Don't ask me to buy a backpack for a child in need

Last night, I attended a lecture at the beautiful Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University. The speaker was Dragana Dulic, from the University of Belgrade. The thesis of her talk, entitled, “Geopolitics of Humanitarian Assistance,” was deceptively simple: All humanitarian aid is inextricably linked to the political strategies of the distributors of that aid. I’m paraphrasing here, but the basic premise seemed to me to be that although we tend to want to think about humanitarian aid as pure in its motives and values, it is not really possible to distribute funds into different parts of the world without there being some sort of strategic politically-motivated choices being made (why this country’s poor and not another?).

"Humanitarian aid," she stated flatly, "cannot solve the political issues."

Many in the audience – who were far, far more knowledgeable on these topics than me – questioned the data she showed toward the end of her presentation. This seems to me a kind of curse of expertise. Experts (and we probably all consider ourselves experts in something) tend to get hung up on the accuracy of the graphs (which, admittedly,are important to get right!) and gloss over the larger, more complicated issues, that in the long-term, have far more impact on social issues than whether we under-reported total humanitarian aid dollars in a research report.

I'll make a big leap from humanitarian aid writ large to individuals as donors. As donors, we typically want to give to something immediate, because it is inspiring and gratifying and motivating to see immediate change. The success and visibility of things like “backpack drives” for school children is a one simple example.

I remember seeing a television spot on a local backpack drive. What image signifies back to school better than a child wearing a backpack? So, we see photos of kids with no backpacks. How can they possibly start the school year? I go to Target, plop down my $20, buy a kid a backpack and now she's ready to go - she's invincible, equipped!

Next image - kid smiling, backpack on. And I can take credit for that change.

Of course, we know that this does nothing for the kid’s family, or for next year, or when the backpack wears out, or gets lost or stolen or left on the bus.

Short-term problems or long-term infrastructure issues? Immediate crisis or strategic change?

The answers to long-term systemic change require courage and boldness, and putting ourselves and our own comfort at risk in a way that handing over a backpack makes no claims on us – no claims on our values, our courage, our commitment.

What are the limits of individual responsibility? Does my responsibility end with my time on this committee? My volunteer hours at this shelter? My shift at the job? What responsibilities do we have beyond the boundaries of our days? Our own lifetimes? Those of successive generations?