The Conflict of Giving

Every day dozens of people ask me for money and every day I deny dozens of requests.  Walking through Makola Market, Nkrumah Circle, or Oxford Street I refuse people so often that the phrase “sorry my friend” has become reflexive.  With every denial I imagine, “if people at home could only see me now, what would they think”?  I ponder, “might they think I’m heartless, hardened, or perhaps deaf”?  The most awful part is about whom I’ve refused.  I haven’t just denied those I thought might use the money to buy drugs or alcohol, not only those who I thought might use the money to buy sex, I’ve also denied those who are clearly suffering, hungry, and disabled. For all of those people that I’ve given money to in Ghana there are ten-fold more that I’ve denied. 

While in the African context the amount of beggars in Accra might be quite average, when measured outside of the sub-continent the number is disproportionately large.  Denying money to someone that is truly in need is the most difficult and heartrending decision that I face in Ghana.  I don’t refuse people money on ethical grounds, although there may be credence to that justification, and it is a debate to which I will return. The reason I turn away the majority of beggars is simply because it is personally not financially sustainable.  Bluntly, if I were to give to all those who asked, or even to a quarter of those who asked, I would spend all my time at the ATM.  Yesterday as I strolled toward the Trade Fair I was greeted by eight children who jumped out of the back of a parked pick-up truck, and rushed over to me asking to shake my hand.  For no reason beyond the colour of my skin I was suddenly the center of attention as more and more children gathered around me.  After a few minutes of guessing which country I was from the children began tugging at my shorts, pointing to their mouths, and asking for money.  Once again, as so often in a day, I lowered my head, apologized, and continued down the road.  A dozen and a half children, dressed head to toe in tattered clothing, covered in soot, and I denied them all.

In Tanzania, the local NGO I volunteered with instructed the volunteers not to give any clothing, food or water, or medical supplies to the villagers.  This, they described, would create a dependency that would hurt the relationship between the volunteers that followed our group and the villagers.  More importantly, it would create an expectation that the NGO could be relied on indefinitely, an expectation that was wholly unsustainable.  I remember in Tanzania when a small girl named Kuru approached the volunteer camp asking for band-aids to heal a cut that her friend had sustained on her foot.  Without thinking I gave them to her immediately. Over the next few days more and more people came to our camp asking for medical supplies, one man even asking to drink our water, which he thought could heal his blindness.  We were not equipped, nor trained, to handle medical problems, and I’ve always wondered how my actions affected the village relationship with the volunteers that followed. 

The debate about giving is not solely restricted to the issue of dependency.  Closely related is the argument that offering charity perpetuates begging.  Bradt Guide Ghana subscribes to this reasoning by arguing that people who give charity are “guilty of reinforcing the behavior”.  I think that there is validity to this thinking in some respects.  Certainly those who are able to survive solely on the donations of others might be less inclined to look for a job or attend school.  NGOs face this challenge of sustainability every day, and thus the mantra, “to teach a man to fish…”, helps to guide their activities.  Yet it is not so simple.  Those who think beggars will stop begging once givers stop giving are delusional.  Begging is not an industry, and those in Africa do not beg because it is profitable, they beg because they are poor.  Perhaps once the well of donations dries up some beggars might be catalyzed into looking for a job out of sheer desperation, but regardless, they will likely be impeded by the continual lack of opportunity. 

 The personal conflict over giving is a challenge that people here face every day.  I’ve spoken to other volunteers who confront this issue and they have their own take on it.  For me, I only have one basic policy.  Avoid giving in public, and never give to one in a group, for the jealousy that it creates.  Beyond that I judge every situation as it comes, trying not to become too paralyzed by guilt or too empowered by cause.  Luckily for me, I have the fortune of dealing with giving in the abstract, simply as a personal dilemma, and not in reality as a matter of survival.