I have seen it in different forms over the years.

Soup kitchens.
Early childhood centres.
Plant nurseries.

Projects started with enthusiasm and generous budgets by mines and corporates. Launched with ribbon cuttings and photographs. Designed to “uplift”.

One woman comes to mind.

She lived in a semi-urban settlement on the edge of town. When I stepped into her soup kitchen, the smell of spinach and bean soup enveloped you like a grandmother’s hug. Large aluminium pots simmered against the wall. Plastic containers were stacked neatly beside them. Outside, a line had already formed.

She fed the homeless tirelessly.

Five years earlier, her project had been identified and funded. Stipends were paid. Industrial stoves installed. Pumps connected. When equipment broke, someone from the company arranged repairs. Deliveries arrived. Receipts were handled elsewhere.

She was described, in every sustainability report, as a beneficiary.

I was the consultant who had to tell her that the funding cycle would end in six months’ time.

It was the first time she heard that there had always been an end point.

No one had sat her down at the beginning and explained the terms. No one had walked her through the books. She knew her suppliers by name, but not what to pay them each month. She did not know how to order a refill for the industrial gas bottle. She did not know the margin between donation and dependency.

Things had been done for her. Around her. On her behalf.

When I told her, she stopped stirring the pot.

The room was quiet except for the soft bubbling of soup.

Her face changed first. Then her posture.

“What do you mean it will end?”

I remember the weight of the notebook in my hands. The way the word “cycle” sounded clinical in a room that smelled of food and need.

I explained timelines. Transition planning. Sustainability requirements. Capacity-building workshops that could still be arranged. It sounded empty.

She nodded.

The word “beneficiary” hung in the air between us, heavier than it had ever felt in a progress report.

I left that afternoon aware that something fundamental had been missing from the beginning.

Not funding.
Not intention.

Ownership.

She did not need rescuing.

She needed partnership.

Outside, the line had not grown shorter.

Part of 100 Portraits from a Sustainability Career — my ongoing writing project exploring the people and forces that shape our work.

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