The End of Humanitarian Sharing: Thanks, Money-Transfer Services
The policies of international-money-transfer services have put a chill — or should I say an Ice Age — on humanitarian giving over the last several months. Their avowed compliance with apparent regulations to prevent fraudulent transfers of money internationally has been taken to the ultimate extreme. Most, if not all services now require that the benefactor and the recipient must have met in person, face-to-face. At least that is one of the many questions asked of the prospective sending customer.*
The absurdity of this requirement is beyond comprehension. Let me provide some background to the first victim of the policies. He is a teacher friend in Ghana. I supplied funding for his undergraduate technical-university education, starting in 2014. I paid tuition, fees, sent two laptops, paid living expenses and all the rest for the next two and one-half years. After his graduation, he returned to his home village and taught ITC and maths for two years without pay. I continued to supply resources to renew his (and the school’s) wi-fi each month, along with some food and medical money. We also started a student-desk fundraising campaign — joined by my primary-school students — to construct and install desks in the seven classrooms (of eight) in the Ghanaian school which had none for its students. That all ended in December 2019 when…
