My experience and opinions on why we fail at helping. Share on Greendrink Singapore - July 2016

1. WHY WE
FAIL AT
HELPING
BY ROBIN LOW

2. DEFINE HELP
Help is any form of assistance.
-- Wikipedia

3. WHY DO WE HELP?
• Religion?
• Good Intentions?
• Guilt?

4. NEPAL EARTHQUAKE
Twin Earthquakes 7.8 and 7.3 magnitude
About 9,000 people killed
650,000 families displaced
600,000 homes destroyed beyond repair

5. DONATIONS
Nepal received USD$4.1 billion from
International Communities and World
Bank.
Guess what is progress at the 1 year
anniversary?

6. REAL IMPACT IN
NEPAL IN 2016
Some construction on infrastructure
started.
Some rebuilding on UNESCO sites.
Number of homes rebuilt =
0

7. OTHER PROBLEMS
• Political indecision (Nepal
Reconstruction Agency)
• Unofficial Blockade on Indian border
• PUSHING OF BLAME
• WAITING FOR HELP

8. RESULTS
• People died from exposure from
environment.
• People displaced living in tents
• Farmers living in tents on their
farms, reduced income and food.
• Jobs lost (no Fuel)
• Unequal distribution of support.

9. SINGAPORE HELP
Students from Singapore visited Nepal and
distributed aid.
Supported by Mega Churches, what can go
wrong?

10. SINGAPORE HELP
Students decided not to leave Kathmandu,
and just deliver aid in Kathmandu.
They discovered bibles in blankets.
(Common practice in Relief)
They “helped” to remove it.

11. RESULTS
What do you think when a majority
Buddhist / Hindu country finds lots of
bibles in their capital?

12. MANY PEOPLE WANT TO
HELP, FEW KNOW HOW
Everyone thinks helping is easy.
Most do it out of convenience.
Does anything think about the impact of
their deeds?
Some help out of pity, and they get angry
when they see the recipients have a nice
meal or buy something nice.

13. CURSE OF
EXCLUSION OF
LOCALS IN
DISASTER RELIEF
AND RECOVERY

14. CAN HAITIANS DRIVE?
Haiti Earthquake 2010
Food donation & delivery.
Trucks of Aid to Port-au-Prince.
5 year old saw the dominican driver
and asked, “Can Hatians Drive?”

15. STATISTICS
50% of world live on less than US$2.50 a day
(> 3 Billion People)

16. STATISTICS
80% of world live on less than US$10 a day
80% of world live in countries with increased income
disparity.
The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population
accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20
percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.
According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due
to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest
villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the
conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life
makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in
death.”

17. HOW LONG HAVE WE
BEEN DOING THIS?
How long have charities been doing the
things they are doing?
Is anything changing?

18. SCHOOL REBUILDING
Singaporean students decided to rebuild a
school that collapsed in Kathmandu.
Raised funds, bought materials and talked
to a school to help rebuild the building.

19. IS CONSTRUCTION
LOW SKILLED JOB
Do you think you can rebuild a school
structure with cement, cinder blocks, Metal
bars and a zinc roof?
Can you learn this from the Internet?

20. RESULTS
Good intentions, not so good outcome.

21. Is helping any help?
Not really…
At least not in the way we are doing it…

22. Often when we help…
We make life decisions for
those we are helping.

23. Often when we help…
We fail to see the whole picture
and feel content to help.

24. Often when we help…
We search the approach most efficient to
us not to those we are trying to help.

25. Often when we help…
We destroy the very same environment
we are trying to help.

26. Often when we help…
we displace local capacity.

27. Often when we help…
we measure our success by the delivery
of help or completion of actions not
actual impact.

28. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN DISASTER
STRIKES IS AN UNFORTUNATE
TWIST OF FATE.

29. WHAT HAPPENS AFTERWARDS
IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY…

30. When disaster strikes…
Some people are given a burden:
The burden of enduring the disaster
and the conditions that follow

31. When disaster strikes…
Some people are given a gift:
The gift of being spared
from disaster.

32. How can we
not use our
gift to lift the
burden of
others?

33. Disaster Response Lies…
• Only experts can help.
• You will be a burden in the field.
• We don’t need anything, we have all we need.
• Do not send clothes or food, send money.

