Listen to thisI will keep it short and sweet this month, but to some degree, what I am writing about has been a frustration for me for quite some time. Fundamentally, I lament the lack of capacity in the field of child and youth care to respond to situations around the world where everything we claim to stand for is clearly needed, and yet we rarely show up. As I am sure everyone is aware, the United States government has cancelled USAID, the American international aid agency. On the one hand, one could write entire volumes of critique of this agency, which has, without a doubt, served as a vehicle for neo-colonial imperialism and Westernization in much of the Global South. On the other hand, USAID has made some very important funding decisions in recent decades, including funding much of the response to HIV/AIDs in Africa and supporting local organizations with cultural and Afrocentric practice knowledge and wisdom to design and deliver services that are desperately needed. Over the past twenty years in particular, the infrastructure of support, care, and intervention that has been built – again, mostly by local organizations - is extensive and millions of young people and their families and communities have benefitted (again, I am saying this understanding that layered into that benefit is also an element of exploitation). The HIV/AIDs crisis in Africa, which is primarily a crisis because of policy and corporate greed in the Global North, cannot possibly be overstated – it has devastated the lives of children, youth and families, as well as entire communities across many parts of the continent, and it is far from over, even if in the Global North, it is no longer in the news cycle. The impacts of HIV/AIDs are multigenerational, and have given rise to child headed households, intergenerational trauma, structural poverty, family disintegration, and of course conflict and war.
Although nothing is ever perfect, it must be said that many grassroots and more organized local, African, entities have responded well and meaningfully to at least many of the social issues that have emerged, but in their response, they have had to rely on external funding, and USAID was the major funder of almost all services. The abrupt cancellation of USAID has, within days, had a devastating impact in many regions on the continent. From South Africa to Kenya, thousands of trained and highly skilled community and social workers as well as child and youth care practitioners, have lost their jobs overnight, with few safety nets in place to prevent them from falling into poverty. And hundreds of thousands of young people suddenly lost their access to services and are now left to their own devices. It is an unmitigated disaster that once again reminds us why one can never trust the rhetoric of Global North leaders, and why international aid of any kind is always potentially synonymous with dependency and exploitation. It also reminds us that at the heart of the Western psyche rests racism and white supremacy that allows for the exploitation and abandonment of non-Western geographies and societies as we see fit.
Notwithstanding the much larger issues at stake, there is a problem right now that could be mitigated. Children and youth, their families and their communities, have had critical resources, and notably human resources, withdrawn from their lives. There are also colleagues from all our social professions in need of resources and life-sustaining things, such as food. In short, there are people in need of child and youth care practitioners, social workers, nurses, and other professionals right now. Can we show up?
Sadly, the answer is no, we cannot. Just like it was no when children in Gaza were dying and continue to die by the thousands. Just like it was no when an earthquake devasted Haiti. Just like it was no when Rohingya refugees were pouring over the border in Bangladesh, struggling to stay alive. In fact, it has always been a firm no, because we are not organized enough (perhaps not caring enough to organize) to bring all those great values and methods, from relational practices to life-space interventions, and from being present to making moments meaningful, beyond the tiny and largely insignificant boundaries of our privileged lives.
There is no child and youth care without borders. There is no space and no place where we, from around the world, can come together to formulate responses to situations such as the current one that are informed by the desire to assist within the framework of local knowledge and wisdom and under the direction of local authorities and organizations. We just keep failing at this and I suspect we have become quite comfortable failing at it. This is most unfortunate. I note that there are in fact international organizations, such as FICE, for example, that do want to respond, but that have nothing to draw on to do so. I also note that in South Africa, the National Association of Child Care Workers, arguably the most sophisticated and intelligent child and youth care organization in the world, is responding to things as best as possible, but they are themselves seriously impacted by the withdrawal of USAID funding.
If ever there is a time to try again, to see if we can mobilize in sustainable ways so that one day we can respond to situations that adversely, and brutally, impact children and youth, the time is now. I am aware that earthquakes, genocide, and the systematic eradication of childhood in many places around the world are not enough motivation for us to do something. Maybe the prospect of Dumb and Dumber destroying not only their own backyard but also the lives of children and communities all over the world will get us to act. Just think – contrary to their own ambitions, Dumb and Dumber would have done something good that we could remember them for. That would be the ultimate irony. Perhaps that’s an incentive worth taking up?
