Systems and Harm: When Giving Becomes Loud

There’s a line I keep coming back to:

“Via a garish methodology, the client is freshly recognised as a consumer of social assistance as well as conventional charitable products.”

It’s ugly on purpose. It names something that often hides behind good intentions: the moment a person becomes a “unit of need,” a receiver of goods, a target for distribution—rather than someone in relationship.

In my own work I keep saying this: giving is not easy.

Not ethically. Not relationally. Not spiritually.

The problem with charity is not that people want to help. The problem is how quickly helping can become a way of pushing things onto people—so the giver can feel good, useful, clean. Charity can turn into a performance of goodness, where the receiver becomes a stage prop.

Last night I dropped food to a local village group. They couldn’t be bothered packaging it for residents. They didn’t want to handle the drop-off process. So they refused it.

And honestly? That’s okay.

I’m not a charity. I’m not running a supply machine. I’m not here to make sure things get taken just so I can tick a box. If they said no, then no stands. That’s agency. That’s choice. That’s not harm.

So I put that connection on hold and moved on.

The dangerous thing is when systems don’t allow refusal. When “help” becomes something you must accept, even if it doesn’t fit, even if it humiliates you, even if it costs you dignity. That’s where harm enters—quietly, politely, wrapped in plastic bags and smiling logos.

I don’t put responsibility into the hands of receivers.

That might sound strange, because a lot of systems do exactly that:

“Here’s what we’re offering. If you don’t take it, that’s on you.”

It sounds empowering, but it’s actually a trap. Because the menu was never designed with you. You’re just being asked to choose from what already suits the giver.

My work is circular, not vertical.

Not: giver → receiver

But: people → people → people

Giving isn’t a delivery. It’s a relationship. And relationships don’t scale neatly. They don’t like spreadsheets. They don’t care about growth charts.

That’s why this work is not about numbers.

Not about reach.

Not about expansion.

Not about “impact metrics.”

It’s about knowing someone well enough to notice what actually fits them.

It’s about timing.

It’s about consent.

It’s about being able to stop when something isn’t right.

Sometimes the most ethical thing you can do is not give.

Because giving can wound. It can shame. It can freeze people in the role of “needy.” It can create silent debts—emotional, moral, social—that no one ever agreed to.

Systems often prefer clean lines: supplier, distributor, recipient.

But humans live in messy circles: mutual need, mutual care, mutual risk.

I don’t want to create consumers of help.

I don’t want to manufacture gratitude.

I don’t want to turn kindness into a product.

If someone refuses what I bring, that’s not failure. That’s relationship doing its job.

And if a project pauses because it no longer fits, that’s not collapse. That’s honesty.

This is slow work. It doesn’t photograph well. It doesn’t trend. It doesn’t multiply easily. But it stays human.

And staying human matters more than looking helpful.

Read more reflections about Systems and Harm:

• Systems and Harm: When Giving Becomes Loud
• Small Project: Tip Shop Trolleys
• Small Project: $5 Bag Clothes
• Small Project: Starting a Rock Band (and Ending It Well)
• Small Project: Shoes That Fit