Jurist Tan

CARE teaches the people how to farm, Alfred said in Koromasilaya. CARE supplies us with seeds, a refugee told me. CARE supplies us with food while we were building this local market, the villagers in Makeni explained. CARE does 999 out of 1,000 ways to promote food-security, except for giving handouts and leave. I remember noticing that.

I remember feeling skeptical about CARE teaching good governance. What use does it have when the government is poor and corrupt? If the people are hungry and the government can't help them, trainings on good governance is futile. The next day we visited a school in Makeni that the villagers built under food-for-work program. We got the books from the local education ministry, the village elder said, and these three chalkboards, too. It's not much and we're trying to press for more, but it's better than nothing, he smiled. I remember feeling ashamed.

I remember being amazed about Rights-Based Approach. More than just understanding their rights, beneficiaries have to be connected to duty-holders, Fargal explained. NGOs are not the ones responsible for fulfilling all those rights. When CARE pulls out, will its efforts be sustainable? Will the villagers know where to go and how to contact the local ministries? Will the local chiefs be held accountable? The next day we sat through a seminar on human rights, in which almost 50 people from surrounding villages came and gave their opinions on how to treat women and children. At the very end, the paramount chief stood up to give his speech and said that CARE is having a donor fatigue. The proof? Look at how they are teaching us about rights--what is this for when we are all hungry? In an office meeting, I expressed my concern that the villagers might not understand Rights-Based Approach. The local chief sure didn't. To my surprise, everyone agreed. The village we visited was where CARE just started working in, they explained. It would take a long time for one village to accept human rights, and longer for them to understand the RBA concept. Paramount chiefs are even more difficult to convince, because they're the ones people turn to when asking for rights to be fulfilled. I remember being disillusioned.

I remember our first night drive in Sierra Leone from the airport to the hotel. There were slums all over Freetown, signaling the prevalence of poverty. I asked myself: How much has the international community helped? With all these problems, could we ever reach everyone? Are we capable to?

I remember talking about Sierra Leone with my best friends. A lot is left to be done, I said. There are ways, however, to help the 980 million people still trapped in extreme poverty without creating dependency. I witnessed some successes, noticed a lot of problems, but I know that extreme poverty is not a hopeless case. When given the chance, even the poorest of the poor could change their lives; we just have to help them.

I remember being proud of CARE.