Well, as I am sure some of you are aware....the Chaco trip got stranded up in Residencia for an extra day due to the Aerolineas strike. This trip has been filled with issues related to economics when you sit back and think about it. Aerolineas is a monopoly and thus they have an enormous amount of market power, thus their ability to do what they have done and get the results they do. Also our time in Chaco makes me think a great deal about so many issues related to development we learned about last year in IB. I kept thinking about this issue of aid when we were passing out donations in the various schools and the effectiveness of aid.
So for this blog, I invite the students who participated on Chaco to reflect on their trip and the economic lessons they can take from what they experienced. Please feel free to let your mind wander and make connections.
For the students who are getting to enjoy their Teacher´s Day...I ask you to read their reflections and the lessons they take from Chaco about economics and then later post questions and responses to their reflections. Be sure in doing this to make clear who you are addressing or what issues you are asking about.
See you tomorrow!
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As I think of my encounters with the less fortunate here in Hotel Covadonga, I can reflect on many lessons that Ms.Stephens was nice enough to teach us in the past years.
As we might know, the indigenous tribes are not as "developed" as modern society. Now think about what us going to "help" them creates. It creates a society that learns to depend on aid, and thus ignores the possibility of producing themselves. If we´re going there to help, why should they do anything? Their economic opportunity is not that bad, if they do or don't do anything we'll still be there delivering boxes of food and clothes.
Isn't time for lincoln to move on and help other people that don't have anything at all? We built the school, we gave them that push that they'll need to move on to greater achievements... just a thought though...please don't shoot.
The Aerolineas subject, yes they're a monopoly in terms of airlines, but there's also other ways of traveling; like bus. Yes, they'll take more time, but it's still a different option to travel. And if Aerolineas wouldn't take care of the accomodations after their strike, then next time instead of losing that much amount of money and time we should go take the bus and not suffer as much, as much as I enjoy playing paddle and swimming in the pool.
This trip was a very different and impacting experience. As Ms Stephens said, it made me think a lot about development and aid. Last year, when the Chaco students came back, they talked a lot about how many children were left without shoes and how helpless they felt about it. Thats why for this trip we did Project Shoe at school and I was confident that what happened last year would not happen this year as well. However I was wrong and that was clear from the first school that we visited. There were children left without shoes, with their toenails bleeding. It was clear that there was a limit to what we can do. This reminded me of what we learned last year in IB econ about foreign aid and foreign trade, the concept of ¨trade not aid¨. We talked about how aid doesn´t really help that much because it doesnt fix any problems and how it just makes the developing countries depend on other countries more, how trade is better for helping them build a stronger economy. After this trip, actually being in a developing section of the country, I thought a little more about this issue. In the long run maybe what we did on this trip doesn´t really make a difference. But the smile on that one child´s face when he got his shoes, all those families that got provisions and clothes even though maybe not evenly distributed, those little things that may be insignificant looking at the bigger picture, it lets us know that we did make a difference (I don´t know if this sentence made any sense haha). That one child, that one family that we helped, that´s how development builds up. We need to start from somewhere. ¨Trade not aid¨...I don´t agree anymore because aid is necessary. Aid helps people that might otherwise not receive help. It keeps people going. We were on this trip for four days and of course we didnt magically make everybody´s life better, but we created a stepping stone for the bigger things we might do in the future.
although i would like to be enjoying my teachers day off, stayting in resistencia isnt as bad as i thought!
This is my second year of going on the chaco trip and once again i think to myself, how much is our donations helping them? Although we do somehow help, what percentage of the "El Impenetrable" do we aid? El impenetrable is the region in chaco where there is the most poverty. Most of the region are tobas and it is where lincoln usually helps out with the donations. I am not saying that the chaco trip is uselesss, but it would be nice to find a way to help all of the region. Since its imposible for the students to travel all of this region, why dont governments intervene and help all of it, after all they do have more power. One reason for this lack of aid is that governments are voted by the majority, therefor aid goes to where the majority is. In El Impenetrable only 40,000 tobas live, and if it wasnt for some donations , which are very little, by the government of chaco, they would only recieve aid from lincoln. So once again here there is a problem in where the aid gets sent to. Aid should be distributed equally but after being in Chaco you learn that this does not happen.
In regards to the aerolineas strike, you could call it a monopoly since not many airlines fly to chaco or other provinces in Argentina. Therefore by creating this strike it makes the government want to fix this problem right away. With the elections coming up they do not want to show that a monoply can alter the government and cause chaos. So not only does aerolineas argentinas lose money, but the government also suffers with these strikes. Seeing it from a workers perspective, you can say that they chose the right moment to make this strike.
