Chloe SanClemente Thompson

Laura Huntngton, Aley Willis

HONROS 100, Section A
9 November 2015
Global Challenges, Interdisciplinary Answers
A global challenge that may be less pressing than many mentioned on the first day but
one that I think about a lot is how the west approaches aid and service. Unlike a lot of
forthcoming international issues, I see this one as something that I have a lot of first-hand
experience with, knowledge about, and an impact on. Hopefully and surely that will change in
the coming four years, but at the moment, this is the most in my realm of command. In a world
where where hope and history rhyme we would be able to give people in need exactly what
they needed. Wed be able to empower them instead of just putting a band aid on an issue to
fix it. More specifically, wed be aware of what we were doing when we claim to help
people- both the good and the bad. And wed be able to reproduce just the good. Aid would be
personalized. The poor would be raised from poverty by their comrades and countrymen in a
way that they controlled and was sustainable in their environment. The hungry would have
access to resources to make and farm and create their own food. And one of their own would
have built that resource system.
It is no secret that the best aid is the aid that is facilitated and distributed by the same
people who need it. The aid model of the past has been the mass-production of basic needs goods
that are then given to populations in need. Very little thought has been given to the sustainability
of such practices. What will happen when the well that the village had no part in building
breaks? Will they know how to fix or replace it? These interventionist practices that put little
emphasis on the longevity of the immediate fixes that they create have been proven to fail in the
context of international aid. No only do they fail their benefactors, but they fail the people who
built them- the do-gooders. Their aim was never to create a short-term fix. But this aid model is
beginning to give way to smaller grass-roots movements that focus on involving the local
population in creating the projects and products that they need so that they can maintain and
problem-solve well after the life of the original project. In addition to that, products that are
distributed are becoming sustainable in themselves- they have longer use life-spans and are
easily fixed or replaced. They no longer serve a vital purpose that leaves a hole in a society when
it has been used up. This sort of creative thinking has become the new gold-standard for aid
movements. In situations where immediate need is required (i.e. the 2010 Haitian Earthquake)
we need to find a way to implement this long-term thinking. In a world where hope and history
rhyme, this reconciliation would exist.
However, the service and aid industry faces still more problems born from the
interventionist attitude that has long accompanied aid. The problem that we now face is the
ability to remove western ethnocentrism from our approach to aid. The morality, customs,
culture, and judgment that is sometimes injected into the provision of aid for other cultures and
societies is one of the biggest obstacles to creating positive change. Unfortunately, we often do
this without thinking. In order to alter the impact that these judgments have on our service
practices, we must partner more with local groups that understand the cultural needs of the
population in need. Also important is the use of compassion for people in need regardless of their
decisions that may be ones we would not have made for ourselves. There are, of course,

boundaries to this open-mindedness. But we could do with a significant jump in acceptance for
unknown cultural practices based on immediate conclusions we make.