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:
How Come the Poor Can’t Video Blog? Thoughts on the Digital Divide
This year I’ve been talking a lot about the “Digital Divide”. But what is that? And why does it matter? The “Digital Divide” is basically a term to describe the technological gap which prevents the poorest of the world’s poor from participating in global online conversations that are occurring on the internet. This is important because what we are doing on the internet is starting to have the power to shape our politics, our governments, our economies, and our own personal priorities, opinions, and tastes. If the poorest of the poor are excluded from these global conversations, we can only use the internet ...
Monthly Archive for April, 2011
My dad probably forgets saying this – but I never did. Years back, he confessed to me that one of the reasons he left Bangladesh and settled elsewhere is because he never wanted my mother to be mistreated. Until I heard what these women had to say, I never knew how real my dad’s concern was:
Eve teasing is a euphemism to describe forms of verbal and physical abuse by men against women. Verbally it can range from simple cat calls and overzealous wooing to really nasty and sexually explicit and derogatory comments. Physically it can range from grabbing a girl’s hand to groping and molesting them in public.
What got me is that – despite this being well known amongst aid and development professionals – no one has really done a decent job of covering this issue on YouTube or other “social media”. I don’t mean to say there aren’t videos with tons of views about this issue.
But most of what is online is usually G-rated re-enactments of eve teasing which make it seem like childish flirting. There are also heavy handed PSAs by police and local media which makes it seem like it’s being treated with prejudice and zero-tolerance… which would be nice but doesn’t reflect reality.
Despite all these videos online about eve teasing, I really didn’t find one where women could just talk about this problem and share their opinions. And it’s not like Bangladeshi women are a homogeneous group – as you can see in the video – there is a diversity of thought on this problem.
Right now, this video has about 3,500 views. That may not seem like much but that’s nearly twice the views that UNICEF was able to gather on this issue over the past eight months. Maybe this issue won’t go viral – but at least I could give this issue a slightly bigger platform than it had yesterday.
Haha – April Fools! Anyone who knows me knows I’d be the last person to say that Save the Children sucks. In fact, I didn’t have the heart to even fake trash talk them for April Fools’ Day. So, instead, I’d like to write about why I’m such a big believer in what Save the Children does.
