one comes, helps, leaves and somehow nothing has really improved. The individual volunteer, who dedicates himself to helping side-by-side with locals in the health or social sector or shares the strain on the fields, will only in limited ways bring about improvement, if at all (with perhaps the exception of alphabetisation and other educational programs, though even they are often better carried out by locals, as they can teach in the local language and a culturally adapted manner). Also some of the bigger projects that were realized with Western help – roads, banana plantation, laboratories, etc. – eventually disintegrated, once they were no longer sufficiently maintained after the departure of their Western founders…Does it mean helping is pointless? No, of course not. Micro credits, for example, seem to be a good alternative.
At least they encourage change that comes from within the developing country, from the people themselves, and thus hopefully lead to more long-term improvements. And indeed we have met quite a few hard-working entrepreneurs, who have not only enhanced their own lives with the help of micro credits, but also benefited the local economy and community with growing their business. Though also projects such as Plan or SOS children’s villages that recruit their staff foremost locally in order to preserve and promote local knowledge and skills, are certainly worth the support that they get. 
The Heifer project we visited was also impressive. The villagers were not only provided with animals, a barn and education, but also required to use some of the income from the breeding to repay the given equipment and to donate a certain number of their animals’ offspring to another family. This way the gift ‚lives on’ and thus helps also other villagers. Also here the staff is recruited locally, so that possible culturally-determined problems can be detected early and counteracted efficiently.
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