Donations

A few days before Christmas we volunteered our time at a Christmas Party for underprivileged kids from the shanty towns of Buenos Aires. About 2000 of them turned up, and they had a blast. Nice one. Presents, games, food, Santa, giveaways - how could you go wrong? It was undeniably a good thing, mobs of fun for the kids and an opportunity to do something worthwhile as we travel. We were two of fifty-odd volunteers on the day.

We got onto it through the school where Em is studying Spanish - I'd tried to organise some volunteering myself too but ran into a bit of a wall. We are also in the process of sniffing out volunteering opportunities further along our projected path of travel - will keep you updated. We really feel a responsibility to use our presence here to worthwhile ends, and want to broaden the scope of our travels. But not only that - travels, thought, experiences and observation all keep pointing out to us the uneven playing field that we live on and contribute to. The western world has become rich - and continues to become richer - by taking advantage of what was the new world. Here we are, undeniably rich westerners despite our tight budget, banging around the world on a motorcycle because we can. And doing it relatively cheap because of the very inequality we see around us.

What has this to do with volunteering at a Christmas party for kids? There's a little connection. While Em was keeping the mob away from their cache of soon-to-be-given presents, I was making decorations for the shoe-giveaway area. A well-dressed man showed up there - an employee of the shoe company which had donated the 2000-odd pairs of cheap shoes. He came with a little film crew, and unabashedly explained to those volunteers who showed interest that these shoes were produced in Argentina and sold in the US for $US38 a pair. I'd have been interested to know how much they cost to produce, but given the poor quality of the shoes and the availability of cheap labour in Argentina, it would not be much.

Sorry if this makes me the eternal conspiracy theorist, but I can see the promos now - shop walls plastered with photos depicting generosity, maybe a video running and definitely a tag on the shoes explaining that "a percentage" of company profits are destined to support charitable organisations in Latin America. It's easy for companies to pull stunts like this, and they are easy to fall for. After all, nearly all of us buy whatever appeals to us without regard for where or how it's made, or what resources are consumed in the process. And few dedicate the time to ask themselves, retailers or corporations the hard questions about sweatshop labour, let alone the other myriad complications our consumption hurls at the world.

I just googled sweatshops and came up with this: http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/ .