I live in Rwanda and see kids playing with the trash/string balls all the time (among other toys they build out of random waste). I really don't see the point. The kids have plenty of fun with their homegrown balls.
Just as the cardboard box the toy came in came be more fun than the toy alone, the fun of playing with a ball doesn't come from it being a 'proper' ball, but rather than it is a game to be played with others.
This is a first world solution to a problem that it created to make itself feel warm and fuzzy inside.
According to the article, regular balls are already being donated but usually go flat quickly. This basically means donations are currently being wasted. If this wasted money can be redirected into something which will not be wasted, that seems like a definite win.
Further, balls are not just used for neighborhood games, but by organizations which use football as a tool for reaching other goals. If these organization are at all helpful, scrounging in the trash for materials to make balls is probably not a good use of their time. An organization may need dozens of balls, and if a trash ball only lasts for an hour (just a guess, I've never played football with a trash ball), then they may need over a hundred of them a day. The opportunity cost of the time spent making trash balls is probably higher than the cost of these balls, especially if they can truly last for years.
You could apply the same thinking about opportunity cost to the children's time. If play is important for children and if making balls out of trash is not play, then giving them more time to focus on play is a win.
Having cool things seems to be universally enjoyable. This gives the children something cool, probably adding to the fun of playing.
Digging in the trash is probably a lot less safe than playing football.
According to the corporation's website, 20 million deflated balls are discarded in Africa every year. If these balls last longer, there will be an environmental impact.
And finally, the main ways other charity attempts backfire (economic damage, not meeting the whole need [providing things the community can't maintain/support], giving a fish instead of teaching to fish, etc) seem to just not apply.
I also live in Rwanda and whilst I don't agree with my friend's argument that playing football with a piece of trash is as much fun as playing with a real ball, I do agree with his conclusion that this a solution looking for a problem.
There's no doubt that kids will be happy if you give them a shiny new football. They'll also be happy if you give them a secondhand t-shirt or new pair of shoes. That makes for lots of donor 'feel good' and nice photos on your Facebook page, but that doesn't make it good aid.
If the priority here is to do something helpful for the developing world, and that's why they're willing to put all the required effort and money into this project, then why not start by asking the developing world what their pressing problems are? Ask a few developing country governments and see how many of them report a lack of good footballs as a pressing problem.
When people don't ask questions like that it's usually an indication that the aid is more about the donor than the recipient. This project sounds a lot like TOMS Shoes Buy One Give One which has been frequently criticized for being a donor oriented initiative with little long term benefit [1]. It might sound completely harmless to hand out free shoes to kids, but it ends up undermining local producers and sellers, and perpetuates a 'handout' aid culture.
There are no local producers of indestructible soccer balls. What will this undermine? I'm not trying to defend all comparable initiatives. I'm trying to understand the opposition to this particular one. Tom's shoes is a completely different issue.
Further, one cannot live on soccer balls no matter how indestructible. We aren't talking about giving out food for 10 years and then expecting someone to provide for themselves. We're talking about something that, where livelihood is concerned, is completely useless. A toy. I really do not see how giving a toy could create or perpetuate an expectation of handouts for any "real" aid. And I also don't see how handouts of toys can do any harm. I'm open to being corrected. I'm just letting you know why your argument hasn't convinced me yet.
Finally, asking someone what they want is not necessarily the best way to determine how to help them. I'm not suggesting that this is the best way to help. I'm just pointing out that, "If you want to help, ask, then do that," isn't foolproof.
I mentioned TOMS shoes because I believe that the buy-one-give-one model is usually not helpful. Giving sometimes does more harm than good. 50 years ago, many African countries had booming textile industries. Most of those have completely collapsed because they can't compete with the flood of donated second-hand clothes from the west. Our good intentions have been ultimately harmful.
Your argument seems to be that since footballs don't contribute to development, then this project won't do any long term harm or good. That just seems like a great shame to me - if we're going to invest all this money and effort, can't we find something to do that brings long term good? And something that won't perpetuate the common western view of places like Africa of hungry kids needing handouts.
