Quote Originally Posted by Mach 5 View Post
Its the whole, give a man a fish and he can feed himself for a day, give him a fishing rod and he can feed his family for life, or until the fishing rod breaks.....

Some people are worried that they may get dependant on aid workers, and to be honest some of them probably are, but because their current situation means they cant do anything for themselves.
It's not just that. It's also cultural assimilation that people are usually so against, but that's to be expected when only white kids are coming to help.

It's a relationship thing too. Some volunteer contracts last maybe 1 year. A year is probably how long it takes solely to become acquainted with a community, become accepted and begin to get your hands dirty. That's why the PeaceCorp is a 2-year commitment.

Dependency is probably very subjective. For example, in the project I am currently working on (Building a Nicaraguan Health Clinic) the community is getting very ancy as to why we have not returned to build the health clinic. In truth during our last visit we admitted that it would take time because America has some red-tape and we must ensure that the building is structurally sound. There is a tendency that they would begin to expect things of us even though we constantly strive to make no promises on what we can do. Regardless of dependency, though you are still changing the lives of those that couldn't given current circumstance.

Naturally I'm inclined to believe what I and others do in a similar manner truly does do a greater good.. but there are certainly things to be argued on either side.

But this is straying from the point.