We, too, first had to learn that the conditions in the project regions do not always correspond to our ideas of the necessities and need for help. This is often due to local climatic, legislative or logistical, religious or cultural peculiarities that you only understand when you talk to people.
Clothing donations, for example, are a nice idea, but they don’t solve the main problem faced by children on an island like Isla Verde with average temperatures of 30°C, and the costly and time-consuming transport undermines local trade.
It is important to accept this defiantly and with the necessary humility and not to condemn it as ingratitude, but rather to analyze and organize the needs for urgency and feasibility. The effective and sustainable distribution of the available funds is often at least as complex as the fundraising itself.
The visits to our project regions that are carried out from time to time are really helpful here. If you listen here and keep your eyes open, you will come home with lots of suggestions and ideas. Help that can then also represent a real improvement in living conditions:
