We Need To Rethink Charity

 

Transcript:

Congratulations! You won the lottery and made one million dollars! The first thing you will do is buy yourself a nice car but the second thing you will do is take some of that money and donate it to the poor because you are a good human being. 

You buy some clothes and some food, you ship them to Africa and you feel good about it. And that is exactly the problem with charity.

What I'm about to say might not be politically correct but it must be said. We need to rethink charity. See, in today's world, it feels good to send food to poor countries. It feels good to volunteer with kids and take that selfie. It feels good to help. And I know how it feels because I did it too. 

Two years ago, I donated to 1,000 kids in the slums of the Philippines. I bought them hamburgers and clothes and I gave them out for free and I felt good about it. 

But little did I know that I was doing more harm than good. When I bought the food, what I did was essentially pay lots of money to help kids for three hours only until they are hungry again. 

The food I bought wasn't local or healthy. So, every restaurant in that area got less business. When I gave away clothes for free, every clothing shop in that area got less business. And with my food, I created a dependency. Every kid will grow to expect free food from tourists. 

And with this cycle of dependency, the local businesses die. The local economies die. And everybody there is waiting at the bottom with no job, waiting for the tourists to come in. 

Why would you learn how to fish when all the fish is free?

This isn't just my opinion, this is a real problem, extensively documented on the internet and backed by Presidents.

"We, rich countries have produced a lot of food and should sell it to poor countries and relieve them from the burden of producing their own food. So, thank goodness they can leap directly into the industrial era. It has not worked."

So, what's the solution to poverty? Well, there's no simple answer but there are many ways we can explore. Take Africa for example. Africa's main problem is not the famine, it's the fact that we exploit and exclude it.

So, let's reverse that. If you want to choose charities that employ locals for locals. If you want to travel, travel in Africa and support local tourism. If you want to hire, hire from Africa, they have talent.

It's flashy to give food and put it on the internet. But don't just do the flashy things because in reality, these places need better infrastructure, better healthcare, better education, better job opportunities.  Not rice, not shoes, not T-shirts made in the USA. Because in the history of planet Earth, no country has ever developed from donations. We've tried it for a hundred years and it doesn't work!

It's time for something new. Obviously, extreme disasters and famines are the exception but the rule is simple. You and I both have good intentions. And we need to give more and more. But let us give in a smarter way and let us never forget that even the road to hell is paved with good intentions.