Non-Governmental Organisations In Mauritus

By Morinn Chamilall

Recently there has been a mushrooming of NGOs in Mauritius. Those NGOs have different purposes, be it to sensitive people about human rights, animal rights, ailments and so much more. Sometimes those NGOs reach their goals to a certain extent and often they fail to do so due to lack of personnel, funds and a proper organisation.

In an interview in a popular local weekly Dr. Satish Boolell gave his opinion about NGOs.
According to him, the propagation of NGOs does no good to the country. What we really need, still according to him, is for those NGOs to work together in networks. That is, each organisation doing a share of the job to reach a certain objective. For example organisations fighting against the abuse of illicit drugs can join hands with organisations fighting against AIDS. The association of these organisations will result in a better planning of tasks and the reaching of a common goal.

As we say, too much of something can ruin the whole thing. I feel that this applies in the case of these organisations. When they try to work individually and independently they have difficulties in finding sponsors and volunteers to work for them. A lack of personnel and most importantly a lack of finance greatly paralyses the success of any organisation. Therefore, remaining small is as good as not existing at all. The head of those organisations might have superb ideas to help the country progress but unfortunately their message goes astray, not reaching those to whom it was intended.

I'm not saying that organisations in Mauritius are up to nothing constructive. Organisations like PILS are doing great but there are others which are created, ran for a few months and then forced to cease working because of the above mentioned reasons.

So this goes to say that what we actually need is more cooperation of the NGOs with each other and more funds to those organisations in the form of government subsidies or sponsors from private firms. We also need volunteers to work for those organisations, at least part time.