Clothing donations helping or hurting?

African nations are fed up with the West’s hand-me-downs. But it’s tough to keep them out

I would like to hear FrGamble's take on this as he has worked in these kinds of nations. Hopefully he chime in when he is out of solitary.

I figured this could be more than just "In The News." It is really a big thing, and sad, because Americans want to help, but are we hurting? Who does not throw their old clothes in the donation box? I do all the time, trying to slim down my wardrobe, purge the Steeler items since the Vick signing, and get rid of out-of-style things like ties so I am not "that old guy."

But I learned about this working the Haiti fundraisers. It would be like if someone offered free water outside the 7-11 on the Strip. Local business lost. But another but. The local industry only fills part of the need. High and low end stuff. Nothing stylish. Yeah, Africans want style same as we do in the states! And African shop owners make money selling the used stuff.

Thoughts?

I saw a piece on the news recently that after any big natural disaster Americans dump cargo planes full of old clothes on them, creating even more of a headache about where to store the clothing and how to distribute it. Often the clothing is not appropriate for the climate, like sending heavy jackets to Thailand after the tsunami. My takeaway is the best thing you can do to help others in a far off country is to send money and hope not too much gets skimmed off on the way to the people who need it.

Money provides flexibility and there is little difference between skimming money and skimming donated clothes by selling those donations.

We give food, it disrupts local economies. We give aid to Puerto Rico, local mayors get rich selling donated items and selling access to newly installed electrical wires. We give food for humanitarian relief, local warlords want to control the distribution. We gave lots of Spam to the Russians during WWtwo, it was all unpacked and re-packaged as Soviet made products which involved time and waste.

We give surplus cheese away and kids in school get teased for being on welfare when they start getting this yellow caste and start to smell of cheese.

We once even sent coffins for some disaster and the local coffin makers objected.

Humanitarian relief after a tsunami in Indonesia? Did you see those youtube videos of the Locals all getting on motorbikes and trying to escape while the rich tourists grabbed cell phones and videotaped the wave? The Locals did not provide any aid to the tourists so why did the tourist's home countries provide aid to Indonesia. When we rebuild a devastated area, it means local contractors benefit.

Americans have to be cured of wanting to give anything of value to other countries.