A moral dilemma — helping one versus helping everyone?
Who am I? How did I become my today’s person?
Growing up in a Western country, in the safe 80s & 90s, my parents taught me to study hard. First, in high school, and even later in university, they provided me with the opportunity to spend the first 24 years of my life with financial support and all things needed to complete my studies in order to get my first job.
But what if the lottery of births would have ended up differently?
How would my life be right now?
…
On a warm and hot morning, we have taken a Grab taxi to bring us to a central district in Hanoi. The driver exited one of the major streets and turned into a small street between the houses where typically mostly motorbikes enter. Having difficulties to fitting through turning left, turning right, and not foreseeing what was behind the next corner, we hardly navigated on his app through the homegrown roads. At some point he told us that we need to exit, and our further part can be only accessed by foot or motorbike as the street went too narrow for cars.
After a 5mins walk through various roads we arrived at Tuân’s* home. A small and tiny space of about 20m2 including a small kitchen and bathroom. In total the apartment was mainly consisting of only one major, white tiled, living room located on the ground floor of the housing block with little sunshine coming through a small kitchen window and the still half-open standing house door. Steep stairs went up on a small ladder to a wooden, later added, middle ground where the potential sleeping area was. A warm welcoming woman smiled at us and served warm, good-tasting, hot Vietnamese tea to welcome us. She asked us to take a seat on her bench which was covered by a brown cardboard on the seating area and backrest. So, I did and took a seat next to her. She started to hand us over the tea which was well tasting and smiled at us proudly looking also towards her son, a current student of REACH. He is in his third week becoming an upcoming 3D model visual designer. So we asked our project assistant Hoa to ask Tuân and his mother why they decided on this organization and how the education program will help Tuân in his future life. His mother expressed the difficult situation of her son having a blood disease where he regularly needs to visit the hospital for blood refreshing. Coming out of a poor family where the father usually the breadwinner already passed away, Tuân needs to earn his living as delivery driver and cover his permanent upcoming health costs. His mother expressed that she is daily worried that her son could be involved in an accident on the busy streets and is needed to transport directly to the next hospital to stop his bleeding. Seeing their current situation and understanding their feelings was a heart-touching moment where emotions started touching my whole body and I tried to control myself. Tuân shared with us that every morning before his 8 hours of classroom training and both weekend days he is constantly working hard to cover his living and to pay back his scholarship of 1 million VND (about $40) until the end of the course (whereas the whole course is 100% free of charge for underprivileged or students with physical handicap). The moment they shared his story many feelings and thoughts were running through my body and a feeling of helping the student to change his personal future and changing his life is a strong feeling for every human with a sense of empathy. How to react now? What can I personally do? Should I reach out and donate the $40?
When we left the house, my mind was running crazy seeing the area, the streets, the many people on the main road, all delivery drivers passing by maybe having a similar background? How many of these people share a similar story or going through a hard time themselves? What about if I help one what will be the impact? What about all the kids and young adults in other countries?
What do you think?
My mind was running crazy this moment as I am usually a person who likes to help others whenever possible to find out what is right and wrong. And would it not it be more impactful to invest my money or power to try to change the overall system? Is this only a personal excuse?
For the moment I started to think about why we are here and pause this moral dilemma because the purpose of our assignment is to help the organization itself to find its position and strategy to create a sustainable financial model to give the opportunity of education to all disadvantaged youth in Vietnam. Just I will not forget this visit and will think more about my life and purpose within the next 2 weeks of my assignment.
Just one thought has not left my brain yet — how would it be if you would have been born in this situation? Which person would I be today?
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*Name changed due to youth protection
