Step 1: Determine the facts in the situation – obtain all of the unbiased facts possible

• An international donor organization sent gifts for children under the age of 14 to a youth center in Kenya
• Jack has spent five months at this youth center
• Jack was asked to hand out the gifts and the children believed that Jack gave them the gifts 
• The gift-giving occurred in a more grand fashion 
• There were not enough gifts for all the children, which caused four children to receive a substantially less important type of gift in a less grand fashion 
• Assumption: Four of the children blame Jack for not receiving a gift 
  • One child made a face at Jack, indicating he blames Jack for not receiving a gift. 
• The staff does not think there is an issue with the four children not receiving gifts. 
• Black hat has a negative stigma attached to it.

Step 2: Define the problem and the stakeholders – those with a vested interest in the outcome

• The children 
• Jack 
• The youth center workers
• Kenya Youth Center 
• The international donor organization 

Problem: How should Jack do the right thing while not putting his relationships with other stakeholders at risk of degrading. 

Step 3: Determine and distinguish between the personal and professional motivations of the stakeholders.

• The children 
  • Personal: increased happiness and well being, they may tease the kids who did not receive presents. 
• The four children who did not receive the gift
  • Feeling as special as the rest of the children who received a present ceremoniously. 
• Jack 
  • Personal: To make sure all the kids are happy
  • Professional: Maintaining positive relationships with children and staff to achieve a successful social venture. 
• The youth center workers
  • Personal: Altruistically, make the children happy. 
  • Professional: To continue positive operations. 
• Kenya Youth Center
  • Personal: Pride in their kids’ happiness. 
  • Professional: make sure there is no tension between the employees. 
• The international donor organization
  • Professional: Increased philanthropic reputation
  • Personal: to give back to the impoverished communities 

    Lehigh 

        Professional: Have a successful venture

        Personal: various people in Lehigh with various personal motivations. Two common motivations that many people might share is to do good and to give back to developing communities.

Step 4: Formulate (at least three) alternative solutions – based on information available, to have a win-win situation for your relationship and your venture.

• Potential Solution: Leave the situation as it is.
• How does it solve the problem?
  • Pros: 
    • Make sure there is no tension between him and the staff.
  • Cons: 
    • Jack doesn’t make all the children happy
• How does it save face of those involved?
  • Jack does not come off as an activist which is perceived poorly from the staff
• Implications on relationships
  • Short-term
    • Keep a positive attitude with the staff.
    • A quick fix to move on in the day to day progress of the center
    • Doesn’t create any tension in the relationships with that staff that can manifest in the long term
    • The 4 children will be unhappy with Jack.
  • Long-term
    • Could cause unresolved tension over how to handle future donations 
    • Could cause the same situation to be repeated.
    • Could foster tension between the children—those who received gifts versus those who did not. 
• Implications on the venture
  • Short-term 
    • Could cause Jack to want to end his five months stay sooner than expected if he feels unwanted 
    • It could make the organization hesitate in choosing Lehigh or other organizations to help them or allow them to do studies
  • Long-term
    • Could cause Jack to not participate in another social venture in-country 
    • Could cause the venture to reconsider sending anyone again if Jack felt unwelcome.

• Potential Solution: Help the kids decorate their black hats with available arts and crafts tools.
• How does it solve the problem?
  • Pros
    • Allows those four children to feel special 
    • Turns their lower quality gift into something better and more valued 
    • Helps to rebuild (and strengthen) the relationship between Jack and the kids
  • Cons
    • May cause other kids to be jealous.
    • The staff may see this tactic as activism.
    • May set the expectation of what Jack would do for the kids too high and lead the staff members to overload him with work. 
    • Jack would have to take money out of his budget to pay for art supplies. 
• How does it save face of those involved?
  • It protects Jack from facing backlash from the children, saving his face. 
• Implications on relationships
  • Short-term
    • Aims to fix an issue in the relationship 
    • Allows the four children to feel as valued as the rest of the children 
  • Long-term
    • May cause the children to believe that they will get something special each time which they may not necessarily receive 
    • Kids might still see their friends playing with their gifts and get jealous.
• Implications on the venture
  • Short-term 
    • Jack would have a good experience (from a good relationship with the staff and kids), so the venture would send more people.
  • Long-term
    • More and more people will be sent and the venture will be optimistic about sending volunteers like Jack.

• Potential Solution: Offering each of the kids a chocolate bar (along with a short talk to comfort them)
• How does it solve the problem?
  • Pros:
    • Makes the kids feel special
    • Allows the kids to fully understand the situation with the gift
  • Cons
    • Eating the chocolate will provide temporary satisfaction; once they see the other children playing with their gifts, they may feel left out again. 
    • Extra costs on Jack.
• How does it save face of those involved?
  • It protects Jack from facing backlash from the children, saving his face. 
• Implications on relationships
  • Short-term
    • The kids will enjoy the chocolate and forget about the gifts.
    • Their relationship with Jack will be stronger.
  • Long-term
    • Kids might still see their friends playing with their gifts and get jealous.
    • The children may take advantage of Jack’s feeling of guilt in the future. In other words, they make him feel guilty for him to provide them with chocolate or another type of gift. 
• Implications on the venture
  • Short-term 
    • Jack would have a good experience (from a good relationship with the staff and kids), so the venture would send more people.
  • Long-term
    • May cause the venture to have added costs to bring in extra supplies to avoid conflicts like this in the future 
    • More and more people will be sent and the venture will be optimistic about sending volunteers like Jack.
• Alternative solutions (group discussion)
  • Make an activity out of hats – have them use hats in the skit b/c they were chosen. 
  • Convince children to share their presents. 

• Step 5: Seek additional assistance, as appropriate – previous cases, peers, reliance on personal experience, inner reflection
  • Seek program Mentor
  • Ask previous American volunteers.
  • The experience about previous situations that you were in as a child and how it made you feel
  • Situations similar to this where you were an adult and had to deal with unfairness with immature people
• Step 6: Select the best course of action – that solves the problem, saves face, and has the best short- term and long-term implications for your relationship and venture. Explain reasoning and discuss your solution vis-a-vis other approaches discussed in class.
  • Arts and crafts solution
  • This allows the four children to feel special and to understand that they were not forgotten about, and turns their bad gift into a better one, especially with the memory entailed with it. 
  • Teaches the children indirectly how to make the best of unfortunate circumstances. 
  • Avoids the dissatisfaction once they see the other children playing with their gifts, they may feel left out again. 
  • However, this solution may cause other kids to be jealous of those 4 kids and may also put Jack in danger of being used by the staff (exploited) given they will see a western activist nature in him. The other children may also feel jealous about how Jack spent extra time with them.
  • Jack may have to use his own money to purchase art supplies if the center doesn’t have its supplies
• Step 7: List the sequence of actions you will take to implement your solution.
• Derived from an abridged version (6-step) of the 9-Step Process from “Applied Ethics Case of the Month Club”; adapted from a methodology developed by Andy Lau @ Penn State.

1. Realize that talking with the staff is a waste of time and think of another solution
2. Realize if he needs to earn the children’s children’s trust and wants to make amends. He also doesn’t want the children to have temporary satisfaction.
3. Next Jack comes up with the arts and crafts plan. 
4. Jack goes to the store to pick up the extra supplies that may be needed.  
5. He pulls the four kids to the side and asks if they want to decorate their hats
6. After the children decorate their hats he apologies for not getting them a gift.
7. If the staff asks about it then try to limit the conflict.