The main finding is that most of the students thought NGOs were a positive aspect of global and local society and that they ‘did good in the world’. There was limited knowledge of what NGOs actually did, with over three quarters of the comments indicating a micro-development view, of the ‘they build wells’ variety. Only one group mentioned advocacy for fair trade as a key activity for NGOs, adding that they should do more of this work. Question seven of the focus group activity asked the students what they thought of NGOs and these expressions are typical:
B4: Me personally, I just think they’re just done some good work, they’re all happy
B3: Yeah good on ‘em, good on’ em I say.
[Northern Plains High School, group E]
B2: I reckon they do lots. They make wells and that, in those countries.
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As the students progressed through the activity, they warmed to the topic and the discussion became deeper and in some cases more critical around specific aspects of the sector, but overall it is important to stress that they had a favourable view of what the sector purported to achieve overseas. Questions around the effectiveness of aid and where NGOs were actually doing aid work arose in various discussions. This extract illustrates this:
B1: And what about New Zealand?
B5: And like why don’t they donate anything to the Islands eh?
B2: I know... they don’t show anything in Rarotonga or...Samoa or mean... B3: Because they look for where there’s more help...
B2: Maybe cos there’s like hardly any people living on those islands so they feel like....a few people...so rather sending HEAPS over to Africa, they could spend like…
B5: I mean I like that it portrays something that would like help others to support them but you know yeah, it’s not portraying everything...
[Beaufort College, class A, group D]
In the following comment the student remarks that aid efforts are possibly not working and his question is not said in a negative manner:
B2:Yeah, my question was um...like every year we have more people entering our world famine [referring to World Vision’s 40 hour Famine fundraiser] but like...with all the money they raised and it goes to all the resources...how come there’s more people still out there with hunger?
[Beaufort College, class A, group E]
The question that this student raises is the never-ending story of aid, in that the campaigns seem to continue but fixing global hunger seems like a bottomless pit. Real answers and other ways of thinking about aid and development are not present. The student does not appear to have been given (or remembered being taught) contextual information about global hunger either by the NGO or his teacher. This confirms concerns that event-style charity options may be fun, but they can leave questions
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unanswered for participants. A cosmetic engagement with development issues may result in short-term action and long-term disappointment, a key problem that many argue is the outcome of when charity overtakes education in the classroom (Bryan, 2011; McCloskey, 2011). Andreotti (2011) has also raised concerns that promises to end world hunger can result in disappointment and cynicism and possibly a view that this failure is the result of the poor themselves: “In the long run [the failure of eradicating poverty] works to sustain and reify the idea that poor countries and peoples have a cultural deficit that is either beyond repair or in need of more ‘fixing’ through more tutelage and control” (p. 167).
The students’ knowledge of the sector was limited. Question six in the focus group activity asked them to list any NGOs they had heard of. World Vision and UNICEF were given as two examples and most groups struggled to come up with more than five. They knew what the sector was, but had trouble naming specific NGOs. Both NATO and Cigna Life Insurance get a mention in one group, although they were dismissed quickly by the others in the group. At least half the groups debated what constituted an international NGO, with the likes of the Salvation Army, Greenpeace and local opportunity shops discussed. When they referred to NGOs they used the word companies most often, with the term charities a distant second, despite my initial introduction and brief explanation of the terms. The most common media image or recollection of NGOs was of child sponsorship advertisements on television, followed by visiting speakers to their schools and posters around the classrooms and those they saw in public places, such as bus shelters. At least a dozen students had parents or relatives who sponsored children, so child sponsorship featured prominently as a signifier of the sector.
Generally the young people had positive discussions around the actual idea of international NGOs and while they did not really know much about what NGOs did, they thought they were reasonably effective, but there was room for improvement. This extract shows how they saw NGOs as giving them an opportunity to assist.
G1: And they give it a way for us to help them as well because of some of them are clothing stores, op shops, then other ones where you can donate money
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and so it gives us the opportunity to help out the country and know that we’re doing good for the world.
B2: And we can also sponsor a child over in those countries which helps like that family out....we had to at our primary school...we had one there...
[Northern Plains High School, group F]
If their overall impression of the work of the NGO sector was positive, then their critique of certain aspects of the sector is interesting. The following three sections on NGO expenditure, marketing and celebrity activism show that the students had doubts and were not afraid to criticize the messenger’s activities.