Differences

Before coming to Madagascar, and while going to grad school, I worked as an Outreach Worker/ Family Advocate for a program at Boston Medical Center dealing with malnutrition in children below the age of 3, and the social and economic reasons why that happens. Within my role as a family advocate my main task involved helping families who requested my assistance find services they needed within the community. This assistance ranged from giving someone the phone number and address to their local Food Stamps office to going on home visits to help non-English speaking families fill out mountains of paperwork, or helping families find shelters to go to, or find free winter clothes for them and their children, etc.

As difficult, frustrating, and sometimes right down annoying as I thought my job (and clients) could be sometimes, I was glad I was able to help and even happier that the United States has a welfare system that, although imperfect in every way and filled with miles bureaucratic paperwork and red tape for families, is available and can (sometimes) really help families in need.

As an intern in Madagascar one of my responsibilities is to try to do the same thing for beneficiaries within our program in three semi-urban and urban locations within the island. The only difference is that there is no formal welfare system for Malagasy people to count on when they are in need (and my lord are many of them in desperate need!). This is both very frustrating, almost impossible to surmount, and makes me sad as a person, as well as someone trying to help people find desperately needed assistance.

The most shocking part is, again, what we seem to take for granted. I am reminded of this every time I remember the top three requests (many times demands) from my clients at Boston Medical Center, and compare them to the top three requests of the families I have met here.

Top 3 requests made by clients in Boston:

1. Help getting government housing (free or nearly free for people who qualify…though I must admit it is difficult to get, and waiting lists are long).
2. Help getting a childcare voucher so clients could take their children to daycare for free or reduced prices while they work or look for a job.
3. Help applying for food stamps (which allows families to get free food at local supermarkets).

Top 3 requests made by clients in Madagascar:

1. Help getting new skills so they can get a job and can send their children to school (many of these children are well passed the starting school age but parents can’t even afford sending them to public schools)
2. Help getting new skills so they can get a job and can get more money to buy more nutritious food for their children.
3. Help getting new skills so they can get a job and can have a bit more money and don’t have to go without eating at all sometimes so their children can eat what little they find.

Shocking, isn’t it? And to partially plagiarize Kennedy’s famous line in the speech to the newly formed Peace Corps in the early 60’s: “Ask not what the world can do for you, ask what you can do for the world as a global citizen.”