Introduction
As a first world country, we have completely mishandled helping with third- world poverty abroad. Many people want to help with the poor living conditions and wages abroad, but our help is hurting the economy more and leading to more poverty. Instead of assisting with fixing the issue, we have made it significantly worse. Through the old attitudes of paternalism, instead of giving people the tools to escape poverty we oversaturate the market, destroy local businesses, and come at random making it very difficult for a market to develop. We must spend time in these countries and take the time to understand the role we play in the situation.
Identifying the Issues in our Handling of Poverty Abroad
One of the first issues with the handling of poverty abroad is our view of Africa. The international view of Africa being barren, poor, and unable to provide for themselves is unfair. Africa has always been resource rich with oil, diamonds, timber, and land. They are just disconnected from global trade for many reasons leading to a cycle of poverty. This misguided viewpoint continues the cycle of paternalism which ultimately hurts the very people we are trying to help. Another issue with the way we handle poverty is the oversaturation of the market with items like rice or shoes, Toms. The giving out of items like rice or shoes leads to the local economy being hindered more and more and a dependance being created on 1st world countries for survival. In Haiti, after the earthquake, the country needed serious help. This led to the US providing Haiti with subsidized rice for people to continue to buy. However, the local farmers in the area could not provide rice at the same rate and ended up being put out of business by the charities. This meant that these rural villages collapsed because the people lost their income and moved to the already crowded cities with limited space and jobs. The charity of these first world countries deepened poverty in these areas and led to a dependence on these countries for food because now they had lost many of their local farmers. Another example is TOMS Shoe company. TOMS promised to donate a pair of shoes to a child in need in Africa for every pair of shoes bought. However, what this ended up doing is putting the local town cobbler out of work. Shoes that cost money are always more expensive than free. However, this meant that people had no skin in the game and will eventually begin to look for the best ‘free thing’ rather than building up the local economy. A third issue with our handling of poverty abroad is the social system for orphanages. Because orphanages can provide an education, food supply, and more opportunities for their children, some parents will surrender their children to these orphanages but still visit and maintain their connection to that child. These children are known as poverty orphans. Some of these children are then adopted by families in the US expecting these children to have had no one even though this notion is untrue. The orphanage system encourages parents to surrender their children which in turn teaches the children in the system that this is the way to raise a child. This is extremely hurtful for both the parents and the children. If they had the chance or opportunity to raise the children well, then most of these parents would choose to keep their children. Instead of providing them with resources and opportunities to provide for their child, the orphanage system encourages families to split up causing much more pain in the process. Overall, the way first world countries have handled poverty abroad has ultimately hurt the economies more than it has helped them.
Ideas on How to Effectively Change
To effectively change, we need to listen to the needs of the community from the community. Leaders in Africa recognize the problem but when speaking out about it are often shut down. To fully provide aid well, you need to live in and understand the community to understand how to meet their needs. The underlying issue in many of these communities is that there are not enough jobs for these people to provide for their families. Therefore, one of the best ways to help these countries is to train them in a job skill and then give them or help them find employment in this field. Many charities just offer handouts rather than addressing the root cause of not enough work. Giving people the opportunity to provide for their families is life-changing and gives them a new sense of self-worth. People ultimately have a desire to work and have a desire to provide. *We as first world countries do not need to give out handouts, but rather teach people skills to help them gain valuable employment, land, and more. *
Conclusion
Overall, the way we address poverty in third world countries needs to be addressed and changed. Rather than assisting countries we instead perpetuate the cycle of poverty by encouraging dependent consumerism. This has led to these countries’ cycle of poverty becoming worse and us having to provide aid over an extended period of aid. We must do better by listening to these people, training them in valuable job skills, and by lessening the amounts of handouts to support local businesses.