Cash for Work

I personally think that cash for work programme is crap. Cash for work programme is a generous and honourable programme actually, just not well designed. It is a programme where villagers/the poor/survivors/IDPs (Internally displaced person) are organized to work for their own good and being paid.

In Aceh after the tsunami there were many organizations ran this programme. These organizations from no where came to Aceh for some respectable reasons (I don’t even mention about some honourable persons who actually try to make money by working at that area) to help tsunami survivors. They saw how badly the disaster struck the place and how the people lost their belongings. So they asked the survivors to clear off the road and houses (their own houses), rebuild bridges and other similar things, and they paid these survivors. Sure it was fine, since it became an income source for the survivors, but then, the survivors became less responsible to their environment. Before the tsunami and cash for work was known in Aceh, the Acehnese helped each others. So when one’s roof is leaking, others will help to fix it up for nothing in return. They built bridges and other infrastructures collectively, but then they simply don’t do this anymore. They do something when they are paid. Sure not all survivors, some who were aware of this social change raised an issue for abolishing this programme.

The second weakness of cash for work programme is that these humanitarian organizations that came from no where to another no where place didn’t assess the local standard. They paid survivors about twice than the local standard. Sure, one can say that it is a good one, they can have a better life with that income. But is it true? Then local business got trouble with this new fee standard, local entrepreneurs cannot afford the new standard anymore, simply because it’s rocketing. Then in a sudden consumerism mushrooms, some survivors (especially they who join international humanitarian organizations) in a sudden earn more than they did before, they started buying jewelleries, motorcycles, TV, fridges, even when there wasn’t electricity supply yet. Yet, that post disaster area has the highest inflation rate in Indonesia, everything becomes bloody expensive there.

(I argued my opinion on cash for work programme with a bloke who works for a donor agency that acts as ATM without bank)

Just because I disagree and criticize cash for work programme doesn’t mean I would be automatically aware of what I do. I can be pretty idiot and do exactly the same what these humanitarian organizations have done, sure in a much smaller scale. I have a housekeeper whom I often ask his helps doing many things. One day I asked him to collect some documents and send them to someone. I gave him 100.000 ($11) when he came to me and got the instruction before leaving, he thought that money should be given to the one whom he had to hand the documents over. After he did what I asked, he returned to me blankly because the man he gave the documents for didn’t mention anything about the money and left him right away after he got the documents. He asked me what that money was for. He looked at me blankly when I told him that it’s his fee for delivering the documents. Since I was busy I thanked and asked him to leave, he was still confused when he left me.

I just laughed (indeed I wasn’t fully aware what I could buy with that amount of money here in Jakarta, I was a new comer on that time, all I knew is that a glass of cocktail at the Dharmawangsa Hotel costs that much…yeah yeah bloody expensive one), I realized that I did the similar mistake, I used my standard, not his standard. After been working with grass roots for years, I found that giving much money in short period can be pretty bad for the communities. What we think as a good deed, can harm the social institution within the communities.

So… I better learn how to keep my mouth shut, think before I speak and act. For now, I would simply enjoy laughing at my foolishness.