Interesting article - it mentions Amma's volenteers

[Guest guest]

Interesting to read how different charity

organizations do their work. Some so called "charity"

org have their own exclusive Boeing 747 plane, ala

Airforce One, and expects media coverage, whereas

others like Ammas children do it without any

limelight.

 

Aum Amriteswarayai Namaha!

 

 

 

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No need for photos or TV shots

Wednesday January 26 2005 07:48 IST

 

S Gurumurthy

 

NGOs here and NGOs in the West operate in two

different worlds. But here too they seek the same

space as their counterparts in the West. Let us see

the difference. The NGOs evolved in the West as

substitutes for neighbourhood communities that have

almost vanished in the atomised and impersonal West.

But many NGOs from the West operate globally. They are

no simple instruments of service when they set foot on

the Rest. They constitute the cultural and political

thrust of the West on the Rest.

 

See a current example. Invited by the tsunami

disaster, an NGO team from the US landed in Chennai a

couple of weeks ago. How? By an exclusive Boeing 747

plane claimed to be one of the two of its kind. The

other being the US President’s! This NGO looks for

’sinners’ belonging to other religions to ‘harvest’

them for its religion. It came here with celebrities,

a world champion in boxing and a Miss World runner-up,

so that it is not lost in the overcrowded NGO bazaar.

The team drove to Thazhangudam, a tsunami-affected

village in Tamil Nadu. It declared a charity of Rs

4,000 crores for the 10 affected countries over the

next 45 days. ‘Others make empty promises,’ it mocked.

Its mission: adoption of children orphaned by tsunami.

Obviously, it did not know that parents and not

children have been orphaned by tsunami, which has

killed children more than the old.

 

It felt sad that the ‘‘TN Chief Minister did not come

to receive them.’’ ‘‘A Chandrababu Naidu would have

done that,’’ it moaned. NGOs like this, backed by huge

global funds, are ever in search of disasters. In the

West everything is organised, including their

religion. So are their NGOs. Excelling even corporates

in PR they build brands. Similar, but smaller,

versions of such NGOs have been imported into India in

the last few decades. In normal times they monopolise

the metro pages of newspapers and occupy their front

pages in times of disaster. The have offices in

metros. Led by modern, articulate, sometimes

media-space seeking socialites, they are adept in

publicity. Liaise with governments and officials.

Monopolise all visible spaces. So they access high

value cheques from the rich and aid from the state.

This is how the western NGO model has created a

perception that all non-government activity is ‘NGO’

work.

 

These NGOs mask the work of neighbourhood communities,

the real social safety net in India, from visibility.

The neighbour community is part of Indian life and

tradition. It is organic. Not organised to attract

attention. This organic quality naturally, and

informally, manifests in a crisis. It has no PR, no

face or brand. They quarrel like families, but they

also unite in a crisis. Their quarrels are highlighted

to brand them as too antiquated for modernity. But

they unite, which happens whenever they have to handle

a crisis, to work together based on the very relations

which makes them quarrel, but that is never

highlighted.

 

See an example of its auto response to emergencies. A

whole village turned up to save hundreds caught in a

train smash at Khanna in Punjab, fed thousands for

days who came in search of their kin and safeguarded

all the properties of the accident victims and handed

over all their jewellery and cash to the local

collector. This is organic society spontaneously

responding. NGOs are needed to link unconnected

individuals, not organic societies. This made news

thanks to some enterprising media men. Otherwise, it

would have gone totally unnoticed like all organic

responses.

 

Even the ongoing tsunami relief work is mostly managed

by volunteers mobilised from local and neighbourhood

communities. Most organisations act more as catalysts

through their local work and volunteers. The story is

the same whether it is in Port Blair and elsewhere in

the Andamans, or Nagapattinam and Kanyakumari in Tamil

Nadu, or in Kollam or in Alapuzha in Kerala. In the

Andamans, 110 relief camps with over 21,000 victims

are mainly managed by neighbourhood communities and

initiatives. The local RSS and affiliates, some

Marwari Yuva Manch, Dweep Youth Club and other local

communities, and some local Christian missionary

groups are the catalysts to neighbourhood

mobilisation. Many communities have thrown open their

schools and marriage halls for the victims and

provided food instantly. It is mostly local and

neighbourhood manpower mobilised by local leadership,

supplemented by distant supply line help.

 

The same is the case in Kerala. Out of 26 relief camps

in Kollam, the Seva Bharati, an RSS outfit, maintains

14, mostly through local RSS workers. In Alapuzha, all

14 relief camps housing 40,000 affected, is maintained

by Seva Bharati again with the RSS workers mobilised

from neighbourhood. In Tamil Nadu, Seva Bharati has

its presence in 168 out of the 258 affected villages

in the coast line again mobilising local RSS and

associate manpower. They have buried or cremated some

2,500 decomposed bodies, more than a fourth of the

dead. The RSS in Tamil Nadu has mobilised over 2,000

volunteers mostly from neighbourhood. They run 15 main

relief centres assisted by 50 satellite centres

maintaining the supply line.

 

Mata Amritanandamayi Math, Art of Living Foundation

headed by Sri Sri Ravishankar and Isha Foundation

headed by Satguru Jaggi Vasudev could mobilise

thousands volunteers from neighbourhood for relief

work. So did the AIM for Seva founded by Swami

Dayananda Saraswathi and Ramakrishna Mission whose

relief work too was manned by a huge volunteer force

from neighbourhood. Many local community outfits,

caste organisations, local churches, mosques have

motivated and mobilised thousands of volunteers for

relief work. So it is the local and neighbourhood

initiative that rose to the occasion, with distant

help supplementing.

 

But these initiatives are off the TV screen and

outside the lenses of the cameramen of the media.

Unlike ‘NGOs’ the media is familiar with, they are not

organised. None of them have spokesmen or media

attache to highlight their work. With the result the

amorphous ‘NGOs’ grab all credit as the media keeps

repeating ‘NGOs are doing excellent work’. It is the

organised, globally funded, metro-based, PR branded

NGOs, operating from star hotels and air-conditioned

offices and driving around in slick cars whose

interviews, TV bites, photos are visible.

 

The volunteers from neighbourhood work and disperse

after the relief is provided. They are not invited or

motivated by photos or TV shots. Nor do they know how

to handle the media or publicise their work. But the

NGOs need photos and TV shots to publicise their work,

to raise funds and increase their turnover. They need

disasters to build their brands. In the process the

real work of the unorganised local social network is

masked by the media bias in favour of organised and

publicity savvy NGOs. The central government made us

proud by saying ’no’ to foreign doles for the tsunami

disaster. Why not say ’no’ at least to foreign NGOs

and their affiliates here who have global design?

 

Writer’s email: comment