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Many High school and university students from Metro Vancouver who are looking to make a difference this summer are heading to Africa. As volunteers for a variety of organizations, they're teaching aids prevention, they're building schools and engaging in other do-good activities. Even famous Canadian athletes - Wayne Gretsky, Donovan Bailey, Charmaine Crooks- to name a few, are giving their time to the well publicized non-profit Right to Play, which “uses specially-designed sport and play programs to improve health, build life skills, and foster peace for children and communities affected by war, poverty, disease […] in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Sounds good, doesn't it?
Well why aren't non-profits, such as Right to Play, taking more of their good work to Canadian streets as well? Why not put some energy into the flailing, to say the least, Downtown Eastside? Children and young adults living in this blighted and ignored area have endured hardships which no Canadian should have to deal with alone given a political climate that, according to the government, can afford 1.6 billion to play host to the Olympics in 2010. Clearly, for the young volunteer, Canada isn't sexy or exotic. If Africa is George Clooney, Canada is Stephan Dion.
Telling friends and family that you're spending the summer handing out needles on Powell St. just doesn't sound as sexy as e-mailing them pictures from Kenya.
Furthermore, charity work in Africa is expensive. The volunteer has to buy a plane ticket and must be able to afford approximately a month or longer in Africa. Yes, Africa needs our help. But does aid to Africa trump aid to Vancouver? The two are not mutually exclusive; however, young people don't seem to be as concerned about fellow Canadians. It's just not hot.
Perhaps I'm not as connected to the pulse of charity work in Vancouver as I should be. Maybe the seeming dearth of charity work by young students occurring on the Downtown Eastside can be attributed to a lack of publicity.
There are individuals, church organizations and social groups trying to stave off disease, violence and death on the Downtown Eastside. They need help. With the Olympics two years away, much needed funding for such groups does not seem in the offing. Why aren't more young people interested in spending their summers here? What can the city of Vancouver do to help this problem? If we ignore the fact that dozens of people were reported missing over the last 35-40 years on the Downtown Eastside, we are also ignoring part of the problem: most of them were women and First Nations.
What do these kinds of facts and the lack of philanthropy from one Canadian to another reflect about our local and national character? Why is it that young people in and around Vancouver seem to be more interested in outsourcing their energies to Africa and other hip venues for charity work? What happened to 'charity begins at home?' How do we strike a balance between Vancouverites helping each other and helping those across the world?
As a student, providing aid to Africans for the summer is a privilege. Helping fellow Canadians is a moral obligation. Both are achievable.
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