I landed in India in late August. Almost immediately...all five senses were tantalized. From the plethora of food options that teased my taste-buds, to the smells and sounds (talk about the ubiquitous honking of cars!) And the sights! India is a beautiful country...with mass disorganization and chaos, but with raw beauty and warm people. To say that India is capable of bringing out every single emotion out of you is an understatement.
One of the sights that has haunted me since I landed in this wonderful country is the sight of children begging. I took the picture above many moons ago.
I cannot reconcile proximity that stark poverty has to ultimate opulence. To see people living in shanties on the sides of roads in Mumbai and the sight of little ones with tattered rags in New Delhi doing little tricks in the hopes of procuring a few rupees simply breaks my heart. And right next to the largest slums in Asia are high-rise apartment buildings with every single amenity that money can buy. I had read that the divide between the rich and the poor is great here – but to see it in actual terms is quite disconcerting.
And mentally – I still haven’t reconciled what to do when a child comes up to me to beg for money. What is the best thing for that child – to give or not.
Does giving away money serve as a temporary solution akin to a bandaid over a leaky faucet? Or does it serve an immediate need to feed an empty stomach? Or does it simply sooth our conscience that our daily quota for a ‘good-deed’ was met?
Growing up in Kenya, even as a teenager, I used to pack simple sandwiches whenever I went out to give away to anyone that came up to me to beg for money. It was so deeply ingrained in me that money could be potentially used for things other than basic survival tools (such as drugs, etc), that food was the best option to give.
Extreme poverty is such a complex issue and tackling it from any one angle requires much thought. Do the said-beggars in places like India and Kenya even have a choice to do something other than begging? Or is structural violence so deeply entrenched that a vicious cycle of poverty and lack of access to basic needs such as food, clean water, and education do not facilitate ability to do anything else but beg?
I think of donor agencies who give development assistance to resource-poor countries in various forms – food aid, technical assistance and expertise, hard money, etc. How is that different from a single person giving a few rupees or shillings to a single child? Therefore the ultimate question, does giving serve to encourage a culture of begging and dilapidate a person so much that they feel they do not have a choice but to ask for help? Or does it truly help to meet some basic needs?
Having been here five months – I am still nowhere close to the answers. As I continue to work as global health professional in India and beyond, my ultimate aim is not only to set up new projects, but to ensure sustainability of any work that I do. To train capable people and transfer knowledge to ensure that someone can do the work that I do after I leave. Knowing that I do not have all the answers and do not understand the complexity to local problems in the global context, I choose to give.
