I met a famous Thai rock star today. So did the 400 kids I was with.
The rock star came to visit the Pakkred Home for Disabled Children, in Bangkok, where I was working. I was there to assure clean, safe water in their kitchen and cafeteria facilities. We were completing installation of a water purification system and needed to conduct quality checks and verify functionality of the system. The rock star was there "to make a special donation and express his charitable spirit." Even though we were both on-site for ostensibly similar reasons – to help the children – our thoughts and actions couldn’t have been more different.
The Pakkred Home houses and cares for more than 400 children from all over Thailand, ages 7-18, who have severe special needs. It is the largest of its kind in the country, and one of the better-run institutions I have partnered with in my eight years of doing this work.
Here’s what happened: The lunch bell rang. Children from throughout the campus were wheeled, carried, and assisted to their regular seats. Anxious to eat, the children’s meals were placed in front of them - yet nobody ate! I asked about the delay and was told they were waiting for "special visitors" who were filming a documentary. Two cars arrived, replete with one celebrity, three PR reps, a photographer and a videographer. Their donation: six bags of diapers, two bags of rice, a few cans of formula, and one stuffed animal.
I watched as nearly 100 children waited for over thirty minutes – hot meals going cold in front of them – for the celebrity to arrive and his videographer to capture the optimal shot. Once the right lighting and framing were achieved, I watched as the rock star, and members of his entourage, grabbed trays of food from waiting children. They then enacted carrying and serving those same meals, from the kitchen – on camera. Once done, the celebrity sat down with the interviewer to discuss his work with disabled children.
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The children sang a lackluster song, rehearsed time and again for other celebrities and donor groups who routinely visit the site, the rock star congratulated his team, praise was passed around, and the video crew left full of smiles. In their wake, the children were given the OK to begin eating. They wolfed down their food in minutes. The staff then packed up the meager donation and wheeled it to the front of the building, where it sat for hours unattended.
We returned later, after closing hours, and there it all still sat – save for the rice which had already been cooked, eaten and fully depleted by dinner time.
The contribution, both ill conceived and entirely unsustainable, was provided as a feel good moment for the donor only. The rice was exhausted in an hour, the diapers will last little more than that. (And about that formula – Did the donor check to see if it is a brand the children are accustomed to? Is it appropriate? Or might it upset the already sensitive stomachs of the children who receive it?)
I recognize that it is easy to rally and rail against self-promotion disguised as charity, especially when contrived for a rock star’s media blitz. But that is not my purpose here. Instead I would like to spotlight a core deficiency in one-off contributions – generally speaking – and of poorly managed donations. For any charitable organization, this is fundamentally crucial terrain. And it is under-discussed (probably for fear of offending "well meaning people") across the sector.
Good intentions – combined with naiveté, or self-congratulation – can go awry. Imagine if the videographer had instead captured a thirty-minute wait, followed by a contrived act of service, then featured the headline "Celebrity makes children wait for food – then pretends to serve it!" Only then would most people have perceived the true story – and the gravitas it carried. When we leave scenes like this un-critiqued, it hurts everyone.
Prior to launching a child’s right, I worked in international adoption. Over several years, I was privy to observing groups (often with honorable intentions) tout and publicize their "relief projects" to media, international governments and adoptive families alike. Quietly in my mind, I called these "diaper donations" – as this "relief" consisted, more often than not, of people traveling great lengths to spend five minutes with a group of marginalized children to drop off a few bags of formula, clothing and diapers. Very infrequently was this model challenged by those in a position to do so.
What I am describing, here, is actually the context wherein a child’s right came to be conceived. I tried to figure out a meaningful, measurable, and sustainable intervention to improve the health and development of children in the orphanages I worked in – something that was vital for the children, requested by the staff, and previously lacking in the institutions. The answer didn’t reside in cheap clothing, it wasn’t fostered with a few grocery bags of produce, and it certainly wouldn’t be realized by a week’s worth of diapers, nor a day’s worth of formula. Safe water, in this situation, sat at the crossroads of all factors I was considering. It has become the lifeblood of our work ever since.