Debora... I think that your ideas on aid and trade are totally messed up. You don´t agree with trade not aid? You mean you wan´t these people to sit around doing nothing and keep depending on people to help them? Wow! They're sure to develop like that... e
debbie.... you dont agreee with trade not aid..... ummm like eze said, do u want these underdeveloped comunitys to just wait for aid and not do anything... Remember that only like 1 or 2 go on to continue school after a while, and you think trade isnt good? I dont really think that your last half of the post is clea, maybe a clarification...
The topic of aid is one that will always cause a lot of controversy. Yes, aid brings immediate help to those receiving it. However, if a community receives aid for a prolonged period of time, and the people start to believe the aid is a right, it can have long term negative effects.
During This trip, both sides of this have been present. The majority of the people receiving the donations were genuinely grateful to receive them, and it was obvious that the donations would have an immediate impact. However, at some of the schools that we went to, arguments broke out; the people took our coming and helping them for granted, they were more concerned with getting the ´best´stuff.
The only type of aid, in my opinion, that really works, is in helping to build up a community´s infrastructure. The donations that we handed out are definately going to help in the short run, but as i already said, if the people start to see them as a right not a privelige, they are less likely to work to improve their situation. On the other hand, the building of schools, kitchens, electricity, health care, and other such things, will, again, IMO, have a much greater impact. This is because as the children become more educated, and as their standards of living improve, they will have a much better chance of breaking out of the poverty cycle.
Eze said that governments should intervene in aid. The truth is they already do... but in the wrong way. For instance, in the last school we went to, the government had recently set up a computer lab. This will no doubt further the education of the 300 or so kids studying there, but how many schools could the money used to buy the computers build? How many schools could have been provided with electricity?
Everything about this trip was amazing to me, but it also made me very thoughtful. As we could obviously see, the areas we were visiting were clearly in need of development, as they were lacking the most basic necessities. Before I ahd gone on this trip, I saw the huge amounts of donations we were packing, and I hoenstly thought that would be mroe than enough. But then, when we arrived and we immediately ran out of shoes and other items, I began to wonder to what extent we can actually help. I mean, of course it's very helpful that nwe're giving this kind of aid, and I do believe we're making a difference, no matter how small it may be. Even if we don't manage to give the whole community enough clothes or othe ritems, we still manage to help some people. And that it important. but at the same time, we will never be able to make a significant change in the situation as a whole. We will never be able to change the country through aid, all we can do is give immediate help. The only way to significantly change things in the long run is to change development. One thign that I thought was very very helpful was the building of schools and the donation of school equipment. If education is inproved, then the people of Chaco will eventually have a better opportunity to iumprove their lifestyle. But I think everything goes back to the comment "trade not aid", which is essentially true. The form of aid we donated on this trip was helpful to some extent, and of course I would encourage more and more people to do it (as long as aid is not harmful, I believe it is necessary) but in order to make any long term change i relle think trade is the most important element. Free trade will eventyually help development arise in areas like chaco and will provifde more jobs and more production possibilities, eventually imp`roving the people's standards of living. Howeever, and help, no matter how small, cna still make a difference.
Also one more thing, this may sound a bit repetitive, but about debbie not agreeing with "trade not aid"..i do think certain types of aid are essential, not so much from an economic point of view, but from a humanitarian point of view. The aid our school gives for example is essential in the way that it hewlps indicidual people with their most immediate needs and gives them some distraction and joy (i would like to think so at least). but in the bigger pictur,e there is nothign we can do, as mucha s we try. there is just so much poverty that aid alone will never be able to help it in the long run, and an effective debelopment will neevr be ablke to sustain itself on aid alone. This is where trade is essential and why forms of foreign government aid are even harmful. Trade wuill help create that self sustained development which chaco so desperately needs.
I'm not sure about this but i don't think these people in Chaco are actually sitting there doing nothing and just waiting for aid like what ezequiel said. I'm sure they tried producing things to trade but how productive can they actually be when they don't even own the most basic necessities in life? If we never helped them, how would they even move on to producing extra goods to trade when they don't even have enough to sustain their own lifes? I believe that aid does make a lot of difference although it's never the best solution in improving their economy.
Anyway, i have a question. What do most of the people in Chaco do?
Give me a fish and I eat for a day, teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime. This Chinese proverb sums up my feelings towards the Chaco trip—and applies to both the Chacquenos and Lincoln students. Lincoln students annually visit about five villages outside of Castelli, located in desolate and rural areas. We spend hundreds of dollars on airfare, food, water, and other supplies. We distribute hundreds of boxes of shoes, clothing, food, and other materials. But does the economic value spent organizing the trip surpass the economic aid that we distribute?
