A group of Americans have travelled half way round the world to Swaziland to paint a church, build a chicken coup and fence off some gardens … and to report on television how they are giving Swazis ‘the hope that they deserve’.
Here is the third in the Derek Goes to Africa series. In the two previous reports Derek Van Dam, a man who reads the weather forecast on a local television channel NBC25, told viewers how he and a group of missionaries from a church in mid-Michigan state in the US had been preparing for a trip to Swaziland.
In this latest report broadcast in America in July 2007, the group have actually arrived in Swaziland to work at the El Shaddai orphanage.
This item, which was broadcast during NBC25’s evening news programme describes Africa as a land of ‘poverty, disease and hunger’. Derek (pictured above with children in Swaziland) tells viewers, ‘The words cannot describe, convey, something of this magnitude.’
These television reports and others like them are important because very little about Swaziland gets covered in the foreign media. This is even more so when you look at countries outside the continent of Africa. Because of this people know very little about the kingdom. What little they do know they learn through the media.
Unfortunately, Derek knows nothing about the context of what he is experiencing. Swaziland is not one of the poorest countries in the world: it is not even one of the poorest in Africa. Swaziland’s economic problems stem from the way wealth is distributed within the kingdom and that unequal distribution is why about 70 per cent of the population live below the poverty line
Derek lists the things he and his group have done since arriving in Swaziland. They include making fences to keep cattle off crops, painting a church and fencing in property.
The report and all the others in the Derek Goes to Africa series lack self-awareness. There is really no reason for people to travel half way round the world to perform mundane tasks like this group have been doing. Swazi people are quite capable of doing things for themselves. The misguided belief that inadequately trained people can assist people in communities which are totally unknown to them is patronising.
I don’t want to be critical of people who probably have kind hearts, but the people in Derek’s party, and many more ‘missionaries’ who come to the kingdom on similar trips contribute very little to Swaziland.
Derek gives the game away a little when asked about his experiences. He says, ‘It has changed everybody’s life.’ He means the lives of the missionaries. He is particularly emotional when reporting that the orphanage took in two children who had been orphaned by AIDS. What did he expect an orphanage to do, especially in a country with the highest rate of HIV in the world?
You can see the report which lasts about four minutes here
Here is the third in the Derek Goes to Africa series. In the two previous reports Derek Van Dam, a man who reads the weather forecast on a local television channel NBC25, told viewers how he and a group of missionaries from a church in mid-Michigan state in the US had been preparing for a trip to Swaziland.
In this latest report broadcast in America in July 2007, the group have actually arrived in Swaziland to work at the El Shaddai orphanage.
This item, which was broadcast during NBC25’s evening news programme describes Africa as a land of ‘poverty, disease and hunger’. Derek (pictured above with children in Swaziland) tells viewers, ‘The words cannot describe, convey, something of this magnitude.’
These television reports and others like them are important because very little about Swaziland gets covered in the foreign media. This is even more so when you look at countries outside the continent of Africa. Because of this people know very little about the kingdom. What little they do know they learn through the media.
Unfortunately, Derek knows nothing about the context of what he is experiencing. Swaziland is not one of the poorest countries in the world: it is not even one of the poorest in Africa. Swaziland’s economic problems stem from the way wealth is distributed within the kingdom and that unequal distribution is why about 70 per cent of the population live below the poverty line
Derek lists the things he and his group have done since arriving in Swaziland. They include making fences to keep cattle off crops, painting a church and fencing in property.
The report and all the others in the Derek Goes to Africa series lack self-awareness. There is really no reason for people to travel half way round the world to perform mundane tasks like this group have been doing. Swazi people are quite capable of doing things for themselves. The misguided belief that inadequately trained people can assist people in communities which are totally unknown to them is patronising.
I don’t want to be critical of people who probably have kind hearts, but the people in Derek’s party, and many more ‘missionaries’ who come to the kingdom on similar trips contribute very little to Swaziland.
Derek gives the game away a little when asked about his experiences. He says, ‘It has changed everybody’s life.’ He means the lives of the missionaries. He is particularly emotional when reporting that the orphanage took in two children who had been orphaned by AIDS. What did he expect an orphanage to do, especially in a country with the highest rate of HIV in the world?
You can see the report which lasts about four minutes here
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