] Sadler, Jason. "1 Million Shirts". July 28, 2010

[Shaikh] Shaikh, Alanna. "Nobody wants your old shoes: How not to help in Haiti". January 16, 2010.

The Continuation of a Journey

I have maintained another blog on software and change for some time discussing those things which are important to me and sometimes perhaps to others as well. Through time as I've finished graduate work in international relations, travelled and lived abroad, I've begun seeing the world as an interesting system of systems. A super-organism composed of seemingly infinitely decomposable sub-systems with complexities that we believe are sometimes predictable, many times unpredictable and often beyond our comprehension despite that which is in front of our face.

As I've continued to seek understanding of software and system evolution, I've sought understanding of people, culture, society, behaviors, predictability, unpredictability, action and result. Inevitably my interests have evolved past software systems into systems of culture, people, society, government, multi-national corporations, non-governmental organizations and charity organizations. I am irretrievably caught up in understanding societal development, manipulated or naturally evolving.

The material that follows this post will discuss system and sub-system interactivity, cause and effect, intention, action and result. Do helpers really help? When is policy and legislation prohibitive to societal evolution? When is a tyrant a tyrant versus a hero? Where are the boundaries of a nation-state preserving and advancing itself at the expense of others? I don't have answers to all these things and submit to you that what answers we derive today will require re-molding tomorrow with new contexts.

I look forward to the continuation of this journey.