Firstly, boxes are distributed and divided amongst perhaps 300 families over the course of four days. Each family needs certain items—perhaps a pair of shoes for the father, and clothes for a baby. But what they receive is the luck of the draw—each box contains items that they might need, or that might fit them. Is this efficient? It would be efficient if the communities shared essentials and traded clothes/shoes with each other. However, its usually not the case. This is where aid is intertwined with cultural issues and politics. The Toba Indians are, by nature, timid and often selfish people. Why? Their race sets them apart—they believe that the “white” locals owe them, and consequently the men don’t work (apart from some seasonal agricultural work) and the women weave baskets. Consequently, we don’t know if the right items are falling into the right hands. Also, the Toba leaders accused the teachers of taking the best donations for their families. Aid doesn’t work when its strangled by long-standing cultural problems and corruption.
This leads me to my second point. Controversy surrounds how aid should be given, monitored, and spread demographically. What we’re doing is providing families with short-term help- I.e. giving each family a shirt, pair of shoes, bag of sugar, a belt, pair of socks, and box of pasta. Like I stated above, we’re giving them fish when we should be teaching them to fish. Long-term aid like building a school, helping repair a library, donating computers are resources that can truly help people secure a better future. I know this is hard to do! Look at UNICEF: At El Telasco, a Toba school, they donated a water tank. This should be a long-term resource, however, a piece broke after a few months and the tank was useless.
The last few paragraphs weren't meant in any way to put down the Chaco trip. As a huge community service supporter, I’m simply saying we should evaluate our methods. A few changes in our procedure could make our efforts go much farther and reach more people. Maybe we should begin by reassessing the objectives for the trip: are we going to help them, or help ourselves? Perhaps the trip is an investment for ourselves, an investment so that when we grow up we use our education and economic resources to give back, to be active in community service. If so, then we should focus our attention on more local problems in Buenos Aires. If not, we can think about how to build, or organize long-lasting contributions to the schools/villages in Chaco next year.
Last time, i couldnt comment on the Aerolineas part of the blog because Stephens "made" us cut our study hour short to go to lunch. As everybody else has said, aerolineas has great power over transportation in Argentina because they are the only airline to fly to quite a few cities. This means that their workers hold amazing power over the company itself. Because aerolineas is one of the few airlines to fly domestically, any time the workers go on strike, they usually receive their demands. However, this can also be a bad thing because since Aerolineas must meet the demands of its workers or see the entire country come to a halt, the workers go on more strikes than are really needed.
This particular strike is a textbook strike that other unions should look towards when planning their own. It was well planned, encompassed all workers, not just pilots or ground crews like some previous strikes, making it extremely effective at bringing the country to a halt. Also, the timing was extremely effective as well. The workers were smart to strike right before an election where the current administration is basically up for re-election; this forces the government to work as fast as possible to resolve the issue, or risk losing popularity, and possibly, votes.
Several people have brought up the fact that the tobas feel that the whites 'owe'them, and therefore dont do any work. My question is that, by bringing them donations, are we actually strenghtening this perception?
I didnt go to chaco, but we talked alot about the trip in spanish class with silvina. I asked what exactly was done when they went on the trip ect...and i read tyler quote *Give me a fish and I eat for a day, teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime. * reminded me of what Silvina told our class. i asked her if the 6 schools they biult in the last 13 years had any effect and she said, she had one person from chaco who she met several years ago write her a letter and tell her that if it had not been for the school they built in his village he would not have been able to move to the city and get a job in a supermarket. he said having that piece of paper saying you graduated made all the difference. Silvina said that for her that was enough if after all this they could benefit one persons life she would feel content. From an economic standpoint educating the people can help in the slow but sure future of development in Argentina. After hearing the different stories i would like to go on the trip next year.
Wow, you guys all had great things to say. I agree with both what Tyler and Carl said. In spanish class with Silvina, we also talked about whether or not the people in Chaco were becoming dependent on Lincoln's aid. At first, I thought they were, but now, I'm thinking they don't. Each family gets so little, that it doesn't make a huge difference in their lives. They are expected to work every day and provide food for their families throughout the whole year. The fact that Lincoln donates each family a pair of shoes, enough food for a few meals and some clothes just helps the families survive a little longer and allocate their money for other things - such as possibly a trip to the doctor, or something like that.
Instead of always giving, giving, giving, it would also be beneficial for the Chaquenos to learn how to become more productive and make the most out of the little money they earn. I think it is great that Lincoln does go to Chaco, but it seems crazy that each student spent so much money to get there, and instead, that money could be used to help some families in villas nearby.
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