34. We all can respond…
• And guarantee an efficient response…
• Donate Action, not money, not words…
• But how?

35. Disaster Response Basics:
You can be useful in the field if…
• Bring your own supplies and food to the field.
– Or buy them locally if possible.
• Engage the local stakeholders and work for
them, with them.
• Are connected.
• Have independent mobility.
• Listen, learn, respect.

36. Relief 2.0 (what is it?)
• A focus on running the last mile in disaster relief
• through independent units of local stakeholders
and foreign volunteers in the field
• supported by mobile technologies and social
networks
• to fill the gaps created by bureaucracy and slow
response from top-down hierarchies.

37. Relief 2.0 (how does it work?)
• Individuals and organizations report incidents,
needs and requests from the field using their
mobile phones and the Internet.

38. Relief 2.0 (how does it work?)
• These incidents are reviewed, verified, completed,
enhanced and their information spread to others
by individuals and groups on social networks
– Housewives, youngsters, volunteers, anyone.
until they are addressed, solved or matched with
someone who takes care of it.

39. Relief 2.0 (the last mile)
• Small independent units then complete the cycle by
actually addressing those issues and delivering the
response required and supported by the social
network.

41. When disaster strikes…
The social infrastructure remains,
people’s capacity is untouched…

42. What appears to be random or chaos
is neither…

43. There is order, social structure…

44. There is people,
like you and me, willing and able.

45. Who are the people who
survive disaster?

46. Disasters create survivors,
they don’t create refugees.
It is the conventional relief system what turns
survivors into refugees.

47. Disasters do not destroy
knowledge or capacity
Teachers are still teachers, doctors are still doctors,
nurses are still nurses, carpenters are still carpenters…

48. DANGERS OF SOCIAL
INTERVENTION
Making life decisions for those we are
helping
Is there “Over Helping?”

49. ARE YOU HELPING?
Should you do nothing?
Should you support status quo?

50. SO THEN WHAT
CAN WE DO?

52. Disaster recovery with dignity, inclusion,
generation and distribution of wealth
Businesses working with businesses to get back on track
and jumpstarting the economy to serve people

53. Matching shops and businesses affected by disaster with
same-trade businesses in non-affected areas and
enable collaboration to get businesses
to re-open as soon as possible.
Relief 2.0 B2B

54. It’s not charity, it’s not donation.
Both businesses reach a collaborative business agreement:
36 mth low interest loan, restore inventory, line of credit, etc.
It’s a business deal that preserves their dignity.
Relief 2.0 B2B

55. Relief 2.0 Enterprise
We need to start working with disaster survivors
and enable them as entrepreneurs before they
are turned into refugees by conventional relief.

56. Matching Co-ops from Villages to Local Business Organizations.
Buying van to transport injured to hospitals, and crops to market.
Repaying with agreed upon fair priced barter trade.
Connecting farmers to markets directly.
Relief 2.0 B2V

58. “Philanthropy dollar” can
only be used once, the
“social dollar” can be used
again and again.
-- Muhammad Yunus

59. ART IMPACT NEPAL
Leveraging on Arts for Disaster Recovery.
• Sell art to raise funds to build art studio.
• Teach earthquake survivors to make handicrafts.
• Sell handicrafts to increase income for survivors.
• Run international shows to find overseas market.
• Create awareness for Nepal products
• Build residential art studios to allow foreign artists
to come support survivors to learn and teach art.

60. SOLAR FORWARD

61. SOLAR FORWARD
Pay it forward model to bring solar panels
to rural areas and earthquake survivors.
Top income generators (people with second
job) will be given solar kit with
responsibility
Light allows them to be more productive
and 4 more hours of light can allow more
income.

62. SOLAR FORWARD
Saving $1 a day, recipients can buy a solar
kit for someone else in 2 months, enabling
them to provide for others what was given
to them.
Eventually, whole village can have light.

63. SOLAR FORWARD
Monitor success, learn from village
dynamics.
Getting NGOs and Foundations to support,
give guarantee for other villagers.
They can pay via installments from regular
banks, US$0.30 a day for 6 months at 10%
interest.
They can build up credit and be integrated
into baking system.

64. There are so many new problems
happening everyday.
Complaining does not solve problems,
protesting does not solve problems.
There is only so much the government or
NGOs can do. Being big and bureaucratic
allows them to act fast and raise lots of
funds, but they are slow to respond to
changes.
We need innovation and people to take
actions and accountability.
We all live on the sample planet.