"Africa needs long-term, well-educated and highly committed help."   Read on...

Anyone up for trash detail?  Just wondering if any sending organizations in the West would like to gather folks for that…

Joking aside,  Africa needs long-term, well-educated and highly committed help.  Africa needs people with degrees that give them credibility in the areas of sustainable development, waste management, recycling (on a major scale), reforestation, sustainable agriculture etc etc etc.

As you may know, one of the biggest problems African nations are facing or, rather, not facing, is waste management.   Plastic bags cover the ground everywhere I go.  If the small country of Ireland used to call the plastic bag their national flower, this huge continent can easily do the same today.  The tons of plastic waste that is killing Africa’s soil is one of the plagues of modern times. In fact, it’s a direct byproduct of development.  It’s a step up to receive a kilo of sugar in a neat little black plastic bag and  someone is making a living producing all those thin shopping bags.  Personally, I prefer the cone of newspaper, wrapped together on the spot, to carry my sugar home from the stall at the end of my lane. But the days of recycled newspaper packaging, or the home made sugar bags once carried by my Maasai friends, are all but vanished. 

But waste-management and the like are not traditionally embraced fields of emphasis by the generous churches of the West that send people here to serve.  I’m here to say that they need to be.  Just last week I had a conversation with a couple that works to reforest Ethiopia with indigenous trees.  They are doing a great and desperately needed work and we were thrilled to hear of their successes in encouraging local farmers to put indigenous trees back on their land.  Inevitably, though, they struggle mightily to finance their efforts. 

“No one gives to tree planting,” they said.  “People don’t get it.”

Agh!

It’s not that I want the West to stop giving to what they give to.  I just want people to broaden their understanding of what  long and lasting, needed and effective help for Africa might be.  It’s so much more than the understanding we have of it now.

And funds from the West are only a part of the answer.  More and more, I’m convinced that Africa needs smart investors and smart business ventures.  Do you know what will make recycling happen here?  Profit!  It’s the same thing that will make wildlife conservation actually happen. If there is a financial benefit that people can realize, these things will have a chance to succeed. 

I know some of the issues of this place.  I have some clues as to some of the answers.  Even so, I know I don’t have what is required to really engage the problems effectively.

But there is a generation of concerned activists growing up in Europe and N. America and my charge to them is this: “Get educated and get over here!”  Don’t settle for a summer vacation of volunteering. Put your education where your heart is and then give yourself away.  Come to Africa and set up financially viable alternatives that manage the waste, grows trees, or produces something really useful and highly needed out of all this plastic everywhere.  Train nationals and spread what you’ve learned.  Give your education and the blessing of all you’ve had at your fingertips away to them.  In other words, don’t “use” people…partner with them. 

Get out of the confines of your idea of “missions” and let the endlessly creative Creator use you in surprising new ways.   In another area of massive need, consider counseling as a way to help all those kids from war-torn countries.  If you are pulled toward them, make the long-term commitment to get real training and come walk them through the healing they so desperately need.

Oh PLEASE hear me that I’m not dissing summer stints of service.  I’m just saying that there remains a huge need for a long-term mindset.  And a long-term mindset takes education and preparation.

You may not get rich. You may not get recognized. But you will make a difference.