I like US American Christian Evangelicals, I really do. I mean, not necessarily in person, but in principle: They are so very easy.
This is what the internet just coughed up on my door mat: Jestidwell’s blog piece ‘It didn’t happen like I thought it would’. Wife of one, mother of four goes on missionary trip to Kenya and is deeply disappointed when, upon arrival in Nairobi, she finds the Junction, a bloody mall of all things:
‘My heart was prepared for dirt floors.
For dirty laundry hanging everywhere.
For kids that were half naked and covered in bug bites.
People who couldn’t speak English.
not this’
Insert pictures of very well fed mzungu guy in Nakumatt looking at shelves of mayonnaise (possibly her husband?). The mayonnaise was, I admit, an element I appreciated.
Then she writes this without any apparent sense of irony:
‘But this girl from the states expected Nairobi to be like what you see in the movies. Or on Feed the Children commercials.’
Seconds after I posted that blog piece on Facebook, I was convinced that it was a spoof. So I went back to her blog. Apparently not. There’s this:
'I will never be able to accurately describe the feeling of love I experienced when we stepped out of the airport and onto African soil.
The smell.
The sounds.
The breeze.
Almost ocean like but without the ocean.'
I feel cheated. How come I never have such mystic experiences when getting off the plane at JKIA? JKIA, Y U cheat me? Is it because I don't bring the love? Here goes Jesstidwell:
'But most of all, I prayed for Nairobi. That the people here would know Jesus. Not because we stand on a street corner and preach for hours on end and not because we pass out bibles and tracts, but because we show them love.'
Sure. Because Nairobi doesn’t have enough of the love of Christ already. Is Google blocked in the US?
Stand by for pictures of her and many grateful, small, black children. They are happy with so little! They are just like us!
Gold-star comment from the Focus Group: ‘What is wrong with the American education system? How can they generate so many, but just far too many under-educated ignorami (plural for ignoramus)? And why do these particular lot afflict us with their presence? Dear God what wrong did we ever do to deserve such as these? Why us? Why them? Why us?’ (Yvonne Adhiambo)
Showing posts with label Do-gooders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Do-gooders. Show all posts
11 April 2014
Behave, or Bono!
Ian Cox (@IanECox), forever fond of prodding bears with sticks and such things, brought to my attention that there was a bit of dispute on social media about the Emmanuel Jal/Eric Wainaina Southern Sudan peace concert that took place yesterday in Nairobi, and was sponsored by Oxfam:
Ayom Wol Dhal and other people raised the issue that Emmanuel Jal may not be quite neutral and peacey enough for a peace concert for Southern Sudan. Ayom Wol Dhal is the editor in chief of the South Sudan Independent and, in an article, says that Emmanuel Jal has made repeat tribal comments on his Twitter account, including unsubstantiated allegations against Southern Sudan president Salva Kiir. Here’s the Facebook post that carries the full story.
That is, I would imagine, less than ideal. More importantly, though, I do as ever wonder how a (Nairobi) concert is going to fix a civil war? I only have one explanation: If the joint Jal/Wainaina intervention doesn’t bring Machar and Kiir to their senses, threats will be escalated: We’ll have no choice but to BRING GELDOF AND BONO. Possibly even without a UN Security Council resolution. So there!
Oxfam are being asked questions, too, and obligingly have said on the concert website, under ‘How is Oxfam involved’:
‘We're putting on this concert as we believe that there needs to be a counter-narrative to the messages of violence and hurt that are currently coming from South Sudan. We want to give space to voices of unity, reconciliation and peace. We are lucky to have five great performers from South Sudan, Uganda and Kenya sharing the stage for this event, so we can bring their musical voices to you, either through radio in South Sudan, on TV in Kenya, or over the internet to reach you, wherever you are in the world.’
