Reflection on charity as an industry

I see my last blog post divided opinions on charity as an industry. I would like to answer one particular comment from my Facebook page: charity as an industry to make money and power for many.  I would like to thank the user for his constructive criticism as the thought rose in my mind that many may believe this about charity.

In my opinion, industry has more than one dimension, marred by negative connotations as it also means enterprise. Let’s not forget Henry Ford, who managed to turn car manufacturing into an industry, revolutionising transport across the globe. I would like to add to that the philosophical, implementation and development dimensions.

The philosophical dimension takes into account the concept of industry, which should be more inclusive to broaden the thinking of people in charge. The implementation dimension encourages us to perfect and excel in our services to the needy, since they are the true owners of charity operations. The third dimension includes the development of the lives of the beneficiaries and the creation of a new generation who will be empowered to lead their communities.

Looking again at the pyramid, if we consider charity an industry, we manage to overcome the seasonal and traditional giving, therefore going from the individual to a legitimate institution.
People usually judge industry from a mechanical point of view. I believe we ought to look at it from a fresh, thought-provoking point of view. We need to create the industry of thinking, mentoring, cultural development, dialogue and trust building.

Charity, with its links to other sectors, must be accountable and transparent, reflecting and responding to the needy, otherwise it becomes entangled by individuals who want only money or power for themselves.
Charities must work together to ensure the development of communities continues, without any place for individuals with ulterior motives.

From the International Donors and Investors Conference for East Sudan in Kuwait,

Dr. Hany El Banna

Charity as industry

 
In my view, charitable feelings are God given gifts, embedded in ourselves. Humanity cannot exist without some form of charitable activity. Philanthropy is as old on this Earth as human beings, as it started when one human helped another human in need.

I see charity in the form of a pyramid. At its base, there is the individual, who does humanitarian work in a seasonal way, reacting to natural disasters and conflict as and when these occur. One example of seasonal giving is when people share their wealth with others during harvest festivals.

However, we must not stop at seasonal giving and we must go beyond charity in times of natural disasters. With the development of our society, our individual seasonal response becomes traditional and ineffective in the longer run.

Society is reluctant to change and very few people consider charity as professional work that could be subject to structural framework, like any other work. Professionalization, in my opinion, happens when an individual specialises in a role that could be useful to serve the community or sector. Structured professional humanitarian activities can only be performed in an organisation environment, in order to cope with the diversity of the needs of beneficiaries.

We need to start seeing charity as an industry, in order to serve more people in need. Why an industry? I think it’s because of the money we take, the money we spend... The tears we wipe and the smiles we bring... The nakedness we cover and the shelter we provide... The despair we eliminate and the hope we plant.

Let us all work together for the success of this industry!

How to build a Civilisation

In my view, civilisation bases itself on an idea shaped by the philosophy and culture of an individual. Such an idea will never allow the thinker to rest until he/she imagines the boundaries, the framework and develops the outlook. This is step 1.

The same individual will become restless- they would like to express their idea to the people they trust and gain support in order to further the development of the idea. Once they have found support, the individual will put the idea into practice in a chosen locality for a period of time. This is step 2, the project phase.

The same group of idea supporters will continue building on the frame they created, advocating the idea at a higher organisational level. This is step 3, the organisational phase.

Once ideology is served by institution, over a longer period of time (step 4), the idea is exposed to masses of people, which could in turn, become an ideology in itself (step 5). It’s important not to lose focus on the idea at the heart of this endeavour.

If the ideology is supported by institutions, we can discuss of culture change, which becomes step 6.  If the changing culture serves the original idea, then civilisation will follow, after a period of time and we have reached step 7.

It all comes back to the individual who succeeded laying down the foundations of a civilisation. History will remember them and their success, making it thus step 8.

From one idea, a little stroke of genius on behalf of an individual, one day, we might just be able to see a new civilisation based on humanitarian moral values and history books will present a message of peace.

Inspector Poirot and the Pressure Cooker

I like to watch the Inspector Poirot series because he manages to solve cases so easily and always comes to the rescue when needed. This character inspired me to imagine a brand new episode:

Nobody could say that either Pan or Mama don’t run their restaurant well. Pan is the chef and Mama works front of house and they both own a small family restaurant in London. Their cooking is always in demand because of its unique flavours, blending different cultures.

