Whose Job Is It Anyway?
I’ve been thinking about this next post for about 2 weeks now. It’s a difficult and more complicated question than it seems. Whose responsibility is it to alleviate the conditions caused by this social issue and what can they do? Responsibility. They say, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Does that mean that the responsiblity lies with those who have the most power? Well, that would seem to make logical sense given that they are most likely to have the means to alleviate it. So, who has this power?
Currently, the Bolivian government addresses a large portion of this responsibilty. The two orphanages that I work at are both goverment owned and run, complete with an appointed director who is a member of the appropriate party. Once again, it makes sense that the government try to address this issue. After all, a society is only as strong as it’s weakest members, and if weakness is interpreted as “most vulnerable” or “most in need of support,” then who is more vulnerable or more in need of support than a child? However, an argument could easily be raised about the fitness of a government to run such a system. For fear that the Bolivian government is monitoring my blog, my father has asked that I do not go into detail about my opinions about this government’s ability to run such a system, so I won’t. If you are interested, we can sit and chat about this once I get back.
Let us for a moment hypothetically assume that the government either refuses to address the issue or does not have the resources to address the issue properly. Who then has the responsiblity? Well, oftentimes the responsiblity falls to private organizations. One former volunteer actually started her own halfway house for the girls at La Ciudadela who have turned 18 and must leave the orphanage. It’s been a blessing to those who formerly had to live on the streets (and you can guess where that might lead them). Yes, private organizations like this can really do a lot to help and often assume much of the responsibility.
However, I would argue that anyone who is made aware of the issue has a certain level of responsiblity that is proportional to their means. It can really range from donating specific items to donating time to raising awareness to simply taking a moment to learn more about the issue of childcare and how it is handled throughout the world. Basically, anything other than ignoring its existence, or seeing pictures and saying “Oh that’s sad…” and then moving on without another word, without a second glance. All of us, including you since you have now been informed of this, have the responsibility to do something. The only thing I might recommend against is donating purely money to an orphanage or organization. Unless you personally know the person who is going to be handling and using the money, you never know where it might end up…
Overall, this is truly a very complicated question, one that shouldn’t be taken lightly, and one that after two weeks I still don’t completely know the answer to.
Chau!
Laurel Bingman
P.S. We, the people, the individuals, have a lot more power than we think.