The ‘Three Cups of Tea’ Scandal and My Greatest Concern
Posted on April 19, 2011 at 1:14 pm
The scandal behind “Three Cups of Tea” has highlighted many problems currently surrounding aid and philanthropy. I’ve written about most of these issues in the past, and there have been so many brought up in this current scandal that it can be hard to know where to even start.
Here is a quick run down of what I see are the major issues:
- Whites in Shining Armor/founder stories are emotionally resonant but meaningless. People become so attached to the story that they don’t try to evaluate the project itself. (see Eureka and other myths, Disruption Isn’t Just for Entrepreneurs: The Three Cups of Tea Lesson and The Dangers of Hero Worshipping)
- Problems with the way we represent the people and places we are trying to help. Is the representation accurate or is it inaccurate to increase donations? What is the impact of misrepresentation? (see The Tea Test, Three Cups of Tea – A Critical Review, Fund-Raising and Program Goals Often Clash, Say Charity Officials, What message are we sending?)
- A lack of the ability to enforce professional practices including: financial standards, monitoring and evaluation, reporting, complaint mechanism, and accountability. (see More Than a Fancy Name Or Good Story, An Important Message from Dining for Women, The importance of charity evaluations, Learning from Maddoff)
- Providing help that is not actually helpful like schools without teachers, a major theme of this blog. (see Not Even His Cause Was Worthy, Three Cups of Humble Pie)
- Issues with charity ratings and evaluating a charity before giving. (see Tea, lives, and trust and Bad donor advice perpetuates bad aid practices)
But what has me most concerned is this final point.
- Using charitable “awareness raising” (fund raising) material in our schools. (see Three Cups of Tea- Four Cups of Bullshit and Destroying Reader Loyalty)
Whether it’s TOMS A Day Without Shoes or CAI’s Pennies for Peace, schools and teachers are using what are essentially commercials for a charitable product to teach children about the larger world and philanthropy. As is the case with most commercials, these “awareness raising activities” often distort or over-simplify the problems faced in ways that benefit their own organization.
This is extremely worrying as the children brought up on these myths and misconceptions are going to turn into businessmen, philanthropists, and lawmakers. How will the decisions they make be impacted by a distorted view of what the world is like and how to really help? (see The Live Aid Legacy)
Following the success of A Day Without Dignity, there was interest in creating a Smart Aid curriculum for use by schools and service learning clubs. This scandal brings that need into even greater relief. We need to start providing very real information to students so that they don’t get swept up in hero worship the next time a feel-good story and easy solution is presented to them.
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Note: If you are interested in funding or helping with the curriculum development, please get in contact with me.
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[...] The ‘Three Cups of Tea’ Scandal and My Greatest Concern – Good Intentions Are Not Enough – Provides a run down of the common aid issues this [...]
Nice summary of the issues raised by the most recent aid indiscretion. My work is to educate about hunger and poverty in a church context. I would be very interested in working with you to develop and/or fund a curriculum that would help people think critically about effective relief and development. People have a desire to do something good in the world, it would be great to offer an educational piece that could help them channel that energy into something truly productive.
Great, I’ll be in touch next week!
Thanks for this. It’s summed up so many points that have left me feeling pretty down about this whole thing, what it means, and why this kind of thing keeps coming up. I brought up a couple of them on a recent article, but really defer to your summary as you have the wealth of content to drive the argument, if only people would read it.
Hi, I’m a high school teacher who is very interested in helping and learning more about the Smart Aid curriculum you are creating.
Perfect, I’ll be in touch next week!
[...] of the book Three Cups of Tea getting what sounds like some well-deserved criticism. But, as more eloquent writers than I have pointed out (round up post here), as soon as someone claims to have a magic [...]
[...] Following the success of A Day Without Dignity, there was interest in creating a Smart Aid curriculum for use by schools and service learning clubs. This scandal brings that need into even greater relief. We need to start providing very real information to students so that they don’t get swept up in hero worship the next time a feel-good story and easy solution is presented to them. Read more [...]
Thank you so much for touching on this topic yourself as well as the list of links.
It was so depressing I thought you may decide just to leave it alone.
So I have read every post you’ve published and a few links from them to others. It wasn’t until the fact was raised, that after schools were built there were no teachers trained to work in them, especially female teachers for older girls, that stopped me from getting caught up in the politics and focusing on what happened ‘on the ground’. Good intentions in building schools were useless without staff. Anyway, thanks again Saundra. You obviously did a lot of work in compiling all of this for us and it is very much appreciated.
Hi Saundra,
I work in development education for a charity in the UK, and am also doing a related part time MA on this topic. I have no knowledge of the US curriculum, but would be happy to provide info about the UK curriculum which (currently, under review) says that schools are actually obliged to teach about the work of charities. There are also several other ‘hooks’ in the curriculum which charities use. Let me know if I can be of any help.
Helen,
Great, I’d like to know more. I’d like to provide activities to far more than just U.S. schools. I’ll be in touch later this week.
Excellent summary, thanks.
I was also struck by the similarity between Krakauer’s suggestion that CAI was trying to get a school built to meet an artificial deadline (the publication deadline of ‘Stones into Schools’) and the problems in the aid industry caused by similar artificial deadlines (financial year-ends etc) which can lead to rushing to get ‘something’ done and ticked off without the longer-term support which may be more appropriate.
