Being humanitarian sounds just good but it is not sacred thing. It should go through many dilemmas and being good is not a simple policy to follow. Being good for whom? If there are skinny women who claimed to need food, it is natural as human being that would like to offer the help especially if you have resource to do so, but humanitarian does not mean to help whoever needs help. It is well known saying that we should not give fish, we should teach how to fish as the principle of aid – which means aid should be something sustainable and durable for the community even after we left. So, being good does not mean being kind and do what they want us to do. Sometimes (more often) we should make difficult decision to cut off the group of population who is in need.
There are so many things easy to say, but difficult to do. Being fair and being good. At this moment, we are not doing blanket free food distribution because the assessment shows that middle/lower Juba (that is where we are operating) does not require the blanket feeding. However, once you step into the remote villages, it is true that you can see lots of people who seem to need food. Currently we are only targeting malnutrition 5 years under and pregnant/lactating mothers but to make villagers understand that we are only helping to people in this category is the big issue. There are lots more people who do not have enough also outside of this category. It is logically understandable but practically all the people are living more or less similar poor condition. If your neighbor received the food, and you don’t, you will be pissed off. They do not care criteria or condition.
I am not doing it for my sake, and I can sometimes feel overwhelmed to see how big the world laid in front of me and how little I can do. Now that I gave up the idea of “I will change the world!” type of heroic idealism. I will do what I can do and I should do but I feel pain not to help the people in front of me. There is no clear line of people who is needy and who is not. There are million of people staying in gray zone who live in bad condition. I am better off but I have only two hands.
It is not simple matter of giving thing left to right. There was an interesting article I read few years back (which I forgot the detail but it) saying that if French people decided not to eat the ice-cream (maybe wine I am not sure), or American avoid the left-over for their meal, the food shortage for kids in the whole world will be solved. It is figure calculated in paper and we all know that it does not happen that way. (anyway French never give up wine) It is not amount of food we are lacking but matter of social structure. What we are doing here is, to be honest, does not change Somalia. It is temporary measure, in other word, first aid. Our food can make them survive a bit longer and probably may improve nutrition status of children while they are facing drought. However, unless their social structure and cultural habit enable to make them be productive, situation remains same. They have been in the war for around 20 years and they hardly got chance to improve their infrastructure or food security. If I use the above mentioned metaphor of giving fish or teaching how to fish, they had their river dried up and they do not eat fish. They have land but it is barren. People are not motivated to work and just wait Allah to prepare the food from somewhere. Humanitarian is not a magician.
It is not destiny or fate, they cast the opportunity for past decades and we are all lost here. Somalia is by all means special country having beautiful people with tough spirit. I really love them. Once they found their way out, the potentials are there. However, one thing I can say is it is not humanitarian workers (or AMISOM) who come from outside to make this black labyrinth cleared. I really do not see how Somali can solve this 20 years accumulated hatred and depression in the society but with great expectation, I am looking forward to keeping eyes on it.
There are so many things easy to say, but difficult to do. Being fair and being good. At this moment, we are not doing blanket free food distribution because the assessment shows that middle/lower Juba (that is where we are operating) does not require the blanket feeding. However, once you step into the remote villages, it is true that you can see lots of people who seem to need food. Currently we are only targeting malnutrition 5 years under and pregnant/lactating mothers but to make villagers understand that we are only helping to people in this category is the big issue. There are lots more people who do not have enough also outside of this category. It is logically understandable but practically all the people are living more or less similar poor condition. If your neighbor received the food, and you don’t, you will be pissed off. They do not care criteria or condition.
I am not doing it for my sake, and I can sometimes feel overwhelmed to see how big the world laid in front of me and how little I can do. Now that I gave up the idea of “I will change the world!” type of heroic idealism. I will do what I can do and I should do but I feel pain not to help the people in front of me. There is no clear line of people who is needy and who is not. There are million of people staying in gray zone who live in bad condition. I am better off but I have only two hands.
It is not simple matter of giving thing left to right. There was an interesting article I read few years back (which I forgot the detail but it) saying that if French people decided not to eat the ice-cream (maybe wine I am not sure), or American avoid the left-over for their meal, the food shortage for kids in the whole world will be solved. It is figure calculated in paper and we all know that it does not happen that way. (anyway French never give up wine) It is not amount of food we are lacking but matter of social structure. What we are doing here is, to be honest, does not change Somalia. It is temporary measure, in other word, first aid. Our food can make them survive a bit longer and probably may improve nutrition status of children while they are facing drought. However, unless their social structure and cultural habit enable to make them be productive, situation remains same. They have been in the war for around 20 years and they hardly got chance to improve their infrastructure or food security. If I use the above mentioned metaphor of giving fish or teaching how to fish, they had their river dried up and they do not eat fish. They have land but it is barren. People are not motivated to work and just wait Allah to prepare the food from somewhere. Humanitarian is not a magician.
It is not destiny or fate, they cast the opportunity for past decades and we are all lost here. Somalia is by all means special country having beautiful people with tough spirit. I really love them. Once they found their way out, the potentials are there. However, one thing I can say is it is not humanitarian workers (or AMISOM) who come from outside to make this black labyrinth cleared. I really do not see how Somali can solve this 20 years accumulated hatred and depression in the society but with great expectation, I am looking forward to keeping eyes on it.
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