When a disaster hits, relief efforts start pouring in. People are more willing to give their money, time, and anything that they can to help others in that specific time of need. But what about the recovery? Injuries can take months or even years to heal, yet disasters are treated as a one and done situation. Healing is a process. There are areas and people still affected today from disasters or events that happened years ago. For example, Haiti experienced a massive earthquake in 2010 that killed 220,000-300,000 individuals, displaced 2.3 million people, and left damages estimated at $7.8 billion (Haiti 10 years later). Ten years later, Haiti is still experiencing the effects of the earthquake that left the country in shambles. While an estimated $13 billion was donated to Haiti within the first two years after the quake, it was still not enough for the planned and needed reconstruction. It was later discovered that half a billion dollars from U.S. donors to the Red Cross were used to build only six permanent homes instead of the claimed 132,000. Now, Haiti feels “forgotten” as they continue to live in temporary homes and continues to be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere (A 'Lost Decade': Haiti Still Struggles To Recover 10 Years After Massive Earthquake).
In class, we discussed how when making a decision to donate to organizations or charities, we should consider both their short-term and long-term efforts. As demonstrated with Haiti, organizations do not prioritize long-term relief when that is equally as important or even more important. Red Cross is a world renown organization, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. Yet they were not able to succeed in what they said they were going to do. There is so much more that needs to be done when disaster hits after its relevance in the media dies down. Quite honestly, I completely forgot about the earthquake that hit Haiti. It is certainly not in the news anymore, and organizations like Red Cross make it seem like this is not a pressing. But the quake happened ten years ago, and the country is still broken and in need of help. So how can we, as donors, ensure that our money is actually being put to good use rather than harm? Should we even trust these organizations at all? Or do we trust them too much to the point where we do not even know where our money is truly going?
In an analysis of relief efforts for Hurricane Harvey, a data scientist discovered that “recurring donors [were] seven times more valuable than one-time donors”, and “the lifetime return of a recurring donation plan is 461 percent higher than the return of a typical one-time donor” (Analysis Find Disaster Relief Support Swift But Short, Recurring Donors Crucial). Again, relief is not a one and done decision. It’s something we must continue to put effort into if we want to make the most out of what we give. But does that mean our one-time donations are not valuable at all? Is giving continually to one relief effort better than donating once to several relief efforts? This course is called Philanthropy & Civil Society, not Charity & Civil Society. Charity seeks to provide “an empathetic response to an immediate crisis or need” whereas philanthropy seeks out the “root causes of systemic issues” so that they do not happen again (Charity vs Philanthropy?). In order for long-term efforts to be prioritized, we must change our mindsets of being charitable people to being philanthropists. Rather than putting a band aid on something that will continue to bleed, we must focus on how to stop the bleeding.
Skylar Lai
Skylar Lai
Thank you for sharing this, Skylar. I agree that relief is not one and done. We need to focus our attention on how we can provide care and support after the incident stops being covered on the news. Healing takes time.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, as we talked about in class, supporting local organizations, like the Greater Houston Community Foundation, may be more useful in the long-run.
The Community Foundation has been active for over 20 years, and has supported its communities time and time again. They know more about the needs of their communities than outside organizations and that is critical, because they were there long before the hurricane, and will be there long after the news stops covering them.
Similarly, like you said about Haiti, I also forgot the damage that was done, and that many people are still suffering. But since we aren't reminded of it, we will forget, and turn our attention elsewhere.
We need to shift our focus to supporting areas long-term, and not simply the short term. Maybe that means donating money and time to organizations that educate people on ways to be prepared for an event like this. And that don't abandon areas as quickly as they go to help.
An article that I read talks about why people tend to forget about natural disasters and don't take lessons from them. People don't believe that the disasters will happen to them, so they do not prepare for them. (https://www.livescience.com/38036-why-people-unprepared-for-natural-disasters.html)
We need to change this mindset, and that means starting programs in areas before they have an issue.
Brendan Hurley
An important point that you raise is about how it is easy to forget a tragedy over time when you are far removed from it. In addition to giving funds to a relief effort it is paramount to continue talking about it. When people forget about a tragedy they have no reason to help remediate the situation. But, if the tragedy is not allowed to be forgotten there is hope for funding and support to be less temporary. We can be advocates for situations that most of the world has forgotten about within our own communities.
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