But you're right that asking won't always yield the best solutions - let's say then you should spend sometime getting to know the place you want to help. Not convinced that has happened with this project.
I strongly disagree. I grew up in uganda as an expat's kid (age 1-15). I used to play everyday with a lot of kids in the neighborhood. I was the only one with an actual fifa ball and they always waited for me with giddy eyes to show up on the local grounds despite having their own ingenious banana bark and kavera (plastic bag) balls.
I made sure to give each one of them a ball when i left and most of them still treasured them when i went back a year ago.
Sometimes it's not about a warm and fuzzy feeling. You have to see first hand how these kids live.
I grew up in India and totally agree. Sure, playing with friends is what made it fun. But it was always better to play with durable toys. Nothing kills fun faster than a torn rubber ball during a game of cricket.
Happy kids doesn't equal good aid. Are those footballs helping to improve the long term living conditions of those kids? If we have money and resources to help the developing world, assuming that actually is our goal, then shouldn't we strive to find interventions that actually have lasting impact?
Uh no. The goal of good aid/development is to help countries develop their economies, infrastructure and institutions so that people have access to education, healthcare and decent paying jobs... and are enabled to pursue their own ideas of happiness... rather than settle for a free football
Handing out money to kids would make them happy too, but would also not be good aid
I've never played soccer with a ball made of trash but I'm sure that this ball would be seen as better by any child comparing it to a ball made of trash.
Sure first world quality soccer balls aren't necessary for children to have fun, but there is nothing wrong with an intelligent entrepreneur making them available to third world children.
If we all spent more time on projects like this instead of the next Twitter, or designing new weapons the world would arguably end up a better place.
" If we all spent more time on projects like this instead of the next
Twitter, or designing new weapons the world would arguably end
up a better place."
This is an all too common attitude and one I used to share before spending time in the developing world. The plain fact though is that it is wrong.
Doing something is not always better than doing nothing. As a matter of fact a great many things, perhaps even most, interventions do more harm than good.
I'd recommend starting off reading "White Man's Burden" if you are interested in the topic. For a more fun example, google "one million t-shirts for africa"
Unless money is diverted from more useful projects to buying balls?
Fair enough. If this project siphoned off money that would have been used to provide food or medical aid then it could be seen as a waste. But it sounds like there is a mix of corporate sponsors providing money and a One Laptop Per Child style "buy two, get one" program for the general public.
One could make the (admittedly flimsy) argument that a proper ball could reduce injuries caused from improvising balls from refuse, and lessen the need these kids might have for medical attention resulting from which.
Fair? I don't think so:
the "waste" is providing the money for food, instead of teaching them how to farm their own food, teaching them where and how to build good well.
And the most important (so I think) – Giving them their original African
seeds instead of our weaker and GMOded one
It's like giving them a fish instead of a fishing pole…
If we will provide them food, they'll grow even more dependent on us :/
Yes, there are things lower down on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs that should be addressed. However, it is not the only thing. I grew up in an international community in the US, playing street soccer with people from different nationalities. We didn't play with trash. But I can tell you first-hand, being able to bond with other kids (of different ages) and having fun is very important.
Is it as important as teaching children how to farm their own food? It is very difficult to learn when you are not having fun. Children -- even adults -- learn best from play. I don't see the harm in having something that brings the neighborhood kids together.
There's also a big myth that people of the Third World don't know how to farm, don't know how to feed themselves. In the past, NGOs have brought in modern farming technologies that ultimately devastated the local environment and the ability for the communities to feed themselves. It's been a big problem, it isn't just about those "lazy" and "ignorant" Third World farmers who don't know how to farm and feed themselves.
Projects like the Open Source Ecology are much better suited for ... "teaching them how to farm their own food", and they need people. If you're concerned about this one entrepreneur and want to do something about it, see what you can contribute to OSE.
Twitter was instrumental to communication during the Arab Spring. In general, it has served as a very nimble and functional communication medium that has, in some cases, surpassed the speed and breath of news networks for covering events in real time.
