Comment by pkphilip | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pkphilip | Hacker News Reader

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As someone who has worked in community projects in rural areas, I would like to point out a few things:

1. It is not the donor's fault if the wells are not being maintained properly. Ideally this should be something that the locals are paid and trained to do but honestly, if you can't even be bothered to take care of your primary source of water, you have big problems which cannot be solved by ANYONE's philanthropy.

2. That brings me to the point about local attitudes towards donors and what is done for them: I have seen locals really benefit from things donated to them and they then use the new facilities to build a much better future for themselves and their children. HOWEVER, I have also seen locals who absolutely waste whatever is given to them. They may even loot everything down to the last nut and bolt. I have some theories about why this happens (based on personal experience) but I have noticed very different outcomes in different villages for the EXACT SAME help received from donors.

If a community isn't prepared, willing or able to maintain a well, is building a well in that community a good example of philanthropy? or is it an example of a lazy one-size fits all solution that reflects poorly on the donor, not the community? The donor is responsible for their choice of donation.

It is a complicated problem. A single village may consist of multiple groups who don't get along with each other. Also, there are people who benefit from the status quo in many ways.

Secondly, there is this issue of trust. There are villages where the people simply do not trust each other AT ALL. I have seen villages where each person thinks they ought to steal first before their neighbours do.

What responsibility does the donor have to evaluate the trust issues?

If someone is willing to donate a new facility, but the local people would prefer the "nuts and bolts" which make up the facility, why should they respect the donor's wishes over their own needs?

The nuts and bolts won't be evenly distributed and cause discord among the people. The new facility may too if not everyone benefits from it. And that is probably the reason why some people prefer the nuts and bolts. That is the risk of every charity and it is the responsibility of the donors to evaluate that risk. If the donor's wishes don't align with the peoples needs then the donor is doing something wrong.

Learning about this, and figuring out how to make a positive impact without upsetting some people is what I am trying to do here. I have had people tell me that the mere visit of a foreigner to one family caused envy among the neighbors because they assumed that this family was getting money from that visitor, and then they made up stories about that family and tried to discredit them with their landlord.

My point is that EVEN IF the donor gives funds towards a project which is immediately looted by those receiving the donation, it is not the donor's fault. The blame for this would still lie squarely on the shoulders of the locals who looted the project to their own detriment.

One of the issues with the thinking around community projects is the propensity to consider beneficiaries of donations as though they can't possibly do anything wrong - so the thinking goes that if a project fails the blame should never be placed on the beneficiaries - it can be placed on donors, the intermediate agencies, monitoring agencies.. EVERYONE apart from the beneficiary.

I am not supportive of such an approach.

I think it is far more helpful in the long run to make it very clear to the folks in these areas that if the donations made to them are misused that it will impact all donations in the future - that it is contingent upon them to ensure that the donations are well used, that the equipment is protected etc.. and that there are real consequences to not doing that.

That is, treat them as adults - not as infants. Make them accountable. Stop pussyfooting around talking about tough issues. Have people explain why something was allowed to be looted etc.

How much effort does one need to put into evaluating a community compared to building a well? It could be that a 60% failure rate is more efficient than a 0% failure rate with costly evaluations.

(I'm not familiar with Mr. Beast. I will say that the 2 videos I've seen bordered on psychopathy. But I think the general principle of my statement is still worth exploring.)

This is just an anectote, but I have had the opportunity to visit a village where such a well has been built by a charity. The charity was specifically invited to build the well there because months prior a child had drowned in the waterhole that they used before. I suspect if the villagers would have been able to pool enough resources they would have paid for it by themselves. The things needed to build the well are readily available (I passed a shop in a bigger city in the same country recently that sold them) and it's just a matter of finding some skilled people to do the work.

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