Hi Saundra,
There’s a flip side of the coin, too, re: what kids are learning. I was just interviewed by a 10th grader about NGOs in Haiti. Here’s her intro email: “Recently in my global issues class, we have learned a great deal about Haiti. We have deeply studied Haitian history so we know what strategies have been used already and which don’t work.” In the 10th grade! Her class was fresh off of interviewing PIH co-founder Paul Farmer as well so concerning your curriculum, you may want to contact this student’s teacher for ideas. Hit me if interested.
Carla,
Sounds great, I’d love to get in touch with that teachers.
Saundra
Saundra
Great post. Your last point about how “what we teach” influences how younger Americans think about giving, made me wonder if this doesn’t go some way toward explaining the growing interest in #embeddedgiving. This is something I write about a lot and was just telling myself “I must be getting old” as I see announcements of new embedded giving schemes everyday. The interest in embedding giving into every kind of online experience isn’t just because young entrepreneurs do everything online, it also says something about how they view giving. I’ve often wondered if making giving a part of every other kind of transaction actually diminishes the “value” (actual financial value and spiritual/emotional value) of the gift. There is some research that says we donate less and behave less environmentally sensitively once we’ve made our eco-purchase. Not enough to validate my question, but headed in that direction. Thanks for making me think about this in a deeper way.
Lucy
I agree with your first concern: “Whites in Shining Armor.” I believe that there is so much opportunity for ideas to be shared rather than ideas to be imposed. “We” need to work together with people of “developing” countries to help them further their own ideas rather than giving them what “we” think they need. Without it first being their idea and their desire, the likelihood of long term maintenance or success is low.
Saundra,
I recently visited a friend of mine who is a high school teacher, who told me that Heifer International had sent her and several other teachers on an all-expenses paid trip to Africa to show off their programs. Needless to say, she came away with a highly favorable impression of the organization’s programs, but my jaw was on the floor. Spending tens of thousands of dollars to send US schoolteachers to Africa doesn’t seem to support Heifer’s mission at all, much less the message in their fundraising appeals. Needless to say, she had a very favorable impression of Heifer based on this experience, and didn’t seem to question the cost-effectiveness or appropriateness of the trip.
I’m afraid that I haven’t much experience to offer when it comes to curriculum development, but I might be willing to help in other ways, including financially. As this project gets off the ground, send me an e-mail and we can discuss.
Cheers,
–Ian Turner
Ian,
Excellent, I’ll definitely be in touch as we get going.
Cheers,
Saundra
Saundra,
Thank you for putting this together and including my piece “Three Cups of Tea – Four Cups of Bullshit.” I wrote this unfortunately titled piece the morning after the 60 minutes story aired and talked about this issue the very next day in class. I am a high school teacher (and humanities chair) that has been working on integrating service, especially international service, into the regular curriculum in schools for the past five years.
I think an a number of factors go into the successful teaching of service and philanthropy in schools, but probably the most important is to treat every project as a partnership with the local community, not as a “look what we are doing for the poor people” venture. I am continually underwhelmed when I see the “work” of some organizations, usually in the form of empty buildings, dotting the landscape of the towns that I have a relationship with (Rural Peru). Sadly, on international service trips most kids still see the world though the lens of a bus window and come away happy with “wow, isn’t it great that we did _______ for them. So often the blank is something the community didn’t even need.
I could go on forever, but I’ll stop for now. Feel free to contact me to talk shop. Starting this summer I will have some time on my hands as I become an expat house husband….
Thanks again,
Aric
Aric,
Great, I’ll be in touch.
Saundra
Great post Saundra and good luck with your curriculum development. Quality, accessible education for girls indeed must be much more than constructing a few buildings and we need engaged, smart people who can see beyond the hero worship. You might want to contact the Africa Canada Accountability Coalition (@AfricaCanada & http://www.africacanada.org/) that has been developing a similar idea for college students’ engagement in the Great Lakes region.
Great article, and I agree on most points. I’m particularly interested in the educational alternative you’re offering in Smart Aid. The great advantage of “Knights in Shining Armor” is that people find them inspirational – they’re role models, and the feelings they emote from people are undeniably powerful motivational tools. How can you capture that while simultaneously encouraging intelligent/critical engagement?
[...] background articles about the work of the C.A.I. The same website has an excellent discussion (here) of this scandal as part of the larger issues of global aid and [...]
I like your point, Chris Bliss. to take it further… would media or schools or anyone else go near these issues unless there was a hero to worship? I think not. For media, the formula is firmly in the camp of the character driven story – the microcosm of success with an American at the forefront. Were it not for a knight-in-shining armor manyissues wouldn’t be discussed at all. It’s a fault of our American sensibility.. the Germans and British seem to tackle hard issues as topics and not as stories in a way that Americans find it harder to.
Saundra, I think the last point you make — the use of considerable “charitable ‘awareness raising’ (fund raising) material in our schools” — is absolutely one of the most unsettling elements of this issue. The mantras and lessons (and the stereotypical language) from the books are preached by teachers and professors. The problem isn’t relegated to school-age children either; our university adopted Three Cups of Tea into the common book program this past year and structured many classes and discussions around it. Hero-worship and easy solutions to development issues were at the center of the curriculum (it’s simple everyone: all they need are schools!). Students of all ages are hearing these mantras and not hearing about how complicated and unsexy the development field is. When the success story becomes more about the Greg Mortenson’s of the world rather than those who have supposedly been “helped,” we’ve missed the point. It should never be about us. I look forward to hearing more about your development of the “Smart Aid” curriculum and hope that it will be implemented at a number of levels, including universities like my own.