JANUARY 6 ― I sat there, amidst a pile of donated clothes, and tears began falling down my cheeks. I had initially been thrilled to see the large bags of clothes that had been sent for my babies, heaven knew they needed clothes especially with the season changing, but that thrill turned to a pit in my stomach as I reached in the bag to pull out tiny little clothes.
They say beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose that is true. But sometimes beggars wish that for once they didn’t need to beg, and wished that for once they could just choose.
My little precious, sick, babies could neither choose nor beg; but they had needs and for those things they trusted me to provide. That provision often came by way of well-meaning friends and strangers who heard about them and wanted to help.
I believe in my heart that each and every person who donated goods to the children wanted to help in some way, perhaps whatever small way they could. But as I pulled clothes out of the bag that were ripped, stained, soiled, had missing buttons and broken zippers, I ached for my kids whose status in the world as “abandoned and orphaned” felt as if it was being announced to everyone.
These large bags of donated clothes said that they weren’t as important as other children. That what someone else didn’t want on their children, was good enough for these children.
It wasn’t long after that that I was sitting in the middle of a similar pile of clothes and toys on another continent sorting through bags of donated toys that were broken and useless, ripped and stained clothes, and expired medical supplies and medications.
I know that those of us who have much find it difficult to throw away things that surely must still have some use in them. Or perhaps, we feel that there must be someone who could use it; after all we are just going to go buy a new one.
Good enough for the Chinese orphans, good enough for the Ugandan orphans and impoverished people.
But it isn’t ok. And here is why.
When a child is sitting in a slum with no shirt, he will take a stained and ripped shirt, because he is a beggar. He is not a chooser. But that stained and ripped shirt will subtly say to him, and to others, that he isn’t worth better. It will say to him that he can’t get better. It will say to others, potential employers, that he doesn’t care for himself and has nothing. It will not be good enough for him to wear to school, or church, or to a potential job. Just as any of us feel good in a new suit or a nice dress, the opposite also occurs and self worth is measured, to a degree, in how we look.
Though unintended by the giver, that stained shirt says he isn’t as good as the giver's son, and he doesn’t deserve more. But he does. In fact, probably, he deserves far more, for life has been unreasonably cruel to him.
There is also a larger problem that is occurring worldwide in developing nations. A problem bigger than stained and broken donated items.
Many nations, and especially orphanages, open their arms to volunteers and missionaries. These volunteers are typically young people, often not yet even in university, who are unskilled but come and volunteer by doing jobs that they are not trained for and which, in their home countries, would not be allowed.
One example of this is young people who go to the slums and poor villages and medically treat people when their experience in anything medical was a first aid class, another example would be of young people who come to teach either specific things or non-specific general knowledge studies having had no teaching experience and often not even having any understanding of the culture in which they are in.
And to some extent I get it. Young people from more privileged countries do often have some knowledge or access to resources that the people that they are volunteering around haven’t had. Thus they are able to, at least in pretense, have some ability to help.
The problem with this is that this engenders a situation where local professionals are undermined and not given a chance to work properly and where in many situations is illegal for locals. A medical practitioner in almost every country must be licensed, same as a teacher, yet these volunteers work with no formal licensing or oversight.
Again this perpetrates a situation whereby we are saying “it is good enough for them” which inadvertently says to the local people that they aren’t as good.
As a medical professional one of the recurring situations I see is people in the medical field coming to serve on medical mission teams in developing nations and beginning programmes that they believe will help yet which are not equal to the standards of care which they are required to work in in their home countries where they are licensed.
I have seen this happening over and over, programmes started which in many cases would not be allowed in their own countries and would not be good enough for their own children or family members. This happens in every sector, from medicine to education, to sanitation, to development.
When this happens, and when we do this, no matter that our motives and intentions are good, we are saying that some lives are worth more than others. Whether it is a shoe box of toys, a major surgery, a school programme, or a well; if we wouldn’t give it to our own child, or we wouldn’t, or couldn’t, start the programme in our own countries, then ultimately we shouldn’t allow it to happen in developing nations. Because, when we do, a vicious cycle proliferates within that community as well as in the world.
So I am asking you, whether you are cleaning out your closets for the Salvation Army, a local orphanage, getting ready to embark on a volunteer trip, or you are supporting work in another country, make sure you are not unintentionally saying “you aren’t worth it.” Make sure that it is good enough for you, or your children, or your family.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
