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Uncontrolled ‘charities’ in camp: when ‘help’ has strings attached

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Attribution: SCUK Alumna
PEN Type: Field Experience (Programme Delivery)
Main country: Cambodia
Other countries: Thailand
Project Themes: Operations & Field Leadership, Safety, Risk & Security, Protection
Role: Field worker
Mission brief: Mitigating the Khmer Rouge in a camp on the Cambodia./Thailand border.
Audience: Frontline / Field, Programme / Project, Country or Regional Management
Geographic applicability: Global / broad applicability
Dates: 1978 → 1982
Advice Summary: Never, ever turn a blind eye. If you kmow something is wrong, do something about it. System work, maybe not 100%, but you can always improve.
Key words/phrases: uncontrolled actors, proselytising, conditional aid, camp access, coordination rules, Haiti 2010
Operational snapshot
  • Camp environment: large displaced population; weak control over who enters and operates
What was happening (kept close to the original) An ‘uncontrolled number of ‘charities’’ appeared daily. Many were American evangelical groups, proselytising and handing out T-shirts and bowls of rice in return for pledges. Outside their tents, large black boards showed the daily tally of new ‘converts,’ competing against each other. A friend with UNICEF after the Haiti earthquake in January 2010 described the same pattern: no control over who came in offering ‘help.’ Lessons learned
  • Camp operations need minimum governance: access rules, basic standards, and coordination boundaries.
  • ‘Conditional aid’ is not a side issue — it shapes power, behaviour, and harm.
  • If enforcement is weak, at least make it visible: who is doing what, where, and under what rules.
What I’d tell my younger self Good intentions don’t self-regulate. Systems do.