And often does more harm than good. Prime example is the Band Aid/Bob Geldof waste of space. That whole saga probably killed more people than it saved, prolonged a war and made some bad people very rich. At least a whole raft of western people got to feel good about their 'effort' and saw some great live music.

Make a donation,feel better fast

I donate already. Not feeling much better for it

hang on there are good projects out there,

when i was in india volunteering with a slum charity, one of the local large international firms donated a lot of money to rebuild the school and clinic and donated the engineers and workers time too.

The most effective aid workers seem to be those who give their time and obtain sponsorship to go live in the country and provide the services the locals actually want!

Yes I did see some fact finders who stayed at top hotels but I also saw some who stayed in fairly rough hotels and had the sense to ask those of us working daily in the slums about what was actually needed!

Try meditation

And some of the tourists stayed behind to rebuild Phuket(Thailand) after the tsunami. That was pretty cool.

If all the management consultants in the world evaporated tomorrow it would be a much better place.

There are just too many westerners claiming to know best but probably couldn't sew on a button or mend a bicycle puncture without going on a course.

The whole system of aid and big charity is just immoral. But then so are governments, all of them I suspect.

Other professions that are superfluous to requirements - branding executives, most advertising, junk food makers, cigarette makers, religious organisations (I mean all the money supporting the Vatican, organising conferences - not those doing the actual work with people who need help).

Funny you should mention religions. The Mormons arrived from Hawaii - on a huge private jet. They left it on the runway for a week whilst they harangued and beseeched the followers to contribute more donations to the church.

In that time the aircraft could have earned more than the GDP of the island......

I understand, having worked in a similar industry too, and its really hard.

Living in a developed country, as a whole, we are blinkered to what is going on in the rest of the world. We are driven by our own consumer driven society.

Try not to give up, if there were not people like you in the world, there would be no chance for an improvement in third world poverty, or for the environment in which they (and we) live.

However, if you do decide you can't do the job any more, I don't blame you...

Its not so much that I can't do the job, its simply that I believe things should be changed.

Take Peter Kelly, an engineer from Brisbane, who was receiving $433,000 tax-free a year to supervise the maintenance of the 73km of paved roads, 1303 km of gravel roads and 400km of earth roads on Vanuatu. Thats AUD 1732 a DAY, and he was getting it TAX FREE!

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/ausa...-1225831898856

Even worse, having been to Vanuatu, i know that most of the locals don't give a stuff about roads.

I guess I will just climb back on the gravy train, but something is seriously wrong here...

You're right, $433,000 tax-free a year for supervising unwanted paved roads; that's just wrong.

Let me give you another example of insanity:

a few years ago the AusAID Governance for Growth Program helped Vanuatu to introduce competition to the telecommunications sector, ending a monopoly held by Telecom Vanuatu Ltd for about 30 years. AusAID had committed $6 million to the reform of the telecommunications sector.

What happens in these small nations is you kick out one government monopoly, and a private one steps in. Usually Digicel in the Pacific - and thats exactly what happened. The market base is too small to support two phone companies.

So good old Aussie taxpayers ended up funding the establishment of a UK phone company monopoly in Vanuatu.....

And did a single phone user care who provided the service? No.....

[QUOTE=lesleys;9988644]If all the management consultants in the world evaporated tomorrow it would be a much better place.

QUOTE]

I worked as a mgt consultant for 5 years, and am amazed that more people don't see through the smoke and mirrors. In Brisbane execs would much rather engage some arrogant youngster with an MBA spouting shite at $2000 per day then train/develop their own highly competent staff and keep skills in house. Lost track of how many people have told me that 'anyone not working as a consultant or a contractor must be no good at their job' As a management consultant you often get treated as though you walk on water, whereas as an 'ordinary' staff member your skills are open to question.
There's a whole bunch of charlatans googling their way through their posts and earning big $$ and it's truly shocking - but from what i've seen charities, not for profits often have poor governance systems that allow and often encourage very questionable behaviour

Any room in the gravy train for a work injured registered nurse? Who needs shedloads of money stat? Sounds perfect to me....

Gissajob

Slappy....I'll be getting in contact shortly....

I'll PM you.

I just have to do some humanitarian work here - my sick wife and children...