Jeff Rutt, founder of HOPE International offers Confessions from a Recovering Toxic Charity Addict.
He explains his church was sending so many containers of assistance to their partner church in Ukraine that they were causing serious harm to the church. Here are five lessons he learned from the pastor of their partner church:
Charity was toxic.
Entitled individuals.
Quick fixes aren’t the answer.
Aid has unintended economic impact.
“We need a hand up, not a handout.”
Here is the explanation of the point that Aid has unintended economic impact.
Local business owners couldn’t compete with free goods flooding the local market. Harming the local economy, the shipments were hurting livelihoods of businesspeople.
It is very sobering to me that what appears to be helping can instead have the unintended consequence of hurting the recipients. How odd – sending containers of stuff can destroy local businesses.
If that thought creates some confusion in your mind, perhaps you need to do more research. As a very preliminary step, check out the article linked at the top.
The world, and life, are far more complicated that it seems.