*Eyeroll*. Yes yes. I trust that all these people are listening avidly – from Crisis Group: ‘The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) is hosting almost 70,000 civilians fleeing ethnic reprisals, but its badly outgunned peacekeepers are no match for the thousands of heavily armed forces and militias.’ (this is not, before you get worked up about this, a comment on the efficiency or, clearly, otherwise of UNMISS, but on the scale of what can be technically described as a ‘complex emergency’).
Also, this does not really say how Oxfam is involved (Money? For the venue and the equipment? Performance fee for the artists? Tickets were for sale, so did the whole event break even?), only why. Which bit of Oxfam was involved? Inquiring minds want to know. Civilians giving Oxfam donations for concerts should certainly want to know.
Ian tried to engage Oxfam advisor Sam Rosmarin on the issue, but ended up concluding: ‘You're beyond the pale with your obfuscation. Shoulda gone to law school.’
I will leave you with a link to Wainaina’s lyrics that inspired the event title, Baby Don't Go.
Now baby must go, or my eyes will be stuck in the back of my head when the wind changes.
PS: I think they may even have used Comic Sans on the concert website. Surely one must draw the line somewhere, and if we don’t draw it at Comic Sans, then the terrorists will definitely have won.
Ayom Wol Dhal and other people raised the issue that Emmanuel Jal may not be quite neutral and peacey enough for a peace concert for Southern Sudan. Ayom Wol Dhal is the editor in chief of the South Sudan Independent and, in an article, says that Emmanuel Jal has made repeat tribal comments on his Twitter account, including unsubstantiated allegations against Southern Sudan president Salva Kiir. Here’s the Facebook post that carries the full story.
That is, I would imagine, less than ideal. More importantly, though, I do as ever wonder how a (Nairobi) concert is going to fix a civil war? I only have one explanation: If the joint Jal/Wainaina intervention doesn’t bring Machar and Kiir to their senses, threats will be escalated: We’ll have no choice but to BRING GELDOF AND BONO. Possibly even without a UN Security Council resolution. So there!
Oxfam are being asked questions, too, and obligingly have said on the concert website, under ‘How is Oxfam involved’:
‘We're putting on this concert as we believe that there needs to be a counter-narrative to the messages of violence and hurt that are currently coming from South Sudan. We want to give space to voices of unity, reconciliation and peace. We are lucky to have five great performers from South Sudan, Uganda and Kenya sharing the stage for this event, so we can bring their musical voices to you, either through radio in South Sudan, on TV in Kenya, or over the internet to reach you, wherever you are in the world.’
*Eyeroll*. Yes yes. I trust that all these people are listening avidly – from Crisis Group: ‘The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) is hosting almost 70,000 civilians fleeing ethnic reprisals, but its badly outgunned peacekeepers are no match for the thousands of heavily armed forces and militias.’ (this is not, before you get worked up about this, a comment on the efficiency or, clearly, otherwise of UNMISS, but on the scale of what can be technically described as a ‘complex emergency’).
Also, this does not really say how Oxfam is involved (Money? For the venue and the equipment? Performance fee for the artists? Tickets were for sale, so did the whole event break even?), only why. Which bit of Oxfam was involved? Inquiring minds want to know. Civilians giving Oxfam donations for concerts should certainly want to know.
Ian tried to engage Oxfam advisor Sam Rosmarin on the issue, but ended up concluding: ‘You're beyond the pale with your obfuscation. Shoulda gone to law school.’
I will leave you with a link to Wainaina’s lyrics that inspired the event title, Baby Don't Go.
Now baby must go, or my eyes will be stuck in the back of my head when the wind changes.
PS: I think they may even have used Comic Sans on the concert website. Surely one must draw the line somewhere, and if we don’t draw it at Comic Sans, then the terrorists will definitely have won.
10 April 2014
The Wisdom of Children?
Another WTF from the World of Do-Gooding: Just spotted an ad from Raleigh International who are looking for ‘volunteers aged 18-25 for Raleigh ICS, a UK government funded development programme that brings together young people to make a difference in some of the poorest communities around the world.’
