The controversy round WE Charity in Canada is opening the door to a public dialogue about whether or not WE — and teams prefer it — truly assist the African communities the place they function.
Firoze Manji, the previous Africa program director for Amnesty Worldwide, stated one of many massive issues with teams corresponding to WE is that they aren’t accountable to the folks they declare to serve.
“They’re accountable to self-appointed boards,” stated Manji, who’s initially from Kenya and is now a professor at Carleton College’s Institute of African Research. “The mythology is that they will combat poverty. The issue with that proposition, though it sounds excellent, is that they don’t cope with the causes of impoverishment.”
On Sept. 9, WE Charity stated it could wind down its Canadian operations, however its for-profit affiliate, ME to WE, will stay lively, as will WE Charity in the US and the UK.
The charity’s packages in nations corresponding to Kenya, Tanzania and Ecuador will proceed “so long as attainable” the group has stated.
The exact extent and impression of these abroad packages is just not simple to discern. It’s clear from monetary statements launched by the group and tax filings that WE’s soon-to-be-shuttered Canadian packages are by far the charity’s largest. In 2019, WE Charity Canada had complete income of $65.9 million and bills of slightly below $68.2 million.
In some years, its U.S. arm has despatched more cash to Canada than it despatched to any nation in Asia, Africa or Latin America or spent on home programming.
Within the 2019 monetary yr, for instance, U.S. tax filings present WE Charity U.S. spent US$7.6 million on home packages and US$18.Eight million on “grants and different help to overseas organizations” — of which US$10.Eight million went to WE Charity Canada.
In 2018, WE Charity U.S. spent US$5.Eight million on home programing with one other US$6 million going to Canada. That yr US$8.5 million went to Asia, Africa and Latin America.
WE Charity stated the cash was despatched to the Canadian workplace to reimburse it for work completed on packages that had been delivered in the US. Workers within the group’s World Studying Centre in Toronto “create studying curricula, manage and ship digital programming, perform program improvement, and conduct measurement and analysis work for operations in each Canada and the U.S.,” WE stated in an emailed response to The Canadian Press.
Exterior of North America, Kenya was the most important recipient of cash from WE Charity U.S.
WE didn’t make a consultant obtainable for an interview, however in an emailed response it included a quote attributed to the governor of Kenya’s Narok County. “I can confidently say that no NGO has completed extra to learn Kenya than WE Charity,” Samuel Okay. Tunai is quoted as saying.
Different Kenyans have a unique impression.
Karuti Kanyinga, the director of the Institute for Growth Research on the College of Nairobi stated he isn’t aware of WE Charity or Free the Youngsters, the group’s former identify.
With greater than 10,000 NGOs working in Kenya, he stated it’s “troublesome to maintain monitor of what any of them is doing, besides whether it is concerned in large advocacy work or is likely one of the massive ones with lots of sources to impression change on the nationwide degree.”
WE Charity doesn’t seem on an inventory of the 50 NGOs that spend probably the most on packages in Kenya, launched within the 2018-19 annual report of Kenya’s Non-Governmental Organizations Co-ordination Board. All NGOs working in Kenya are required to submit experiences to the board.
WE stated allocations from its worldwide program “are deployed in a number of methods, typically straight from Canada, such that the spending could not present up as coming from the charity in Kenya itself.” The group stated it additionally purchases medical provides in Canada and the U.S. to ship to Kenya.
U.S. tax filings for 2019 don’t present the acquisition of medical provides by the charity’s U.S. arm, whereas filings for 2018, 2017 and 2016 present the acquisition of medical provides for Haiti, however not some other nation. That type of data for WE Charity Canada is just not publicly obtainable.
Those self same tax filings present WE having only one worker, contractor or agent in six of the seven nations outdoors North America the place it has operations. Within the seventh, Ecuador, none is listed. Canada was listed as having greater than 200 workers on the time.
WE stated it appoints a senior worker in every nation to guide and oversee native operations, nevertheless it stated the tax filings don’t inform the entire story.
“To be clear, the group is not only a ‘single worker’ in every nation, however relatively one formal consultant is assigned per nation to be accountable for oversight and dealing with native employees,” it stated.
Different Kenyans say WE — and its for-profit affiliate ME to WE — are higher identified for bringing North American and European Celebrities to the nation than for improvement work.
Grace Kerongo an editor at The Star, a nationwide newspaper based mostly in Nairobi stated she solely heard about WE — then generally known as Free the Youngsters — due to the celebrities it brings to Kenya.
“The impression of charitable actions is just not that felt or identified, apart from what’s on their web site,” she stated in an e-mail.
Certainly one of WE’s focuses has been so-called voluntourism, a follow the place folks from nations like Canada — often youth — pay to volunteer abroad. ME to WE, WE Charity’s for-profit affiliate, is an operator of voluntourism journeys.
There have been calls in a number of African nations to ban the follow, which Rosebell Kagumire, a Ugandan author and activist, stated is predicated on racist stereotypes. Unskilled younger individuals who come to African nations pondering they’ll resolve native issues are “excessive on white supremacy,” Kagumire stated.
WE didn’t reply particular questions on claims that voluntourism is racist, nevertheless it defended the follow.
“Like several facet of worldwide improvement, providing journeys to growing communities may be completed poorly, or present an amazing profit to each communities and travellers alike,” the group stated. “When completed correctly and in partnership with communities, journeys may be helpful by offering organizational transparency, permitting for cultural immersion and by creating native jobs via tourism and internet hosting of travellers.”
Kagumire maintains that voluntourism doesn’t assist to handle the bigger systematic issues which have led to widespread poverty in Africa: “It’s not like folks can’t construct their very own colleges, however even when you construct it, what’s the system that’s prevailing?”
Comparable issues to Kagumire’s have been raised in Canada.
In her 2017 grasp’s thesis, which analyzed the best way ME to WE markets to Canadian youth, then College of Ottawa pupil Kelsey Buchmayer discovered that the group strengthened unfavourable stereotypes concerning the folks within the nations the place it organizes journeys.
“ME to WE’s model of voluntourism positions methods of ‘saving’ and ‘serving to’ folks on the expense of extra refined improvement approaches that foster partnership, sustainability, long-term assist, and capability constructing,” she wrote.
With out robust authorities insurance policies round training and neighborhood mobilization, she added, “the very nature of the ‘improvement work’ accomplished by ME to WE is problematic and unlinked to improvement outcomes.”
© 2020 The Canadian Press
