One of my roommates and best friends here at Marquette, Nick, recently volunteered at a food shelf through a Marquette program. The day he volunteered, a drug abuser on crack entered along with her two children. One of the children, a young boy about 5-years-old, asked Nick for a cup of coffee. As Nick poured, the boy’s sister reminded him that their mother did not allow them to drink coffee because “it’ll sober you up.” Nonetheless, Nick gave the boy coffee but was immediately struck by the significance of what he had just witnessed.As Nick talked to me about this episode, I saw how this left an indelible mark on him. In our discussion, we soon realized that there is often a very subtle, almost indistinguishable, line between effective volunteering and actions that enable destructive behavior. We began to ask questions: “At what point is one helping fellow human beings who are down on their luck?” and “At what point is one simply perpetuating a cycle of dependency?” Often a service, such as working at a food shelf, makes us feel good, like we’ve done something to rid society of poverty, but actually does nothing to change the root causes of poverty and hunger. That is to say, while the mother and her children were not starving on the particular day Nick fed them, they are also no closer to exiting their hardships.
Rather than demand that the woman sober up and get her children and herself off of drugs, it seems as if Marquette’s seemingly legitimate efforts to help have the opposite effect. This woman has a problem that must be dealt with. Instead of taking care of the problem, this woman has been allowed to continue her dependency on crack. She has lost her dignity insofar as she has become completely dependent on others to exist. Her children are the ones who end up suffering. The mother knows that despite her continual destructive behavior the food shelter will continue to provide for her and her children. She has no incentive to reform her life.
This does not mean that Marquette should end efforts to destroy poverty and feed the hungry. Rather, as Marquette students, we each need to evaluate the volunteering we do and make sure that what we perceive as help for the underprivileged is actually helpful and not harmful. Perhaps Marquette could create a new, innovative approach to social justice that has real, tangible results instead of simply perpetuating the problems and assaulting peoples’ human dignity.
While providing immediate needs (food, drink and clothing) is obviously necessary, it is extremely important that we respect the people we are helping by not allowing them to think they can continue to live off of others’ assistance without doing everything they can on their end. We need to help them help themselves.
Popularity: 4% [?]
