Some thoughts on development...

I should be sleeping right now because tomorrow morning I have to finish organizing my new place and pack to head into the capital for a few days to meet Nelle, a long time friend and fellow traveler (we met sharing a host family in Mexico during a summer abroad program when I was 18 and she was 20) who is coming to the DR for a week to visit and do research for her Masters project.  A few things from the day and the week have left me thinking though, and I thought it might to time for a good’ol blog posting.

Yesterday there was a nationwide news-like program (think 20/20) that ran a special on child prostitution and trafficking in Boca Chica.  Some of the kids that we work with regularly showed up in the video in a misconstrued light and, as a result, we had their families in our office today to figure out if the press was involved in misrepresenting their stories.  In the process of this meeting it was brought to our attention that there is an American down here who is sexually exploiting young Haitian girls.  This is, unfortunately, not the first case I’ve heard of in the last three months of Americans being mixed up in, or more specifically creating the demand for, commercial sexual exploitation of children in my community.  (For those of you who, like me until very recently, are wondering the difference between “commercial sexual exploitation” and prostitution, the former involves minors and coercion while the latter assumes independent adult decision-making to sell ones body for money.) 

This image of the “gringo” is quite common in Boca Chica. and, being a tourist town, is coupled with an even more rampant portrayal of the gringo as a person with deep pockets who gifts money.  Neither of these images is positive and both have created challenges for me in my work.  Unfortunately, the latter is reinforced by the well-intentioned but not always well-informed church groups that come down to play the role of benevolent benefactor from the rich soils of the good old US of A.  I’ll explain my issues with this kind of charity.  While it might make us feel good, it does very little good for those we (and I say we, because, by nature of being from the US, I am grouped in with this population) are pretending to help.  It creates a sense of entitlement, stunting community organizing (instead of “how can we come together as a community with our skills and resources to build a house for a needy neighbor”, it’s “when are the gringos coming again to build those houses like they did last year”).  It is also unsustainable, and creates dependency instead of capacity (a dollar not earned is a dollar often spent with little thought or planning).  So as to keep this sentiment focused and not sound like I’m ranting, I invite all of my friends and families to consider where they are putting their charity dollars and whether the projects they support are in fact sustainable and building capacity in the populations they reach.    I hope to provide the opportunity in the near future to donate to some of Caminante’s projects that support personal growth, creativity and income generation.  Some examples are our technical school, which is open to the community at a minimal cost to learn a variety of vocations (beauty, massage, bartending, IT, graphic design, jewelry making, and gourmet baking to name a few) or our microfinance group which includes 15 women who have opened their own businesses using valuable artisan skills with small loans from our institution.

My appreciation for my own host organization, the Peace Corps, has grown as I come to better recognize the authenticity with which they carry out development work.  Peace Corps is not an organization that gives money directly to developing countries but rather provides knowledge and skills through the intermediary of its volunteers.  Last week, as I presented my diagnostic investigation to Caminante, I worked with my colleages to define my role in the organization.  Because I am, by nature, a capacity builder, I stressed that no initiative that I carry out during my service should be independent but rather collaborative.  As a result, I will be both trainer and mentor.  I will be supervising Caminante’s five educators—helping to sistematize and evaluate their community work with youth.  I will also be helping with monitoring and evaluation on a larger scale by training staff in methodologies and best practices.  Finally, I will help Caminante to expand and at the same time focus their reach through curriculum development for the number of populations we work with.  So while there have been challenges in these past few months, I am excited to have a clear idea of what my first year of service will look like.