Hand up or Hand out?

The other day I was wearing my Riders for Health t-shirt and it was being admired. Great opening for me, as I was able to tell them all about Riders (I'm quite passionate about their work). One thing I was telling my friend about is their work that trains and employs locals to do the work they need done to ensure the transport solutions they provide are kept in as tip-top shape as possible.

They don't parachute people in who have some of the skills needed for training the health care workers or mechanics - they train locals. This increases the economic power of the people who work for them, as they have increased skills. Those people can them train others in mechanics, say. So, they whole system becomes self-supporting. The trickle-down effect of this to the rest of the communities in which Riders works must be amazing.

Much better, IMHO, than many NGOs who are reliant on gap-yearers or year-out people providing the skills. While I know much good and worthwhile work has been done this way, I can't help bu think it helps perpetuate the dependence culture. Yes, Riders still rely in aid to run, but they only send people out to where they work if that skill is not available locally and ensure local people are trained in that skill once identified. After all, who might work harder - the person who is part of the community, where their work directly affects if their cousin gets the medical treatment they need, or the person who is only going to be there short-term and once they've gone will have little to do with the community again?

I know this model is being changed by many charities, as they become increasingly aware that the social enterprise model is a much more effective model of doing their work. But I still see so many things where it's the (almost exclusively) white, middle class, well educated person going out to 'darkest Africa' to help those 'poor unfortunates'. Rarely have I known someone from a working class background doing this (I know it happens, but we tend to use gap years to earn money to get through uni, not as a wonderful thing on our CV!). In many ways, the videos I see, even in well known and respected NGOs websites, it just has the feel of colonialism to it...or do I read things very differently to others?

Take this Christian Aid video for their fundraising week (which starts today):

The work is empowering people. It's giving the people living in Bgap the tools and confidence to make their lives better. But why do we need the 'Christian Aid' supporters in the video? What do they contribute? If they are going out with specific skills to take to the area and the knowledge they learn is being brought back to lift the profile of Christian Aid where they live, great, I'm all for it. But if it's a bit of a publicity stunt (as I know other charities do to generous donors), then I get a bit twitchy. That said, the generous donor might see something that the charity which took them out might not tackle and set out their own charity to deal with that. That is, after all, how Riders was founded in the first place.