Anyone who has spent time in the developing world will be familiar with what I decided to term the Pied Piper effect, the involuntary entourages of small children, who tug enthusiastically away at coat tails with one hand, whilst upturning their other in a gesture of optimistic supplication. Stock phrases such as ‘Gimme Pen’ or ’ One Dollar’ pepper the African, Asian and South American air. Giving does little to relieve the frustration. It was during a recent trip to Northern Ethiopia that I began to think seriously about what “charity” means for me. It is not about alleviating guilt. The true source of charity lies in the idea of community.
Everyone develops their own method of dissolving the clusters of children who pursue them like Hamlyn’s entourage. Some ignore and push through the hoards, hoping the children will tire of the baiting and return to playing with their friends. Others shoo them away. In moments of sympathy, small change is tipped out of pockets into tiny hands. Then there are the moments of extreme generosity when free hotel pens may even be exchanged.
But this is not genuine charity. Giving to these children is born of frustration. Of wanting to be left alone. It is the same urge that makes me avoid the clipboard toting chuggers (charity muggers) soliciting for direct debits on Fleet Street. Whether on the streets of London or the streets of Africa, giving in this way is neither genuine nor heart-felt.
I, like others, care little for the umpteenth child I have seen that day. Nor for whatever cause is being touted by the clipboard activist. If I give small change, a pen or even my bank details, the exchange is born of guilt, not philanthropy.
‘They go and spend it on a Coca-Cola’ I was told by a city tour-guide ‘ Either that or on sweets. They are just kids, they don’t know any better.’ I understood immediately. There is nothing wrong with children chasing after tourists. It is a universal trait in children toseek out the opportunity for a treat. But for many adults in Ethiopia, the practice is an affront not simply to their pride as parents, but as Ethiopians.
I misjudged my budget for a weekend trip to the Monolithic Churches of Lalibela. With the remainder of my money nestling in the safe of my hotel room back in Addis, some 200km away, I found myself walking 15km, in the rain, to the airport the morning of my flight.
By chance the town’s guides were driving to the airport that morning to collect clients. On their way, they saw me staggering down the road, soaked. They picked me up, took me to the airport, fed me a hearty breakfast of injeera (Ethiopian sour bread) and lentils outside the terminal, before proceeding to have a whip round. Between the fifteen guides, they collected just over $15 which they handed to me for a taxi ride from the Airport in Addis Ababa and food during my journey. It was a striking gesture; it was clear that I didn’t need the money but would have caused offence had I not accepted it. As a stranger in their country, the community saw to it that I was safe. It was a sincere group act of charity towards a stranger.
That experience taught me that for me, charitable giving is not about being backed into a corner and guiltily dishing out pennies because you can. Charity is the coming together of people as a group to support someone or something that has neither the means nor proclivity to do so themselves. It’s about a community supporting strangers in need. This act can in itself, bind communities together.
There will always be children tugging on sleeves to see if they can get a dollar, and it most likely does little harm to give one. But that is not charity. Binding people together with a common outlook creates communities. It is through these communities that the true spirit of charity is able to resonate.
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Prospero’s Singapore and London teams are once again reunited this week in London, where I have come to spend two weeks training. Today we made our first UK fieldtrip to Snaresbrook Crown Court. The purpose of the morning was to better understand the UK justice system by observing proceedings in Court, under the watchful eye of the Prospero World Charitable Trusts Chairman and Judge, Murray Shanks.
As we walk up the sweeping driveway to Snaresbrook Court, we are struck by the power of the building’s purpose. Originally built as an Infant Orphan Asylum in 1843, the building was first converted into a school before it became a court of law.
We arrive at Murray’s chambers to find him sipping his espresso behind his desk in his robes, which to me strongly resemble royal Bhutanese robes. The welcoming smell of musky incense and coffee makes us feel right at home.
After a 20 minute flight in a 1960’s propeller plane, I arrive in the small, bustling, industrial town of Birgunj a mile and a half from the Indian border. This is prime trafficking territory.
I leave the airport and head straight to my first meeting. My senses are overwhelmed. People, cars, taxis, buses, trucks, dogs, goats and cyclists busy the streets. Pollution swarms in the air. Fruit-walas spill onto pavements. A man in front of me spits dust he has collected in his throat as I pick my way through the battered roads to Maiti Nepal’s head office in Gaushala. With the helpful directions of locals, I find my way there without getting lost. Everyone, it seems, knows the organisation.
The hospice serves HIV positive women and children as well as those with drug resistant tuberculosis, hepatitis and other incurable diseases. Many of the women and children here have been trafficked and prostituted. Others are orphaned, or have been expelled from their villages because of their illness. For the 70,000 people who are HIV positive in Nepal, life is marked by stigma. They are typically, neither accepted nor cared for. Where their families accept the condition, the disease is frequently hidden to avoid embarrassment or being ostracised.
The plight of young girls sold into prostitution – often deliberately- by a family member has been written up in harrowing detail by Cambodian author Somaly Mam in her award-winning book, ‘The Road of Lost Innocence.’ Prostitution and the giant and menacing rackets that grow around it are well documented. Paedophilia is far more sinister – although the young age at which many of the young girls are sold, and the level of abuse they experience, mean that in reality the two terms are often interchangeable.
I ask what the scale of the problem really is and how one can be sure that it is accurately documented. He replies that according to EU research, 4.5% of all tourists are sex perpetrators, of which 10% are paedophiles. That means that out of 2.2 million tourists travelling to Cambodia, 80,000 are sex perpetrators and 8000 of those are paedophiles. To make it tangible, it means that in a plane carrying 200 people, 1 at least would be a child abuser.
In the last year APLE performed 254 investigations leading to 37 arrests. They work with hundreds of children every year.
Auray takes me to see the recently built school for deaf and blind children. It is made up of several large buildings and is painted bright yellow. It cost around a million dollars to construct. There is the sound of plinking and plonking which comes from a faraway music room.
I land in Phnom Pehn at 9:30 and zoom to the guesthouse to drop my luggage before bouncing back into a tuktuk and speeding off to the North West of Phnom Pehn to meet with Krousar Yoeung. Sandra spent the day visiting their project work on 2nd December, but we have arranged another short meeting with their Executive Director, Ky Samphy.
It is a simple, fascinating and noble mission enforced by a dedicated, talented team. I leave the centre to visit the “Building” where a workshop is being held in preparation for a performance tomorrow night. “Building” is also the subject of Alnoor’s film and