Children, Poverty, and Guilt

My first encounter with child beggars came during my travels through Cambodia. At first, I wanted to help and would give money. This would of course inevitably bring the swarm of other children and it wasn't too long before I also noticed that many of the children had a well-fed and well dressed adults standing in the shadows waiting for them to report back. According to our Guide Books, these adults were most likely "handlers" who exploit the children by getting them to beg and then take away whatever money the children managed to get.

The begging was relentless. Everywhere we went, there were children, asking for money, saying they were hungry, trying to get us to buy this trinket or that trinket. And it wasn't as if they were lying. These kids were visibly thin and hungry. They didn't have shoes. Their clothes were raggedy. They were small and underweight. Yet, after a while, the sound of children's voices actually caused me to cringe and I was almost afraid of them and it took me some time to figure out why.

I was disgusted with myself if I refused to give money and disgusted with myself if I gave in and handed the kids money (which in many cases would go ultimately to their adult handlers). I think many people around me were experiencing the same thing. There was an inner conflict that would get directed outwards - in my case, that inner turmoil manifested itself as fear. Others, I observed, would vent their feelings on the children, angrily pushing the children away and shouting at them. And then others would just ignore the children completely. I was comfortable with none of these options.

I would assuage my own guilty conscience somewhat by telling myself that I would give money to NGOs that I knew would put the money to good use in alleviating poverty. But that didn't quite address the immediate problem of what to do when I had a child who was obviously hungry and in need of help standing right in front of me asking for help.

What can you do? Obviously, widespread poverty cannot be fully remedied by one person nor even one hundred. The scope of need was so massive it left me feeling like anything I might do would be futile. It shut me down for awhile and I ended up doing things to avoid the children's pleas that bring tears of shame to me when I recall them now.

It wasn't until Nikki and I reached Phnom Penh that I figured out how I personally needed to deal with it. I decided that doing something was better than nothing. I would not give money, but if a child was hungry and it seemed I could do so without getting the child in trouble or attracting a horde, I would take her or him or them to eat with me, buy some food for them or offer to share whatever food or water I had on me. And I reconciled myself with the fact that I did not have to/could not help everyone.

Most of the time, the children would happily accept the water and food. And there were other times when they did not/could not.

I forget where I heard this story, and it's corny, I know, but I would recall it often during these times...

It was morning and I was standing on a beach. The receding tide had left behind a beach strewn with hundreds of starfish, all dying in the morning air. Surveying this scene, I noticed an old man slowly making his way towards me. As he drew nearer, I could see that every few steps, he would bend down, pick up a starfish and toss it out into the sea. I watched him do this for some time until finally, he was upon me.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
Without pausing from his work, the old man replied, "These starfish will die if they aren't returned to the sea."
I looked at the old man and then again at the starfish covered beach stretching endlessly in both directions.
"There must be hundreds -- thousands of starfish out here. You can't possibly help them all,"
The old man bent down again, picked up a starfish, and threw it out to the sea.
"I helped that one."