Open and powerful platforms like Facebook and Twitter aren't just outlets for wasting your time, but can be used in meaningful and impactful ways. The game is far from over - we still need people to build products like Twitter .
Exactly! You'd be amazed at how many people use Twitter here in Rwanda - practically everyone in the government from the president, to the ministers are all on there, and if you've got a question you can tweet them. The main telecoms company also enable people to tweet via SMS.
People need to stop thinking of the developing world as a simple place with simple problems.
It's not a problem that needs to be solved, but that doesn't mean an improvement isn't worth having.
I went to a private school in England - about as far removed as the kids this ball is aimed at - and therefore for us money was never the problem, but sometimes due to various reasons we'd be playing football in school breaks using a tennis ball, and we'd much preferred to have a real football to play with but happened not to that day. That doesn't take away from the fact that we still enjoyed ourselves with the tennis ball, and no doubt if circumstances had required it we could have enjoyed ourselves with a self-made ball.
The current solution doesn't have to be unenjoyable for this to be a great improvement
Do you play soccer? For someone with a real appreciation for the game, I'd say there's a huge difference between a trash/string ball and a proper soccer ball. Or maybe I'm just narrow minded.
I agree. As a brazilian I grew up playing soccer with anything available, and the joy to have a proper ball for a kid is amazing. Also there is a much better chance for a kid to evolve his skills and maybe be a professional player if he have a decent ball to learn the game.
I agree. While I don't live in Rwanda, I have been there a couple times and played soccer both with college students and young children. In all instances, we played with the best ball available.
It's about as far to the other extreme as possible, but when I worked at Google and we'd play soccer after work, there were usually a couple balls available and we always played with the best one we could. Better balls feel better against your feet, do what you're expecting them to do, and increase your enjoyment of the game.
If you're a kid anywhere, and you have a choice between a ball that bounces well and has a sweet spot that lets it leap off your foot and doesn't hurt or make you bleed when you get smacked in the face with it, you.will.prefer.that.ball.every.single.time.
And this ball probably isn't for) those people. Sort of how you can tell when a basketball or a football is not regulation, or one of those self-inflating ones. It's just not the same and won't satisfy a player who wants a "proper" ball (get them a regulation ball)
Obviously the ball isn't the same as a regulation ball, but the point is that the game is not being played on pristine World Cup pitches, but rather in dirt lots, streets, on cement, etc... So rather than sending over inflatable balls that are essentially unusable and thrown away after only a few uses, why not offer something more durable that is very similar.
Would you rather have a ball made out of trash that falls apart when you kick it, a "proper" ball that gets torn to shreds, or this "not regulation" ball that can withstand any abuse you throw at it?
This seems like a no-brainer to me. These kids don't need a regulation ball, and they deserve better than trash.
The durable ball potentially changes the economics of building community organizations based upon sports. Organized sport may be used as a less belligerent means of expressing community solidarity and a relatively healthy outlet for rivalries between communities.
While this may be marketed on the basis of "Do it for the children," sport specifically and play in general are important mechanisms of adult social interaction. Futbol is no more a child's game than dominoes.
> Organized sport may be used as a less belligerent means of expressing community solidarity and a relatively healthy outlet for rivalries between communities.
Tangentially related to this point, I've often wondered if this is simply a zero-sum game, and the unity you gain through supporting a particular team comes at the cost of disunity with supporters of other teams.
Sports team rivalries produce all kinds of stupidity the world over. People are routinely killed or severely injured simply because of the sports team they support.
The guy making the ball didn't create the problem, except in a very indirect and academic way. He certainly can't stop the problem. But he can can make a contribution today. Good on him.
It's nice to know that you've decided that your local kids are having enough fun, and that you've decided that there's a ceiling to it that they don't need to cross.
Ah, how I wish I had been told when I was younger "no more Lego for you, you're having plenty of fun with the one set you do have". I needed to have my wings clipped for my own good!
Just as the cardboard box the toy came in came be more fun than the toy alone, the fun of playing with a ball doesn't come from it being a 'proper' ball, but rather than it is a game to be played with others.
This is a first world solution to a problem that it created to make itself feel warm and fuzzy inside.