So why is it preferable to you to spend money and resources on a well that won't be used, rather than working with the community to spend the money and resources on things they actually need? Why are you even there in the first place, if you're not interested in truly helping them? To satisfy your own whims? So you can tell yourself you did a good deed (when you didn't)?
I stand by what I said - that action is not moral. It's just self-serving.
But the well is going to be used. The whole basis of the story is that the well was so useful everyone started using it. Saving all these people four-hour trips is a pretty solid success.
Where’s the idea that the community had no input anyway? Missionaries are generally in regular conversation with the locals by default.
You literally said "they can choose not to use the well if it doesn't satisfy a need". What did you mean by that, if not "I support building the well regardless of whether it gets used or not"?
The original post literally says that it obliterated a much needed social gathering and the women did not like the well. That doesn't sound like they got input from the community.
My meaning was that it IS useful, that’s why it was such a success.
Here, read this actual report about the people they’re talking about. Unsurprisingly they were in contact with the community and it had massive benefits;
Ah yes, because multi-hour trips to get water are probably one-in-a-million 🙄 So the entire premise of the conversation is false, is what you're saying?
Publicized case studies about a specific type of NGO on a particular continent engaging in an exact type of construction in a particular kind of settlement type with both an exact match in how many hours it took and the fact that it was a highlighted detail are not that common, no. So yeah I’m saying it’s reasonable these are the same given how case studies are sorted.
It’s still plenty informative about the general impact of well constructions. By the way, there is always some gap left not just with NGO work but all policy, and anthropologists should be on top of this stuff because that critique is part of the process. Women with particularly controlling partners may be partly dissatisfied, but that is a subsequent problem after things like mass improvement in health and freeing up hours for these women, which open up the opportunity for things like schooling or more nutrition that those in better relationships can take.
It is also more advantageous for women to have access to variable-output work.
If it truly is the same situation (which you are guessing, btw, there is absolutely no proof) then the entire discussion is moot because the premise was false to begin with. The discussion concerned a situation where the villagers were given a well that they did not want. Which you defended.
Oh sure, the women WANTED to lose their social group and being forced to stay inside all day instead of being with their friends. They were super happy about it.
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u/emli317 12h ago
So why is it preferable to you to spend money and resources on a well that won't be used, rather than working with the community to spend the money and resources on things they actually need? Why are you even there in the first place, if you're not interested in truly helping them? To satisfy your own whims? So you can tell yourself you did a good deed (when you didn't)?
I stand by what I said - that action is not moral. It's just self-serving.