Dear Supporters of Invisible Children,
A lot of you may be confused at all the criticism that Invisible Children (IC) has faced as of late. Perhaps you feel that this criticism is coming from people who fail to understand the mission and nature of IC. Alternatively, perhaps, you may feel that this criticism - while having some merit - has been unfairly blown out of proportion.
What I think needs to be understood is that there is no such thing as black and white. Invisible Children, as an organization, isn't some nefarious evil group robbing people of their money. But, at the ...
We Speak For Ourselves
When it comes to international aid and development, we are all biased. It doesn't matter if you're a donor reading pamphlets, a celebrity or YouTuber endorsing your favorite NGO, a journalist interviewing villagers, an academic outside of the ivory tower, an experienced aid professional talking about "good aid", or even a free agent trying to be a bridge-maker.
There is nothing nefarious about this fact. We as human beings, while capable of untold capacities for empathy, will never have a complete verstehen and fully imagine the complexity of others. This is important because the arbiters of what is and is not ...
5 Steps for NGOs to Move from Guilt to Empowerment
My thoughts on how charities need to drop the guilt is getting tons of views. But the question remains: how does a charity drop the guilt? Can they do it overnight? Cold turkey?
As I mentioned some charities, like the US-branch of Save the Children, have already stopped using "poverty porn". I'd like to share something I've talked to them about behind closed doors.
I guess you can call it a 5 Step Program for NGOs using guilt:
3 Reasons Charities Need to Drop the Guilt
[caption id="attachment_3629" align="aligncenter" width="473" caption="A Charity Guilt-Ad Currently Airing in Canada"][/caption]
It's 2011 and we still live in a world where many charities think that the best way to raise funds to help those in need is by using guilt.
This needs to stop and here are three reasons why:
If you have 45 minutes to spare this weekend, I highly recommend you watch this episode from a BBC World documentary called Survival – Fit For Life:
[UPDATE: If you want to watch the embedded version, just click the jump]
The program focuses on the challenges of childbirth in rural Bangladesh. After seeing this documentary, I began to better understand why Bangladesh’s child and infant mortality is fifty times worse than the developed world. It’s not just lack of access to medical facilities, medicine, and equipment – it’s also about educating people to move away from traditional beliefs.
In rural Bangladesh, traditionally, when a baby girl is born the placenta is buried inside the house. If it’s a boy, it’s buried outside. Why? Because they want the girl’s heart to stay at home and the boy to wander. But not all traditions are harmless – some do affect newborn’s chances of survival.
In traditional home birth situations, babies are usually given honey shortly after birth. It’s believed this will “sweeten the speech” of the child. The same goes for feeding – babies are usually fed cow’s milk the first few days instead of breast milk because they believe that will enhance the immunity of the child. And often after birth the baby’s arms and legs are tugged at in order to “stretch them out”.
I am really glad the BBC made this documentary. This is exactly the kind of stuff I couldn’t easily capture. Not only do I not have the filming and production resources of the BBC – but also, as a guy, there is also a gender barrier for me to capturing moments like these. I think producer/director Cassie Farrell and her film crew did a pretty even-handed and insightful job.
For more information on the Survival documentary series – you can check out their website.
I couldn’t be happier even if this happened to someone in my own family. I recently, learned that John Green (Nerdfighter, vlogbrother, and biggest supporter of this project) is now a New York Times bestseller! He’s been on tour promoting his new book Paper Towns. Want to catch him on his cross-America tour? Check out the map and see when he’s coming to a town near you!
If you know John Green, you probably know him as a great vlogger, amazing writer, and all around awesome guy. But, with this project, I’ve been able to see another side of him. He’s been a great source of personal and emotional support for me. Even though he’s been a busy guy (and soon to get busier), he’s always made the time for me.
Whether I was ranting about how the well-to-do in Bangladesh sometimes look down and scorn me and this project, the challenges and hurdles I’ve had to overcome to do this project, or how I wish my relationship with my brother was as close as the relationship he has with his brother – John’s always been there with sage words of advice and support. This is his project as much as it’s mine and he deserves all the success that’s coming his way right now.
I run a separate channel on YouTube where I put extra footage that I couldn’t edit into my regular videos. This is one of those videos. Just outside the Save the Children offices in Barisal I bumped into this roadside singing group. I also took some photos – after the jump.
A few months back, I made a blog post saying I don’t like to flaunt my religious beliefs. Part of the reason for that is because it doesn’t matter what my beliefs are. What matters is that – no matter our differences – we unite under a common goal: to fight (and eventually end) extreme global poverty.
In fact, I had written:
In my opinion, peace on Earth will come when we stop hating what is different among us and start loving what it is we have in common. When we finally do that, I think we will find that we share the same wisdom – though we may find it in different places and from different books.
This little project may not have changed the world – but it seems to have created a little bubble of the kind of world that a lot of us would like to see. I started to realize this when I started going over those who had made donations to this project. Take a look at some of the countries people have been donating from:
What makes this even more interesting is that it seems that virtually every race, religion, and ethnicity has contributed to this project. Corresponding with a few of the donors I know for a fact that atheists/agnostics, Jews, Christians (and not just Catholics from Notre Dame), Muslims, and Hindus have all contributed to this project.
I used to think Mahatma Gandhi’s phrase “be the change you want to see” was just cliché beaten to death by countless charities, fundraisers, and organizations. But, I gotta say… I’m starting to become a believer in that saying.
One of the reasons I decided to be a part of Blog Action Day is because what happens on October 15th doesn’t matter. What matters is what happens on October 16th, 17th, 18th, etc, etc… until the day finally comes that extreme global poverty is a thing of the past.
Because, let’s face it, finding a blogger that doesn’t care about ending poverty is like trying to find a beauty queen that doesn’t care about world peace. Rhetoric is easy – action is harder. And I don’t mean making a donation – there was a lot of that going on yesterday. What I mean is making this a priority in our lives.
This (past) Canadian election and this upcoming US election are two great ways for people to do that. The fact is, if our politicians were as generous and concerned about ending global poverty as the people following this little project of mine – global poverty would already be something in the history books.
Today, thousands of blogs around the world are talking about global poverty. Why? Today is Blog Action Day – a day when bloggers around the world unite to talk about this important issue. But you know what? I’m sure a lot of you are in the same situation as me right now – we have a lot of other problems on our plate. And you know what? I’d like to spend today talking about those issues.
After spending a year doing this project in Bangladesh, I come home just in time to witness the biggest global financial crisis of I and my parents’ lifetime. Before my eyes I saw my dad – a loyal company man for decades – turn from someone excited about retirement to someone so nervous about the future he asked my mom to setup her own bank account so we could have extra deposit insurance just in case the bank collapses. With things so bad, is now really the time we need to worry about issues like global poverty?
Since coming back, I’ve also had a lot of time to hang out with my brother. He’s a senior in college now. I took a look at some of the textbooks he needs for his major. Each of those textbooks cost a hundred of dollars or more. With expensive textbooks and tuition rising every semester, a lot of students are finding themselves burdened with crippling student debt. The current economy means that government support for students is being slashed. Who cares about making sure that some children get to go to school in Bangladesh when students like my brother have their own problems?
So why should you care? Because our long term well being – not our well-being for the next semester or the next financial quarter – depends on how we care for the least off among us. Now, more than ever, we need to realize, understand, and embrace the notion that making the world a better place for others makes it a better place for us all.
This is not a charity, organization, or anything formal. It’s my journey to try and make the world a better place - one meaningful difference at a time. To learn more click here.