Those volunteers will be sent to India, Nicaragua or Tanzania for ten weeks to
‘focus on water and sanitation and natural resource management, and you will take part in a number of activities to affect change in these areas. These could include:
Yup. Because it takes British 18 year olds to ‘inspire’ Tanzanian grown ups, with a solid knowledge of their environment, ‘to take action’ and to acquire ‘awareness of development issues’. And because there is hardly anyone around in the ‘local communities’ who could build infrastructure, or would know how to maintain such projects.
Incidentally, they also need to fundraise for their trip. So why not bloody send the cash and hire a local fundi who knows what s/he is doing, can use the income, and doesn’t create a situation where a British kid with exactly zero experience of what it takes to survive on little money in another country lectures grown ups who’ve lived and survived in that place?
Patronising much?
BUT THEY MEAN WELL.
Those volunteers will be sent to India, Nicaragua or Tanzania for ten weeks to
‘focus on water and sanitation and natural resource management, and you will take part in a number of activities to affect change in these areas. These could include:
- Surveying the local community on their needs and the issues that affect them.
- Developing campaigns which inspire local people to take action.
- Working with local youth or women’s groups to raise awareness of development issues.
- Working on sustainable construction projects to help build infrastructure in the local area, such as gravity feed water systems or composting toilets.
- Training the local community on developing and maintaining these projects, to ensure that the benefits continue to be felt for future generations.’
Yup. Because it takes British 18 year olds to ‘inspire’ Tanzanian grown ups, with a solid knowledge of their environment, ‘to take action’ and to acquire ‘awareness of development issues’. And because there is hardly anyone around in the ‘local communities’ who could build infrastructure, or would know how to maintain such projects.
Incidentally, they also need to fundraise for their trip. So why not bloody send the cash and hire a local fundi who knows what s/he is doing, can use the income, and doesn’t create a situation where a British kid with exactly zero experience of what it takes to survive on little money in another country lectures grown ups who’ve lived and survived in that place?
Patronising much?
BUT THEY MEAN WELL.
18 October 2013
Do-Gooder Fuckery Update, Sub-Category: US Evangelical Christian
A bountiful two days indeed:
First, US American T.D. Jakes, in a ranty response to ‘Preachers of LA’, a reality TV show about filthy rich mega pastors, goes on a rant in which he claims that ‘The natives all over Kenya drink water because of this ministry. And the hospital in Nairobi survives because of this ministry.’ (Transcript here).
Cue collective side-eye from Kenyans on Twitter (KOT). The natives got a little restless, not just because of his distinctly colonial language, but also because nobody was really aware of T.D. Jakes’ water supplies or ‘the hospital’.
After an afternoon of online shitstorming, the natives received this: ‘The attempt was to highlight one well and one hospital wing in Kenya as one example of this ministry's worldwide efforts. It was by no means meant to take responsibility for an entire nation or to minimize the contributions of its people.’
No mention of the ‘natives’, and if Jakes’ ministry supported one well and one hospital wing, then his earlier statement is nothing but a deliberate misrepresentation – no doubt targeted at his US audience who would surely not doubt its veracity. Ridiculously self-serving and tone deaf. I may or may not have called it ‘bollocks’ on Twitter.
My only explanation for this? T.D. Jakes probably didn’t think the natives would be on social media. Or would be able to read, for that matter.
I guess we need to be grateful that Jakes didn’t describe Kenya as ‘war torn’. Joyce Meyer recently bragged on Twitter about the support her ministry gave to an orphanage in ‘war torn Uganda’.
(And Christina Aguilera went to ‘war torn Rwanda’ to feed the natives, but that was for the World Food Programme, so equally ridiculous, but not eligible for classification in the sub-category US Evangelical Christian).
Onwards!
