The ONG NGO people
I met a few ONG (or NGO) people, one is a girl who is busy with an organization that sponsor nearly 300 children from Rwanda, the other person is also a girl busy with an organization that also sponsor children but from Madagascar this time, …and by now you have guess that the third person has the same activity. I met all of them last week at different place, I found strange that I met ONG people, these women seem to have a big heart, check out the website http://www.coeuretconscience.org/
It contrasts with the profiteer image I have from some others ONG people; those guys that go in Africa or South Asia to just have fun drive a big SUV and have easy girls.
There is an ugly side to the ONG world that is often hided to the public, heard of the ‘sex for foods’ deal ? that some of ONG guys do.
I have personally nothing against ONG; I personally proudly worked for the red cross in 1999 in a refugee camp and I’m still a donator for the red cross.
I think there are three types of ONG people I met :
The profiteer:
That’s one who like to go to place like Africa or Thailand for fun and sex; he enjoys driving SUV and having the girls around.
The Make-You-Feel-Less:
This one assume that he comes from a superior civilization, he usually attempt to convince the people he is in contact to adopt elements of his culture; the result is that the people he met feel they are “less” or not enough. We had a lot of them in Africa now they seems to favor more South Asia, however, in Africa there are still present notably under the form of international missionary society “White Father”.
The dedicated:
They vary in form and shape but they seem to be very dedicated to their work; they realize that they don’t understand Africa and the African so they invest a lot of energy into that. One of them went as far as saying that she regret to be white (??)
They are the ONG people, I don’t have too much animosity toward them; however I know someone who think that ONG do more harm that good. 95 % harm; you can visit his page and read his idea to correct that.
April 24th, 2007 22:05
I never thought that there are people who go to less-privileged countries just to showoff or worse, have fun and waste their organization’s funds.
April 25th, 2007 03:48
Sadly, they exist , you can read about some of the abuse on that report http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060509-090826-9806r.htm
Be prepared it isnt easy to read, NGO exchanging sex for foods with girls of 8 years old is plain disgusting.
May 17th, 2007 17:28
Hi Louis! I’m one of the NGO people!
Working in the international cooperation sector is a dream I had been looking forward to making come true for years. And now the dream has turned into a vital necessity…which means acting coherently with my personal values and making something concrete. The experiences lived in India and Africa have offered me a new prospective from which I can now project my life…I feel I cannot live in a golden world pretending I have not seen anything.
I belive in international cooperatation…especially one that does not perform passive assistance!
What can I say about your idea(3 types of ONG people)…I respect it…but I can’t share it…
People can be so bud…stupid…egoist…but stupid people are everywhere(not only in the ong sector)…unfortunately!!!
There is also a wonderful side of the ONG…I think it’s no possible to generalize…
…ciao….sweet dreams…
May 17th, 2007 18:15
Hi Marzie,
thanks you for your views, this is always interesting to get point of views especially from people working in the field, I recently made a new friend, she is a spanish lady and she is in the process of creating her own NGO…she is very eager to help and serve,I m wondering where her motivation is coming from…
This is a lot of NGO people I met recently:)These people I met are the only one talking to me positively about NGO work. Otherwise it is rather a disaster, …heard of the NGO called Habibat (http://www.habitat.org/eca/), they work in so called poor countries, if a disaster blow up your house, they will build a new for you , very generous?!
But, no, they ask you to pay the house after, even if you are left with no money or work…so what is that for a NGO, they get fund from rich donators in Western countries and they rip off also the people they are supposed to help ?
But now ok, I agree with you, the corporate world, I used to live in was no better, we all heard about awful scandals involving large companies from Exxon, Eron to Parmalat. So I guess , we cant wear rosy pink glass and pretend things are either all good or all bad …