This past weekend, I attended a screening of “Poverty, Inc”, a fascinating documentary about the devastating effects of well-meaning acts of charity. By showering third-world countries with donations, we are actually smothering their own economies. Growing up, my father always told me that donations will not solve the poverty problem. Rather, it will perpetuate the issue by de-insentivizing meaningful labor. But it’s so much worse than that. Not only are we eliminating all incentives to change, but we are also the very reason why these people are poor at all. The example that brought all this together for me was that of the earthquake in Haiti a few years back. In that instant, yes, Haiti needed help, but by continuing to funnel relief funds into these countries, we started to shut businesses down. Fledgling businesses simply couldn’t compete with the free goods appearing on their doorsteps. We talk and talk about how we want to teach the people to lead and provide for themselves, but we still haven’t take that all-important step back to see if we’ve actually succeeded. It needs to change, but this “charity” so engrained in our society’s culture that to alter it would almost seem a crime. People don’t understand what they are doing, and the only way to actually make a difference is to start educating them. Maybe then, we would be able to acknowledge our wrong-doing and truly work towards bringing an end to poverty.