Working in Africa

[sjwright]

Hi all

I come from what could be called a privileged background; despite my parents being divorced which to the western world is a big travesty; it really isn't in the great scheme of things.

I am going to be completely honest with you guys, my uncle is a man called Steve Morgan, he is worth an awful lot of money, in the multi-millions to be honest, but thats where the connection in terms of wealth ends. I am not privy to or am likely to be privy to be such wealth at all, which I am keen to point out, because with this sort of thing, I kno can influence peoples views of people like me.

However I want to work in Africa, maybe for personal development reasons, I don't know... My thinking is that while I have no children and don't own my own home, I am in a position to offer everything I have to a worthy cause. I just want to know how do normal people like me opt-in to this sort of thing? I am passionate about getting a fairer deal for those who deserve it but don't have a clue about achieving my goal here!

[KARL]

There are different ways to make positive contributions to development among people living in Africa. In my experience, the trouble with much (nearly if not actually all) charitable work is that charities tend to have large overhead structures and some actually appear by now to exist primarily as a means of employment for most of those who operate them and many in the field. I have found that with intergovernmental projects, while they are in effect business deals, there is in the end more honesty about them and there is a proper beginning and end. Food programmes have an unfortunate corollary, that of dependency whereby large numbers of people lose the means/compulsion to help themselves. You will need to find your own means of entering the complex issue of helping and draw your own conclusions. The advice already offered is relevant in that the starting point must be any ability or qualifications you should base your approach on. You may even want to first acquire skills or qualifications that will be useful for the task you want to undertake. But please do not move forward only on good intentions (and/or romantic notions) - you need to know what is involved. Above all, in my view, Africans need to acquire better leadership of their own but, yes, until then others rightly worry about the plight of ordinary people there. This is not a simple issue. The best example of charitable work I have come across is Water Aid - they primarily decide on which small project to give money to for buying materials and then the locals construct their own water supply with minimal input from outside. Safe water supply is arguably the most pressing issue throughout Africa and more lives can be saved and improved that way than by sending doctors.