Pri's opinion on child sponsorship - what is the real question?
The Aid Workers Network recently had a posting (see http://www.aidworkers.net/?q=node/2027 if you are interested) with a quote from an American who had worked in the developing world for many years, and who resigned as a field leader in a large American based child sponsorship organisation because his "conscience could no longer handle an increasing organisational focus on what was good for the organisation than what is best for the child and community”. He highlights the sophisticated marketing programme that tries to alleviate the donors’ guilt (“we have so much and they have so little”) and the imbeddedness in the America Knows Best scenario (also Britain, Europe, Australia etc knows best) that continues to be played out around the world and asks aren’t there better ways. Of course there are. What I find distasteful about the child sponsorship organizations is the parading of images of liquid-eyed poor children to elicit sympathy and raise funds. This is no different to beggar...