A small episode in a documentary following newlywed Novocastrians on a journey in Afghanistan has reminded me of the hazards of charity. In the documentary - Honeymoon in Kabul, to be screened on ABC TV on December 10 - former midwife Maggie Haertsch and hospital clown Jean-Paul Bell are shocked by an Afghan MP's rejection of their proffered suitcase of baby clothes. There was another, more serious shock for these two people, and that was when they found their donated humidicribs and medical supplies strewn about the dirty floor of a hospital basement.
In my column in The Herald today I write about experiences that have over many years led me to question just what it is we are creating with charity. Those experiences include government-provided housing for Aboriginal people in western NSW, the hostility of Kosovar refugees in the Hunter a decade ago, and a friend's crushing discovery that her money raised for an African school had been stolen by the head teacher.
The problem is expectations, both the giver's and the taker's. They are always different and often diametrically opposed.
Perhaps charity is not so charitable as we'd imagined. Might it be that we are doing more for ourselves than the targets of our largesse?
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