moisheh wrote:
Dani3l: If you go the tink that I posted you will see that this Foundation is doing the things you mentioned. They work with children. Not only do they provide a hot breakfast for primary kids they teach: honesty, hygiene and much more. The kids get to go on a few trips to HMO. But as you stated the parents are hopeless. The men drink and chase women. The families have too many kids and something like 50 % of the men beat their wives when they come home drunk. But the people at the foundation persist. Hopefully the kids will turn out better than their parents. I am told that this "culture" is all over the West Coast. We stopped the Xmas food program as I felt the money could be spent on something better. The men would stop working 2 weeks before Xmas as they knew 40 lbs. of food was coming. But at least the children got a good meal.
Btw: One of today's paper had something about a 8% rise in the cost of fuel. Later in February the price will be adjusted whenever the world price of oil or the peso changes.
Moisheh
I will be the first to admit that there are some Good NGO's out there doing good work. And I really urge you to read Dark Star Safari. But I have seen first hand many many times, in fact on a regular basis the millions of dollars wasted by NGO's such as Save The Children.
I have watched as one day STC descended into a neighborhood in Cambodia, rounded up a bunch of kids, handed out T shirts and took a series of photos for their fundraising purposes. In the end they were portrayed as Orphans (Big business in SE Asia) To my knowledge all of the kids came from homes and families on that street. They were just glad to get a new T shirt.
And how does STC spend this money they raise from well meaning folks like you and others?
They had full color expensive coated paper NOTEPADS printed in Singapore and handed them out to virtually any business or person who wanted one. Oh yeah...on each page was a slogan related to Child Protection or how wonderful STC was. And their staff? They live in great homes and drive brand new Land rovers or Toyota Land Cruisers and make very good First World wages. (I dont begrudge them this but let's be honest about how the money is spent)
In my personal experience STC is like so many other NGO's very little of the money actually gets to those the givers think it will. Too many of them are there to promote a religious agenda or ideology most often Christian or some version thereof. In fact I have witnessed many times these NGO's insist that the people that need the help must first listen to the preaching before receiving any handout or help. And the pressure to give up their own religion is severe. I have seen this in Mexico on several occasions.
I say all of this so people will think twice and investigate thoughtfully any NGO that is asking for your money. Ask the hard questions.
America and Canada are made up of mostly generous caring people, unfortunately too many are naive about the developing world, NGO's and the huge global business of AID.
Never doubt that your trip with your RV to Mexico does good. The money you spend in Gas or Fuel, Food, Gifts, Staying in RV parks or campsites and all the other money you spend does help at the local level and improves lives. It increases employment, English literacy (a ticket to a better job almost everywhere)food security and upward mobility.
Go for sure and do not ever let some expat living off of his Social Security try to make you feel guilty because you are not part of the "culture" as he thinks he is.
