by Adam Brake
A Mid-Missouri organization is aiming to move from a conventional charity model to embracing collaboration on health projects in Africa.
“There’s a thing called parachute service; oftentimes Westerners show up, do something they think will help, and leave. There are some cases where it doesn’t last very long, and in some cases it’s counter-productive,” said Bob Hansen, president of the board of directors for Humanity for Children. “What we do needs to be sustainable and stay much longer than we do. That’s why this is their project.”
Hansen, who recently returned from a two-week trip to remote villages in Africa, has been distributing birth kits and helping train birth attendants. The project, however, has followed a pattern different from other charitable organizations — a pattern driven by those being served.
“We have a set of ethics we work by. We don’t pretend to know what people need. We ask them to tell us what they need,” he said. “They are full partners. We are not rescuing or saving them; we work side-by-side with them.”
According to Hansen, who makes frequent trips to Africa with Humanity for Children, this specific project came into focus while conducting interviews of the Maasai people in Tanzania.
“The Maasai are a traditional group where their lives center around cows and herding cows. In the past, they were nomadic and moved from place to place,” he said. “The Maasai stick to their traditional ways, and most continue to live in mud huts and have very traditional diets.”
Hansen said the Tanzanian government has put an end to their nomadic lifestyle, forcing them to adjust.
“The Tanzanian government has now said that they can’t move, much like the Native Americans were told by the U.S. government in the past,” he said.
The Maasai people were forced to settle down in their bomas, or villages, which generally consist of anywhere between four and 25 mud huts. There is no electricity to provide light and no air conditioning to provide comfort in the heat of the African desert.
Medical care
Even more concerning, there are no hospitals in which the women can give birth, which has resulted in a heightened mother and infant mortality rate, a problem for which the people contacted Hansen to find a solution.
“The group approached us and said they had a concern about how many babies, mothers and young children are dying,” he said. “We interviewed 60 of the birth attendants last year and asked them why they thought the babies were dying.”