The only problems they face are the ones caused by Mr. ET, their business partner.  When he takes an order from the Daslam family, ET passes on the wrong order to Pan or Mama.

Inspector Poirot is hired to investigate the reasons of Mr. ET’s behaviour. What he finds out stuns everyone: the Daslam family children annoy him greatly. If it is because they make funny loud noises, speak foreign languages and wear different clothes, the real reason is unknown. The rest of the Daslam children generally agree with Mr. ET’s perspective.

Poirot finds Mr. ET's behaviour odd, as he would not acknowledge his non-communication with some of the Daslam. Therefore, Poirot had to write in this report that Mr. ET ignores this noisy group, sometimes even going as far as antagonising them.

Investigating further, Inspector Poirot finds out that Mr. ET slowly but steadily changed the recipe for Pan or Mama’s famous Spaghetti sauce. What was a homogenous mixture, cooking well in the pressure cooker, turned into the “bin lid in growing deadly salsa”. ET tightened the lid so badly on the pressure cooker, not allowing for the steam to vent off.

All this wasn’t known to Pan or Mama, so one day, as Pan was in the kitchen and Mama was serving the clients, ET let the “bin lid in growing deadly salsa” to over boil in the pressure cooker.

Poirot comes in quickly to the kitchen to release the pressure, jumps high to courageously rescue Pan or Mama and their clients from the explosion and saves the day.

My conclusion to such an episode would be that a business partner such as ET should be impartial, neutral, substantial, innovative and accommodating of all the customers’ opinions to enable the kitchen to produce the best quality in the industry.

If it’s witty, I’ll wink ;)

I was once described by somebody as an “analogue individual living in a digital world”. Recently I have astonished my acquaintances by starting to use Facebook, Twitter and write a blog. How can an “analogue” man start believing in high tech?

My children became concerned by my daily Facebook updates. They told me “It’s only for youngsters”. My answer was simple: I know it’s used by youngsters. I find it is a great way to expose the next generation to humanitarianism, so that the youngsters of today turn into the great humanitarian workers of tomorrow.

Let us join hands and tune our message in order to meet in the middle: the ones who have already started on the path of humanitarianism and the next generation.

From Heathrow to Atlanta, with love...

I was discussing recently the issue of air traffic with my colleagues in the office. One of them found some very interesting facts, like the busiest international airport in the world is London Heathrow and the busiest national airport hub is in Atlanta, USA. In Heathrow, an average of more than 7700 passengers pass by every hour, which means that during the 17 hours a day the airport is in operation, 131,000 people pass through. Atlanta could have even higher figures.

I’m trying to get with these facts and figures to the issue of time spent on security checks in an airport.  If we calculate that the 131,000 people will spend on average 10 minutes each being checked, it comes out at approx. 21,806 hours (909 days!!!!) from one single airport. Paying somebody £10 an hour for this service can cost the tax payers up to £79,628,400 per year, and this is only from one single airport.

The security issue is not something to be undervalued or taken lightly; on the contrary, security puts our minds at rest so we can travel safely. However, when this is pitted against cutting back on social welfare, it brings home the truth that we need to create dialogue to address the needs of society and of every citizen in our country.

...in the time of the cholera

It’s happening in two of the most vulnerable communities in this world: Haiti and Pakistan. The people didn’t just lose their livelihood; they now risk losing their lives. After the earthquake and floods, cholera is spreading.

Now is not the right time to politicise our humanitarian activities and damage fund appeals, when people are most needy. What should be our response in the face of such a tragedy? Should we dither, make hypotheses, wait and see? Or should we act swiftly to respond to the needs of the affected people?

In my view, the victim should be the focal point; aid must be delivered rapidly and efficiently and we must create partnerships based on dialogue and trust.

Wake up call

I was awakened at 5am by a title: “Socio-Political-Global-Geo-Strategic Development”. I tried to fight it, managed to get back to sleep, then it came back stronger than ever. Tired of fighting this title, I allowed myself to think about its meaning.

It came to me that this could be the title of a debate on humanitarian aid, held in a boardroom on the 25th floor of a building in Manhattan, Mayfair, Champs Elysee, Dubai etc. I thought a lot about the value of consultants, experts and professionals lecturing on humanitarian grounds.

The message coming across to humanitarian workers should be simple as it details on a crucial issue. Social development has three components: citizen, development and policy. The focal point should be to serve citizens, society and nations. Let us simplify boardroom discussions for the sake of beneficiaries.