It took years of obsessive focus to codify our approach, and to develop a model that could even come close to being regarded as sustainable. We are continually refining our work to ensure the best and most far-reaching solutions for the children we serve. Yet even at our advancing stages of development, we conduct our work with a healthy dose of humility. We believe we must continually learn. So when I see antiquated, inadequate and truly untenable "diaper donations" being repeated, it is incredibly disheartening.
Our work centers on seeing these children have clean water at their disposal daily. Whether on day one or day two thousand, safe water should no longer be a thing they worry about, or are negatively impacted by. And we are staking our reputation on ensuring this is the constant reality. This requires a ton of hard work to build the base, a handful of failures to continually learn from, deep collaboration with the communities we serve to ensure sustainability, and open minds and ready ears to ensure successive growth. It is a much tougher and complicated route, but we will take that any day over the fluffy narrative of "diaper donations" and self-praising back patting.
Sadly, the water sector is rife with these types of donations: short lived photo-op contributions of filters, wells, hand washing and toilet projects that are uninspired, go unsupported, and remain unprotected for long term use. These may have a greater immediate impact than the offerings from the rock star that I cringe at, but they don’t have staying power.
We are a small agency - fairly young, and relatively unknown - but we know what types of projects we don’t want to emulate. To ensure our work is both needed and sustainable will cost us more, require greater bandwidth, assume trial and error, and necessitate a ton of innovation. But we won’t, and can’t, take part in the small thinking and weak impact of "diaper donations". (Imagine popping through for five minutes and dropping off a water filter!)
The work of our a child’s right team is based on listening to our local partners closely; building trustworthy partnerships (and if not, stepping back); assessing real needs; collaboratively planning solutions; training the students and staff for success; and being driven by a guiding vision of sustainable, locally appropriate solutions.
Eric Stowe
Bangkok, Thailand
November 29, 2011
The rock star came to visit the Pakkred Home for Disabled Children, in Bangkok, where I was working. I was there to assure clean, safe water in their kitchen and cafeteria facilities. We were completing installation of a water purification system and needed to conduct quality checks and verify functionality of the system. The rock star was there "to make a special donation and express his charitable spirit." Even though we were both on-site for ostensibly similar reasons – to help the children – our thoughts and actions couldn’t have been more different.
The Pakkred Home houses and cares for more than 400 children from all over Thailand, ages 7-18, who have severe special needs. It is the largest of its kind in the country, and one of the better-run institutions I have partnered with in my eight years of doing this work.
Here’s what happened: The lunch bell rang. Children from throughout the campus were wheeled, carried, and assisted to their regular seats. Anxious to eat, the children’s meals were placed in front of them - yet nobody ate! I asked about the delay and was told they were waiting for "special visitors" who were filming a documentary. Two cars arrived, replete with one celebrity, three PR reps, a photographer and a videographer. Their donation: six bags of diapers, two bags of rice, a few cans of formula, and one stuffed animal.
I watched as nearly 100 children waited for over thirty minutes – hot meals going cold in front of them – for the celebrity to arrive and his videographer to capture the optimal shot. Once the right lighting and framing were achieved, I watched as the rock star, and members of his entourage, grabbed trays of food from waiting children. They then enacted carrying and serving those same meals, from the kitchen – on camera. Once done, the celebrity sat down with the interviewer to discuss his work with disabled children.
The children sang a lackluster song, rehearsed time and again for other celebrities and donor groups who routinely visit the site, the rock star congratulated his team, praise was passed around, and the video crew left full of smiles. In their wake, the children were given the OK to begin eating. They wolfed down their food in minutes. The staff then packed up the meager donation and wheeled it to the front of the building, where it sat for hours unattended.
We returned later, after closing hours, and there it all still sat – save for the rice which had already been cooked, eaten and fully depleted by dinner time.
