Street Children and Beggars

I understand why we aren’t supposed to give them things.

We don’t want to feed the belief that “good things come from Western hands.” This commonplace preempts and cripples Napali initiatives, which (because the Napali best understand their own culture) are potentially more effective than Western solutions.

Feeding and giving money to street children also undermines the efforts of the organizations that work with them. Begging is similar to gambling because the beggar is turned down many times, and then, suddenly, he or she will receive a lot of money. Because of this similarity to gambling, begging is often addictive. Here in Kathmandu, there are many organizations that work to place street children in safe homes. Sometimes, however, when street children are placed in a home, they run away to beg again. The addiction is all they know. The longer a child stays on the streets, the more at risk he is. A child of 4 or 5 may be persuaded to live in a home, but by 10 or 11, most boys are addicted to drugs as well as the freedom of the streets. By 15, nearly all of them have HIV. What many Westerners view as generosity may actually enable the children to stay on the streets longer.

Additionally, many of the small children on the streets are taught to beg by older children or pimps who collect the money from them. The small children will often ask for powder milk or bread, but even this can be taken from them and sold to feed the drug addictions of their trainers. Thus, by giving them handouts, you’re actually paying their captors and feeding the cycle of drugs, which, if these young children continue on the streets, they will inevitably join.

Finally, giving street children and beggars a handout defines poverty as a merely material issue. Poverty, however, is a state of being that you and I share with these children and beggars. Handouts reinforce the beggar’s feeling of inferiority while reinforcing our feelings of superiority and self-significance. In other words, a handout confirms the beggar’s helplessness while making us feel like mini-gods.*

I understand why we aren’t supposed to give them things.

But

BUT

When a little girl, maybe 4 years old, held out her hand and wouldn’t move on; when an elderly man repeatedly asked me for money; when a boy my brother’s age tapped me on the shoulder, and his pleading eyes met mine, the words from James rang in my ears. “If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but does not give them what the body needs, what good is it?” (James 2:15-16 HCSB) “Giving them dignity” suddenly seems like a stingy escape.

I didn’t give them food, and I didn’t give them money. I know that I’m supposed to love with my mind as well as my heart. As I walked away, however, I couldn’t help but wonder if this “logical love” will steal my compassion.

*For more on this, read When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert