Moral Dilemmas I - Fish vs. Fishing

How do you know how much help to give?

I could empty my savings account helping the learners at my school, and it would still not be enough.

I could spend much, much more than the 12 hours/day I ALREADY spend at my school, and it would still not be enough.

I could spend the rest of my life fundraising, applying for grants, and sending aid to my school and my village, and it would still not be enough.

But how much is enough?

No child deserves to grow up in a place without enough food, worrying about buying the next pair of school shoes because the current ones are breaking, begging for money when they want to participate in a school event like a sports team. No child. I have given kids lunch, bought school shoes, and paid for their trips when things like this happen.

But – here’s the catch – how can it be SO MANY children?

Namibia had a GDP of $13 billion (USD) in 2012 and a Gini coefficient of 0.60 in 2010, according to the World Bank. So the thing is, Namibia actually has enough money to feed all of its children. That wealth is just distributed in a really, pardon my French, fucked up way. Big companies like diamond or uranium mines are pulling in millions, if not billions, of dollars. (Excuse my lack of research, I don’t have internet access as I’m writing this.) So the problem is actually not a lack of funds with which to provide basic things to the population, it is the location and distribution of those funds.

I know that this problem is not unique to Namibia, and many great development thinkers have been addressing it for years. But it is still something that rankles, when I stop and think about it.

Do you, in this case, give a man a fish? Or do you, as the saying goes, teach him how to fish?

It’s a poor analogy, but bear with me. If I give a man a fish, at least he will eat today. If I don’t give my kids food, or money, or whatever it is, they’re not going to get it anywhere else. Meaning that these children will suffer for the poor planning of their elders. I definitely don’t think that’s right.

On the other hand, as Tevye and my mother would say, there are also disadvantages. Giving a man a fish is not a sustainable solution. Maybe if more of us stopped feeding men for the day, they would find a way to feed themselves. Namibia needs to learn to spend its resources in a more equitable way, and to care for those who need it. Obviously the issue of scale comes into question, but for example, if I stopped helping my school to pay for transport for sport events, and to pay for copy paper that we run out of every year – if everyone did this – would more large-scale solution be reached? Or would we simply be causing more children to suffer for our laziness?

My gut is that children are children. It’s not their fault that the adults didn’t get their acts together, and they shouldn’t be the ones to suffer for it. But you have to wonder, if you looked at the whole issue from a purely utilitarian standpoint, what is the best solution? What would allow the economy and administration to develop in a way that is fair to those who are working hard, but still provides for those who need it? We can’t rely on foreign aid forever.