The contribution, both ill conceived and entirely unsustainable, was provided as a feel good moment for the donor only. The rice was exhausted in an hour, the diapers will last little more than that. (And about that formula – Did the donor check to see if it is a brand the children are accustomed to? Is it appropriate? Or might it upset the already sensitive stomachs of the children who receive it?)
I recognize that it is easy to rally and rail against self-promotion disguised as charity, especially when contrived for a rock star’s media blitz. But that is not my purpose here. Instead I would like to spotlight a core deficiency in one-off contributions – generally speaking – and of poorly managed donations. For any charitable organization, this is fundamentally crucial terrain. And it is under-discussed (probably for fear of offending "well meaning people") across the sector.
Good intentions – combined with naiveté, or self-congratulation – can go awry. Imagine if the videographer had instead captured a thirty-minute wait, followed by a contrived act of service, then featured the headline "Celebrity makes children wait for food – then pretends to serve it!" Only then would most people have perceived the true story – and the gravitas it carried. When we leave scenes like this un-critiqued, it hurts everyone.
Prior to launching a child’s right, I worked in international adoption. Over several years, I was privy to observing groups (often with honorable intentions) tout and publicize their "relief projects" to media, international governments and adoptive families alike. Quietly in my mind, I called these "diaper donations" – as this "relief" consisted, more often than not, of people traveling great lengths to spend five minutes with a group of marginalized children to drop off a few bags of formula, clothing and diapers. Very infrequently was this model challenged by those in a position to do so.
What I am describing, here, is actually the context wherein a child’s right came to be conceived. I tried to figure out a meaningful, measurable, and sustainable intervention to improve the health and development of children in the orphanages I worked in – something that was vital for the children, requested by the staff, and previously lacking in the institutions. The answer didn’t reside in cheap clothing, it wasn’t fostered with a few grocery bags of produce, and it certainly wouldn’t be realized by a week’s worth of diapers, nor a day’s worth of formula. Safe water, in this situation, sat at the crossroads of all factors I was considering. It has become the lifeblood of our work ever since.
It took years of obsessive focus to codify our approach, and to develop a model that could even come close to being regarded as sustainable. We are continually refining our work to ensure the best and most far-reaching solutions for the children we serve. Yet even at our advancing stages of development, we conduct our work with a healthy dose of humility. We believe we must continually learn. So when I see antiquated, inadequate and truly untenable "diaper donations" being repeated, it is incredibly disheartening.
Our work centers on seeing these children have clean water at their disposal daily. Whether on day one or day two thousand, safe water should no longer be a thing they worry about, or are negatively impacted by. And we are staking our reputation on ensuring this is the constant reality. This requires a ton of hard work to build the base, a handful of failures to continually learn from, deep collaboration with the communities we serve to ensure sustainability, and open minds and ready ears to ensure successive growth. It is a much tougher and complicated route, but we will take that any day over the fluffy narrative of "diaper donations" and self-praising back patting.
Sadly, the water sector is rife with these types of donations: short lived photo-op contributions of filters, wells, hand washing and toilet projects that are uninspired, go unsupported, and remain unprotected for long term use. These may have a greater immediate impact than the offerings from the rock star that I cringe at, but they don’t have staying power.
We are a small agency - fairly young, and relatively unknown - but we know what types of projects we don’t want to emulate. To ensure our work is both needed and sustainable will cost us more, require greater bandwidth, assume trial and error, and necessitate a ton of innovation. But we won’t, and can’t, take part in the small thinking and weak impact of "diaper donations". (Imagine popping through for five minutes and dropping off a water filter!)
The work of our a child’s right team is based on listening to our local partners closely; building trustworthy partnerships (and if not, stepping back); assessing real needs; collaboratively planning solutions; training the students and staff for success; and being driven by a guiding vision of sustainable, locally appropriate solutions.
Eric Stowe
Bangkok, Thailand
November 29, 2011
I can still picture the event: where I sat, what we ate, who I met… I remember pushing myself to give more, because their work was so compelling to me personally. But I wonder now where my gift went? Where is it now?