Then Denis Nzioka brought this article in the Texas ‘Graham Leader’ to my attention: 'Baptist Men send buckets to dying East Africans'. In it, the author claims: ‘Baptist Men, a mission organization at First Baptist Church, has recently completed a mission outreach effort called “Bucket Project: Hospice Kit.” Sponsored by Baptist Global Response (BGR), the project is directed toward hospice patients in East African suffering the final stages of HIV/AIDS. According to statistics provided by BGR, the HIV/AIDS epidemic killed 1.2 million people in 2012 in East Africa alone. Since the since the epidemic began, 14.8 million children have lost one or both parents to the disease.’
Yeah no. I don’t know whether the Graham Leader was given the wrong figures by the men’s group (still: how about fact checking?) or got them wrong, but that’s most likely the figure for all of sub Saharan Africa. According to UNAIDS (thanks to our friends at Google, mere seconds away), an estimated 57,000 died of HIV/AIDS in Kenya in 2012, 63,000 in Uganda, 5,600 in Rwanda, and 4,800 in Burundi (no data for TZ, but probably in the Kenya/UG range). That’s of course way too many, but it’s not a million plus.
(the article also claims that ‘the disease kills both men and women’. No shit, Sherlock!).
In all fairness, when I looked up the Baptist Global Response project, they did state the figure for all of sub Saharan Africa. But to my great surprise, the ‘buckets’ to be sent are not a metaphor – these guys actually send buckets full of things to Kenya. Surely they must be aware that Kenya has well stocked supermarkets in which one can purchase nail clippers etc? And Kenya even has wholesalers. Ya know, save on transport costs, put some money into the local economy.
First, US American T.D. Jakes, in a ranty response to ‘Preachers of LA’, a reality TV show about filthy rich mega pastors, goes on a rant in which he claims that ‘The natives all over Kenya drink water because of this ministry. And the hospital in Nairobi survives because of this ministry.’ (Transcript here).
Cue collective side-eye from Kenyans on Twitter (KOT). The natives got a little restless, not just because of his distinctly colonial language, but also because nobody was really aware of T.D. Jakes’ water supplies or ‘the hospital’.
After an afternoon of online shitstorming, the natives received this: ‘The attempt was to highlight one well and one hospital wing in Kenya as one example of this ministry's worldwide efforts. It was by no means meant to take responsibility for an entire nation or to minimize the contributions of its people.’
No mention of the ‘natives’, and if Jakes’ ministry supported one well and one hospital wing, then his earlier statement is nothing but a deliberate misrepresentation – no doubt targeted at his US audience who would surely not doubt its veracity. Ridiculously self-serving and tone deaf. I may or may not have called it ‘bollocks’ on Twitter.
My only explanation for this? T.D. Jakes probably didn’t think the natives would be on social media. Or would be able to read, for that matter.
I guess we need to be grateful that Jakes didn’t describe Kenya as ‘war torn’. Joyce Meyer recently bragged on Twitter about the support her ministry gave to an orphanage in ‘war torn Uganda’.
(And Christina Aguilera went to ‘war torn Rwanda’ to feed the natives, but that was for the World Food Programme, so equally ridiculous, but not eligible for classification in the sub-category US Evangelical Christian).
Onwards!
Then Denis Nzioka brought this article in the Texas ‘Graham Leader’ to my attention: 'Baptist Men send buckets to dying East Africans'. In it, the author claims: ‘Baptist Men, a mission organization at First Baptist Church, has recently completed a mission outreach effort called “Bucket Project: Hospice Kit.” Sponsored by Baptist Global Response (BGR), the project is directed toward hospice patients in East African suffering the final stages of HIV/AIDS. According to statistics provided by BGR, the HIV/AIDS epidemic killed 1.2 million people in 2012 in East Africa alone. Since the since the epidemic began, 14.8 million children have lost one or both parents to the disease.’
