The Uncultured Project

It’s been nearly a year since I’ve been away from Bangladesh. Although it looks like I’ll be going back in the near future, long-term sustainability is still a problem. It doesn’t help that I feel I do can more as an individual instead of formalizing – but that’s not the only hurdle.

Here are five mistakes I’ve made in my search for sustainability…

5) Searching for Magic Sponsorship: As I’ve said before, my videos have been inspired a lot by Matt Harding and his “Where the Hell is Matt?” videos. I mistakenly assumed that, since there was a company out there willing to pay a man to dance around the world, there would be some company out there willing to pay a man to go around the world helping people. Assuming this, and searching for that magic sponsor, only wasted time.

4) Courting Foundations: If you’re in the aid & development community, you already know of the Skoll Foundation, the Ashoka Changemakers Foundation, Echoing Green Foundation, and a gazillion other “social media” and “social change” foundations. Most like what I do – but all have a strict policy of only supporting tax write-off organizations. Assuming they’d make an exception for little old me was a mistake.

3) Soliciting Google: The number one question I get asked by everyone IRL is why doesn’t Google sponsor my project. Individuals, businesses, aid workers, & charity execs alike have assumed that, since my work showcases what you can do through YouTube, sponsorship through Google would be a natural fit. The frequency of this question lulled me into believing such a thing was possible. It was not – and I shouldn’t have thought to pursue it.

2) Not Setting Boundaries: I’ve encountered many selfless people who have helped me in very important ways along my journey. But I’ve also encountered people who were helping on the assumption they were becoming a “stakeholder” with veto power. As I’ve said before, with the exception of those we help, I never want anyone to have veto power over the community. I failed to see that different people have different (but understandable) reasons for helping – and I failed to draw proper boundaries.

1) Assuming the Value of this Project was Self-Evident: When I’m in the field, local villagers constantly come up to me to tell me how unique my work is and how they love what I’m doing. They love that I’m an independent voice outside of the NGO ecosystem. They love that I film everything and keep an eye on how every donation is spent. They love that I’m a direct line to the donors & manage the donations myself instead of some bureaucracy. My mistake? I assumed because they loved it – someone over here would love it enough to invest & sustain it.

I’ve made mistakes – and probably will make new & different mistakes in the future. Despite this, I don’t know what more I can be doing. Whether it’s teaming up with an on-the-ground charity, getting support from a foundation, or sponsorship from a or corporate benefactor – this should be all win/win/win. I know the path to sustainability isn’t easy – but at this point I’m not sure if there is going to be a happy ending.

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you know these past few days have been rather stressful. Here’s why:

First, now that a site has been selected for the Pond Sand Filter (which is what you guys voted for by leaving comments and video responses on the video I made called “Challenge Poverty”), the task is now to get this done on-time and on-budget. Save the Children is trying their best of course – but Murphy’s Law is always in-effect for this kind of work

The other big thing I’m stressing about is that it appears that YouTube is now blocked in Bangladesh. This isn’t the first time that Google services have been inaccessible from Bangladesh. I’m not going to jump the gun and say it’s government censorship. But, thus far, I’ve confirmed that YouTube is inaccessible in two different cities in Bangladesh through numerous internet service providers includingL the ISP I use while in Dhaka, GrameenPhone which I use while in the field, and even the internet service that Save the Children uses for its offices here in Bangladesh.

This could be a glitch or a temporary block. But, if indeed the government is restricting access to YouTube, this definitely puts a kink in this project. There are still tons of (legal) ways to make sure I can get new videos onto the UnculturedProject YouTube channel, but this makes everything harder. And YouTube is more than just a place to upload or watch videos – it’s about access to a community. And it’s that community that has been a huge source of support for this work.

Finally, I’ve been stressed a lot lately because, even if everything goes according to plan – there is no such thing as “perfect”. When it comes to providing safe and clean drinking water to rural villages, verything has its pros and cons. A deep tube well has the risk of arsenic, iron, and (depending on where you are in the country) of salt water. A pond sand filter, on the other hand, only works as well as the community that is maintaining it. If they don’t maintain it – it will just gather dust. And even if they do maintain it, they are only designed to last 3 or so years at normal use.

Hopefully I’ll catch a break somewhere: be it restoring access to YouTube or getting this Pond Sand Filter done on-time and/or within-budget.

There have been so many times where I’ve wanted to incorporate video from Google Earth in my videos. That way I could illustrate exactly where I was filming. Unfortunately, Google makes that next to impossible for someone on my budget. The cheapest version of Google Earth that lets you export video costs a whopping $400. And they don’t do student discounts…. ever.

I’ve spent the good part of the day today trying to find an alternative solution. There is a 7-day trial of Google Earth Pro, but if you use the trial, any video you make has a big “trial version” slapped in the center of the video. I’ve also tried using screen capture software so that I could record something using the free version of Google Earth. Unfortunately, anything recorded that way is way too choppy to be usable in a video.

And with the latest version of Google Earth – I’m all the more tempted. It’s all put together so beautifully – it’s like you are up there flying around in the space shuttle. Oh Google… why do you price things out of my league and make it so tempting? *sobs*

There is a good reason I have a link to the blog called “The Third World View“. The author of that blog (Rezwan) is one of the hardest working bloggers I know. When it comes to issues about Bangladesh the guy never seems to sleep. And, when it comes to his investigative journalism, he often puts the mainstream media to shame. In fact, his recent investigation has lifted a weight off my chest.

About a week ago, I broke the story that Bangladesh was blocking access to Google and its related web services (like GMail, Blogspot, Blogger, and so on). This ended up becoming the most linked to story I have ever written in my life. But many local Bangladeshis decided to take a “if it’s not true for me – it must be false” approach and contradicted my report both on this site and elsewhere. When access to Google was restored a day or so later – I apologized for being so alarmist and wrote the whole problem off as a technical glitch.

While I was busy apologizing, Rezwan was busy fact-checking my story. First, he was able to get independent confirmation of Google being blocked from other Bangladeshi internet users during the same time. Second, he was also able to verify that this problem existed on even more ISPs than I had originally reported. Finally, he was also able to get independent confirmation that access to some Google services were restored with tools like OpenDNS (which bypass Bangladesh DNS servers) and TOR (which bypasses censorship and filtering).

But what really shows off Rezwan’s investigative acumen is his analysis of why there were conflicting reports about Google being blocked in Bangladesh and why this might in fact have been intentional censorship instead of a technical glitch.

A summary of his analysis after the jump….. Continue reading ‘Google Blocked? An Update.’

[This post has been updated - see below after the jump] Bangladesh seems to be apparently blocking access to Google and its related web properties. I noticed this on my own connection about 48 to 72 hours ago. Since then I have been able to get independent confirmation from those using different internet connections. This problem seems to affect Bangladeshis trying to access Google’s services via EDGE, GPRS, and landline based internet connections in both Dhaka and other locations in the country.

More details after the jump along with a way to bypass this blocking. Continue reading ‘BREAKING: Bangladesh Censoring/Blocking Access to Google’