Africa Is a Country

A new scheme to end poverty

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

A new scheme to end poverty

By
Caitlin L Chandler

This is so cynical: let people in poor countries send money to nonprofits in rich countries.

School children in Mathare, Kenya in 2004 (Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, via Flickr).

I know many readers believe that addressing global poverty is a fairly complex issue. Well, I’m delighted to inform you that you’re wrong! Apparently, the solution is simple – let people in poor countries send money to nonprofits in rich countries, and through the joy of giving a thousand crops will bloom.

At least that is the gist of an article called “Bob Goff Turns the Idea of Charity Upside Down,” about an organization called Restore International that is apparently raising money with Ugandan school children to donate to a youth nonprofit in Oregon in the United States called The Mentoring Project. Little can be found about Restore International on their website other than a breaking news item that they are “rescuing Ugandan children out of forced prostitution.”

To be honest, when I first read this article I thought it was a brilliant spoof of the international NGO scene – but I think they’re serious. Writes Justin Zoradi of the Mentoring Project on the idea of cross-cultural giving in the article:

Remember the parable Jesus told about the widow who gave her last coin to the poor in Mark 12? In the same vein, let’s not take away the opportunity for the boys from Uganda to be blessed by God and experience the joy of giving…And, maybe if we gave the global south more opportunities to experience the joys of giving, they’d be more likely to pull their own countries out of poverty.

Right.

 

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