Re: WHAT HAVE WE DONE!

Michael Patterson (mailto:Michael_O._Patterson@HUD.GOV)
Thu, 13 Jun 1996 08:29:20 EST

Message-ID:  <9605138346.AA834679760@hudsmtphq.hud.gov>
Date:         Thu, 13 Jun 1996 08:29:20 EST
From: Michael Patterson <mailto:Michael_O._Patterson@HUD.GOV>
Subject:      Re: WHAT HAVE WE DONE!
To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>

one wants to do things without monetary reward.  The NGO members
have definitely gained knowledge through the project, but have we
developed the NGO or have we destroyed the NGO is my question?
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   Mixing volunteers with paid workers rarely works well.  Paid CETA
   workers [Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, a Federal
   program] added to volunteers, in the 1970's, almost destroyed a
   number of volunteer organizations- the volunteers got extremely
   resentful.  Probably an anthropologist could talk about the
   difference between gifting and paid reimbursement.

The longer lasting volunteer organizations we see tend to have a strong spiritual component. I'd love to see a good write-up here on Sri Lanka's Sarvodaya Shramadana, which seems to have successfully overcome this sort of problem.