DO HANDOUTS HELP?
Identifying the cause and effect of free handouts in the developing world.
She tried to give me her baby. I was fresh off the plane from sunny San Diego California, just a few days since I first stepped foot in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I had barely had time to wrap my mind around the initial culture shock and seemingly desperate reality of the poor. And there I was. In the middle of chaos when a women whom I have never met before turned to me, knowing I was a foreigner, and tried to hand me her child. There was desperation in her eyes as she told me “she will be better off with you”. My heart broke. How could a mother who loved her child want to give her to me simply because I was a foreigner? What has caused this mother to feel like her best option was to rely on a foreigner? The raw reality of dependency on foreigners was evident. Years of seemingly innocent acts of donations by foreigners has created a dynamic that is patronizing the poor.
The poverty I was experiencing seemed simple to me. People didn’t have enough money. When we see people who are living in economic poverty, the easiest answer would seem be, to give them money and things to get out of that poverty. To the people living in poverty it is far different. In fact, some could argue it is not about money at all. It is a sense of hopelessness, inferiority to the foreigner, a lack of dignity, and voicelessness (Miller, M.M., & Fitzgerald J.F., 2014). The feelings of “being less than” have only been perpetuated through well-intentionedactions of the foreign visitors. If the living in poverty means so much more than just not having material things, then giving material things is not going to fix poverty.
To understand how this “Pearl of the Antilles” became what it is today, you must understand the rich and complex history the country contains. Before Columbus arrived on the island, Hispaniola in 1492, there were natives living throughout called Taino and Arawakan. Within a short time, the population of natives was violently wiped out. The Spanish overtook the island that was rich in gold. The French heard of the newfound fortune and began to settle on the island as well. The island was then split in two. The west side of the island was the French, and is now Haiti. The East side was colonized by the Spanish and is now known as the Dominican Republic. During this time the transatlantic trade arose. Slaves were imported by the thousands to work on sugarcane plantations, bringing wealth to the Europeans. The brutal treatment of the slaves was some of the worst in all of history. Most of the slaves only lived about 10 years after landing in Haiti. The Europeans continued importing them, thousands upon thousands. What the colonials failed to realize was that they were quickly being outnumbered.
By 1789 there were approximately twelve black slaves for every white inhabitant. It was a recipe for a revolution. In 1791 the revolt began and by 1804 the first black Republic came into existence. The years to follow were were filled with continued racial and economic oppression. France demanded Haitians pay them for the loss of plantations, and this payment lasted until after 1945 (Polyne, 2013; Taber, 2015). This deep rooted history of foreign reign and black oppression has been unintentionally emphasized by modern day (predominately white) foreigners creating economic dependency by free foreign aid to Haiti.
More than 200 years after the revolution, Haiti’s hardships continue.
Trade embargoes, corrupt and violent governments, and natural disasters have kept Haiti from economic freedom. One of most well known natural disasters was the earthquake of 2010. Immediately foreign relief workers fled to Port-au-Prince to help. Years later and those same relief efforts are still there. Haiti has become what some call the Republic of NGO’s, commonly known as “nonprofits”. There are more non-profits per capita than anywhere else in the world (Corbett, S. & Fikkert, B., 2009). Once such neighborhood effected by the constant arrival of free foreign aid is Delmas, located in the heart of Port-au-Prince with a population of 400,000.
Haiti is less than a two hour flight from Florida, and the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, making it the ideal location for short-term missionaries. These missionaries usually have a one-time trip to Haiti. They spend less than two weeks in the country, doing service projects and delivering handouts to the poor in an effort to fight 200 years of poverty. Before people come to Haiti on a short-term mission trips, the trip leader usually sends of a list of things to collection for handing out. Many times these are items that people have discarded and have stacked up in their closet meaning to drop them off at Goodwill, or cheap toys that will soon break. These items then get distributed by foreigners to the poor throughout Haiti, and more specifically Delmas, Port-au-Prince.
According the Shelley Clay (2017), an American social entrepreneur, living in Haiti for more than 10 years, handouts have crippled the economy in Delmas. “We once had a short-term missions team come and visit our artisans facility in Delmas wanting to give out free toiletries to our artisans who all had jobs. The artisans took the gifts gladly as it was about a month’s supply. We were not wanting to hurt the feelings of the people who came and wanted to generously give.” This compassionate act had weighty consequences. There was an element that the foreigners were unable to see during their short time in Delmas. In this case that element was “Rose”, a street vendor in the neighborhood who sold toiletries. Over the course of the next month Rose was unable to make a sale. Her clients did not need her products, they already had what they needed, given to them by the foreigner. In her desperation to make money to feed her family, Rose dropped prices. When the month was over, she had nothing to reinvest and buy more supplies. Her business died. The generous act of the foreigner, caused malnutrition for Rose’s family and lack of funds for her children’s school. Clay states “Some lessons are learned the hard way.”
