The Way I See It #3

It is not our job to save Africa.

Nowhere in any of my readings or my experiences on the ground in many parts of Africa, or any other impoverished nation for that matter, have I heard the words come out of someone’s mouth indicating that us Westerners should save them.

Imagine for a moment that there is little kid that just jumped off the diving board into the deep end of your pool. Now, if that kid is drowning, then yes you should save him. It is the same in situations like disasters or extreme famine. Sometimes there is going to be a situation that calls for emergency relief. It is going to be the responsibility for rich nations to come a long side and provide that relief.

But go back to that little kid in the pool. Even if he hadn’t been drowning, or in dire need of help, he may be in a situation where he needs a little encouragement. Maybe he doesn’t know how to swim correctly, or he’s tired of swimming. Now is when it is our job to come alongside of him and help. The same applies for how we should help those who can’t “swim” for themselves. We should never be so arrogant that we stand on the sideline with our list of reviews and economic outlines and dictate what these countries should do in order for them to get out of poverty, or even on a more personal note, tell a family what they are doing wrong.

Do you know what that says? It’s says, “I’m better and smarter than you, why don’t you just listen to me and do exactly what I tell you to do.” I don’t know about you, but I never want to hear that from someone, even if it was my older brother.

No. Instead, a relationship should be at the center and we come alongside of those that are in need and help them swim to the edge of poverty, and provide assistance when asked for. There is a popular African concept called ‘ubuntu’ that describes this act of working together perfectly. Archbishop Desmond Tutu gives this definition of Ubuntu:

“A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.”

One may completely disagree with me and this mindset of not being able to “save” an impoverished country, but I believe this is one reason why we keep on screwing things up.

Many people have this mindset that we should just throw money at the issue and eventually it will get fixed. In fact a lot of people think this way.

This is a problem.

It’s hard to not fall for this too, especially when you have economists talking to you about all the logistics of what so much money can do, and their charts and pie graphs look all cool and colorful, but most common folk don’t even know what they mean and tend to fall for the technical language of those that we entrust to just solve the problem, because it sounds like they got it in control.

You see I feel like one mistake that a lot of organizations make is that we know what’s best for those that are in poverty.

We impose our own culture, values, and expectations on other people that we see fit to try and save.

How do we change this? How do we get to the point where we see tangible results of aid but also a positive correlation with the treatment of human dignity that every human holds?

I just think it is very, very easy for us to get so separated from this issue, and in most cases, we are. Working with Dry Tears, an organization that provided clean drinking water for communities that previously didn’t have it, I would catch myself being more excited in the fact that we had been drilling all of these wells, not the fact that that the one kid I met in the village of Bonzan, Burkina Faso is now in school and is healthier as a result of the clean water. It’s extremely easy to lose focus of why we want to help people.

Sometimes it becomes all about us helping people and earning that credit, when rather it should be about us putting down our egos and helping people because we realize the full of impact of “ubuntu”. When we realize that we as humans are walking through life together.

There’s much to learn from the Christian community, and even though I myself is a part of it, even we could learn this lesson a bit better. The Christian community considers itself to be the Body of Christ. That as a church, there are different purposes for each person but yet they are working for the same results. And being apart of this body, each person should hurt when someone else is hurting, rejoice when someone else is rejoicing, and help pick up those who have fallen down.

But why does this only have to be a Christian understanding? Why can’t the secular world view people as their brothers and sisters rather than a liability, or a way for personal gain and to exploit? We exploit those that are in poverty, sometimes even when our intentions are to help them.

That’s just the way I see it…