Karen Coen Flynn - Yale University

conveyance between parties as opposed to a two-way exchange; and/or (2) given theentitlement approach’s emphasis on the legal ownership of one‘s resources, perhaps Sendoes not view charity as legal.But is private charity only a one-way transfer as Sen seems to imply? To answerthis question one needs to delve deeper into the meanings alms-givers assigned theiractivities. While it was often impossible to authenticate donors’ goals in offering charityto others, I offer an example as to what compels alms-givers to extend charity to streetchildren. An Arab family, comprised of Mama Mahmedi and her grown children, soughtreligious favor through their charitable deeds in which they had shared their limitedresources over the years with nearly 20 street boys, whom they circumcised, converted toIslam, and sent to school so that the family would “prosper in the eyes of God.” I believethat the blessings/salvation these alms-givers sought are another form of street credit thatformed a key component of the two-way exchanges taking place between alms-givers andstreet children. Alms-givers offered primarily tangible commodities (food, money,clothing, shelter and/or education) and street-child recipients provided largely intangibleones (opportunities to acquire street-credit for helping the needy, or religious favor in thislife or salvation in the after-life, and/or perhaps even a link to inexpensive labor). If Senviews charity as falling outside the entitlement approach because it appears to be only aone-way transfer that is provided voluntarily and spontaneously by those who aregenuinely concerned, the experiences of some of Mwanza’s street children demonstrateotherwise. These incidents also support what French sociologist Marcel Mauss asserted inhis classic text The Gift: “Prestations which are in theory voluntary, disinterested andspontaneous are in fact obligatory and interested” (1967: 1).20