Foreign aid

A blog post by Adam. Over the last month I've been volunteering for Entrena, the same organization where Melissa has been taking Spanish classes. Entrena administers several large grants related to children's education and youth engagement.  I've supported two grants by writing "success stories" of past participants, current participants and prospective participants.

It has been an incredible opportunity.  I've visited more than a half dozen communities in and outside of Santo Domingo, both urban and rural, all impoverished. I've spoken to many youth (some of whom I could barely understand), as well as educators, psychologists, and social workers.  

In Santiago, I met the director of Ninos con una Esperanza (http://www.kidswithahope.com/), an organization that works in the neighborhood at the edge of the city's dump.  "Overwhelmed" grossly underestimates my feelings as I sat with the dump in the background, hearing stories of kids who searched the dump for food they might eat and trash they might sell.  And then there was a young man in a rural Dominican town who shared his story of multiple surgeries, a single mother, eight siblings, and an extremely dilapidated house without a functioning bathroom.  These were just two of many unique experiences that have forced me to confront the Dominican Republic's seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Amidst this harsh reality, I was tasked with writing "success stories." Since one grant (from USAID) is rather new, the success stories focused more on prospective participants' hopes. The other grant, however, is several years old and there were more opportunities to find "success." Funded by the Inter-American Development Bank, the grant supports A Ganar, a youth employment program that combines sports, leadership development, and job training (http://www.partners.net/partners/History1.asp#.Ub2iceccdsk). It's a great concept and the youth I met seemed to generally like the program. As might be expected, the goal is to help youth get jobs, which is critical given the fact that young adult unemployment is astronomical.  

Sadly, after many interviews I have yet to meet a young adult who has kept a job for more than a couple months after completing the program. Today, I did meet a young woman who had secured a loan and opened her own successful corner grocery store since completing the program (a real success!), but she was smart and ambitious and I have little doubt that program or not she would have opened her store. She admitted she had asked the program for help with the loan, but was turned down so she found a loan on her own somewhere else. 

How much are these programs really helping? Even if some of the youth had secured jobs, wouldn't that just mean another Dominican was left unemployed? It's not as if there are thousands of openings here without applicants.  According to some non-reputable sources, people with university degrees can find themselves working at McDonalds because there just aren't jobs. It's true that many people are unprepared for the job market.  Unfortunately, the job market also seems to be unprepared for more workers.

I don't know what the answer is. But as far as I can tell the only ones who have secured stable employment through A Ganar are the ones employed at the various NGOs coordinating the project. Not that they don't need jobs too or that they're getting particularly rich...I briefly visited the house of a social worker today that was among the poorest I've seen - limited old furniture, appliances in disrepair, and tiny rooms.  Maybe they should just use the programmatic money to pay the NGO workers more since it seems that investing in job training without jobs doesn't work so well. I wonder, how do you create jobs in a poor country?