Royalty and Charity

 

I had a very interesting meeting with Prince Charles, who opened  the doors of Clarence House to charities that helped during the floods in Pakistan. The spirit of the meeting was unique due to the equal exchange between Royalty and civil society. We all agreed more work needs to be done to save the integrity of the people of Pakistan and the credibility of the people in the UK. I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate the Mosaic and Seeing is Believing teams for their work in Pakistan, as I know Prince Charles values their work highly.

The elephant in the room...

As humanitarian workers we need to think globally, but act locally. I feel there are many issues the international community has been turning a blind eye on.  These Elephants in the room have been ignored long enough.

Issues such as the problem of DRC, which I believe strongly is one of the ugliest scars on the face of humanity, aren’t being stressed upon. This leads to families losing their dignity and human feeling. Chechenya (where cases of TB have soared) and Burma are only two other deliberately overlooked issues. I could also list Kashmir, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the famine in Niger, which happens every other year.

There are too many elephants locked up inside a little shed because we choose to focus solely on security and the industry surrounding it.  We need to maintain a balance between the value of the lives of the forgotten millions of people and the security industry.

What is more valuable to the world: empowered citizens or an empowered security industry?

From Aden to Sana’a (Yemen Part 2)

 
Tareq woke me up at 5:30 am to visit the fish market in Aden and we managed to be there at 6am in time to see the first two boats with fishermen coming back. I can’t help but think about the hard work put in by these fishermen who could lose their lives to put food on tables around the world.

In Sana’a, we attended an altogether different meeting. The Orphan Development Organisation held a seminar which was followed by a mass wedding ceremony to celebrate the marriage of 3000 adult orphans.
The seminar participants had very diverse backgrounds and came from different countries and organisations. The key issue on the agenda was the future of orphan care development.  In that respect, local organisations are planning to train orphans to gain skills for life, thereby turning them into useful citizens of their country.

The event after the seminar, the mass wedding, was supported by Prince Sultan Bin Abdelaziz, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. 3000 adult orphans were married and the Prince sponsored the start in their new life together.

You might wonder why I was so happy for the 3000 orphans. My answer is simple: in my opinion, FAMILY makes up the most important unit in society's infrastructure as it can build nations and produce civilisations.

From Istanbul to Aden (Yemen Part 1)

I had a very uplifting experience in Yemen. We went there in order to implement in a practical way our new theme of partnership called “HOPE” (humanitarian operational partnership engagement). We started our adventure with an 8 hour mountainous car journey from Sana’a to Aden, which made some of us drowsy. This was the first step of building operational partnerships. This state made everybody cross the barriers put up by everyone else. It was wonderful to hear everybody talk freely about the strengths, dreams and activities of their organisation.

The second milestone was our field visit to the local organisations and we worked together as a group to identify a local problem and design a local programme.

The third milestone happened when there wasn’t a consultant from a boardroom to lecture the local CBOs/CSOs, but every group was deeply engaged in discussing the project frame design, life cycle, funding and outcomes.

I felt very uplifted because of the spirit of discussions, the depth of knowledge and the diversity of opinions presented by the participants. As an example, from the 18 women present, half were wearing the niqab (head and face cover) and had strong and educated views. This teaches us not to judge people on what they look, but listen to them instead and engage them in a pertinent discussion.

I can see that within the next years we will have new international humanitarian leadership emerging from Yemen. Let us give them our FAT (funding, advocacy, training) to achieve not just HOPE for Yemen, but hope for us all.

All inclusive ARCH

Extremism is shunned by everyone and we all try to keep away from this practice. What is extremism? It happens when we try to force everyone to accept or follow our ideas. It creates separation and isolation, which in turn lead to suspicion and hatred.

Europe is enjoying a great diversity of ARCH (art, religion, culture and history), and other different cultures should be added to the European mosaic.

Financial and economical crises should not point us in the direction of thinking irrationally towards people who were and are still serving our society and participating in the greater development of our civilisation.

The “r” in ARCH doesn’t reflect just religions, but also recognition, respect and reward. We should respect everybody’s personal beliefs and recognise their individual input in the development of the humanity in general, and Europe in particular.

We are at the beginning of the 21st century and the highly technological Western civilisation should celebrate our universal ARCH to bring humanity together on the basis of inclusivity, not division by extremism.