I thought Sagar Gubbi over at Social Edge really captures this dichotomy well in his recent post, Empathy vs. Sympathy. In it, he relates a trip to his hometown in India and his conversations with members of the BoP community. All of them do not want sympathy (a handout) but rather empathy - and opportunity. It's interesting (in my opinion) that you would see such different perspectives between South Africa and India, at least from the very personal and small samples taken by Ryan and Sagar.