Giving donations instead of empowerment, undermines people abilities to care for themselves. Anthropologist Greg Beckett expands on this idea with a more physiological approach “Instead of reproducing valued and desired social relations of mutual dependence, humanitarianism transforms care into a dehumanizing relationship in which some people are treated not as a person but as a dog.” (G. Beckett, 2017) Beckett spent his time in Haiti collection interviews from locals in Port-au-Prince. He goes on to explain that in Haitian culture relationships are built around community and relying on each other for help when needed. When a foreigner comes in and breaks this dynamic, Haitians no longer have the option to rely on each other but must rely on the donations of the foreigner. Over time this changes the culture and eventually the economy. Giving a handout sabotages the person’s capacity to care his own resources and potential. This makes a person feel unworthy and they will potentially stop seeking employment, and in turn, cripple the economy.
Many short-term participants may argue that there is a desperation of poor that requires immediate attention through donations of food, clothing and shelter. While this is true, it should only be implemented in specific situations. These are referred to as relief situations. For example, a political crisis, genocide, or natural disaster. In these cases items such as food, hygiene products, housing and clothing can be provided. The key though, is to purchase these items from the country you are distributing them in if possible. This will provide for those in immediate need, but also strengthen the economy in the meantime. After the earthquake of 2010, more than 3.9 billion dollars of foreign aid was pledged (Ichniowski, 2010). Imagine if that 3.9 billion dollars was spent buying rice, water, and materials for houses from areas of Haiti not affected by the earthquake. In Figure 5, the graph demonstrates that a very small percentage of the funds was actually given to Haitian ran businesses and organizations. Instead this money was used to pay the overhead costs for foreign employees and imported materials. What if that 3.9 billion (pledged) dollars was used not only to buy Haitian products but also employ Haitian people? The impact on the economy would have been monumental. Not only would it have increase employment opportunities, but it would have also showcased the local’s skills and ability, creating a sense of worth and equality.
Empowerment through employment is the flickering light of hope for Haiti. Local entrepreneur, Bekenson Pierre, gives this piece of advice for foreigners wanting to help Haiti, “Offer a hand-up rather than a hand-out.” He expands on this idea by discussing the long-term positive impacts of economic empowerment. He states that “Poverty is less about money and more about opportunity.” Creating opportunity for low income populations can be the ladder out of poverty. The alternative to handouts is implementing sustainable projects such as job creation, sharing of intellectual resources, and connecting Haiti to the international market are the keys to true freedom.
A year after my first trip to Haiti, I moved to Delmas, where I have lived full time for the past five years. The decisions I made when I arrived were hurting the poor more than helping. The longer I have spent here the more I see the need for economic empowerment and feel the desperation to educate people on the harm that free handouts cause. I now work with Shelley Clay (mentioned above) the founder of Papillon Marketplace. Itis a social business with the mission of employing moms and dads who are working their way out of poverty and providing for their children’s future. To best communicate this impact, the employees have shared their thoughts about what a job means to them in the photographs below.
Creating empowerment for the material poor, requires more than providing those people with only material things. It involves a difficult endeavor of equipping them with skills and opportunity to obtain material things through their own labor (Miller, M.M., & Fitzgerald J.F., 2014, p. 203). When we can create jobs and connect the poor to the global market, we can restore the person to be who they were created to be: a beautiful individual with talents, gifts, hopes and dreams. The foreigners job is no longer to drop in, handout stuff, and then never return. It is to create long-lasting meaningful and mutual relationships that are surrounded by the belief that we are created equal and we are all worthy of dignity.
Photo by: Soul Dreamer
Citations
Beckett, G. (2017). A Dog’s Life: Suffering Humanitarianism in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. American anthropologist, Volume 119, issue 1.
Clay, S., personal communication, July 8, 2017.
Corbett, S. & Fikkert, B. (2009) When helping hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poorand yourself. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.
Ichniowski, T. (2010). Haiti Seeking $3.9 Billion for First Reconstruction Phase. ENR: Engineering News-Record, Volume 264, Issue 12.
Miller, M.M., & Fitzgerald J.F., & Miller, M.M. 2014. Poverty, Inc. USA: Action Institute.
Pierre, B., personal communication, July 8, 2017.
Polyne, M. (2013) The idea of Haiti. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Taber, R. (2015). Navigating Haiti’s History: Saint-Domingue and the Haitian Revolution.
History compass, Volume 13 (issue 5).