Yeah no. I don’t know whether the Graham Leader was given the wrong figures by the men’s group (still: how about fact checking?) or got them wrong, but that’s most likely the figure for all of sub Saharan Africa. According to UNAIDS (thanks to our friends at Google, mere seconds away), an estimated 57,000 died of HIV/AIDS in Kenya in 2012, 63,000 in Uganda, 5,600 in Rwanda, and 4,800 in Burundi (no data for TZ, but probably in the Kenya/UG range). That’s of course way too many, but it’s not a million plus.
(the article also claims that ‘the disease kills both men and women’. No shit, Sherlock!).
In all fairness, when I looked up the Baptist Global Response project, they did state the figure for all of sub Saharan Africa. But to my great surprise, the ‘buckets’ to be sent are not a metaphor – these guys actually send buckets full of things to Kenya. Surely they must be aware that Kenya has well stocked supermarkets in which one can purchase nail clippers etc? And Kenya even has wholesalers. Ya know, save on transport costs, put some money into the local economy.
28 September 2011
Le Sigh: Recycled Soap to Uganda
More evidence if you ever needed any that Africa is a bizarre theme park for good intentions:
Told by CNN no less, and in its CNN Heroes section: The heartwarming tale of Derreck Kayongo, a Ugandan living in the US, who was shocked by the waste from hotel soaps – every visitor gets a new piece of soap, every day, and the barely used soap is being thrown out. "Are we really throwing away that much soap at the expense of other people who don't have anything? It just doesn't sound right. … My dad said people in America can afford to throw it away. But I just started to think, 'What if we took some of this soap and recycled it, made brand new soap from it and then sent it home to people who couldn't afford soap?'”
The CNN article cites statistics that every year, more than 2 million children die from diarrheal illness in developing countries. Simply washing hands with soap could be a first line of defence. Mr Kayango argues that the problem is not the availability of soap, but its cost: for people on the mythical dollar a day, a soap bar is simply too expensive to purchase when there are many more pressing priorities such as food and medication. Fair enough.
Mr Kayongo sets up what is now the Global Soap Project. Here’s CNN’s description:
“So far, 300 hotels nationwide have joined the collection effort, generating 100 tons of soap. Some participating hotels even donate high-end soaps such as Bvlgari, which retails up to $27 for a single bar. Volunteers across the U.S. collect the hotel soaps and ship them to the group's warehouse in Atlanta. On Saturdays, Atlanta volunteers assemble there to clean, reprocess and package the bars.
"We do not mix the soaps because they come with different pH systems, different characters, smells and colors," Kayongo said. "We sanitize them first, then heat them at very high temperatures, chill them and cut them into final bars. It's a very simple process, but a lot of work."
A batch of soap bars is only released for shipment once one of its samples has been tested for pathogens and deemed safe by a third-party laboratory. The Global Soap Project then works with partner organizations to ship and distribute the soap directly to people who need it -- for free.”
Rethink this for a second: The Global Soap Project requires managing the participating hotels and the collecting volunteers. The volunteers pay for shipping. The soap people need to buy machinery, pay for space, do lots of sorting-producing-heating-sanitising-testing type things ('a lot of work', as they say), pay for shipping ... to get soap to Uganda.
Here's the thing: Uganda has shops. Many. Even supermarket chains. Uganda also has soap manufacturers. When I lived in Uganda ten years ago, you were given those long soap bars for free at the petrol station if you purchased a certain minimum amount of petrol. I have heard of recent fuel and sugar shortages, but no soap shortages have hit the headlines.
If you think distributing free soap to Ugandans who can’t afford it is a good thing, then this is probably single-handedly the least efficient way of doing it. It is also latently ignorant and patronising: Send US rubbish to the ever grateful Ugandans.
How about sending some cash to Uganda to buy the soap there and then have it distributed by the local partner organisations?
Brains, people. Use them.
But heartwarming, hey?
Told by CNN no less, and in its CNN Heroes section: The heartwarming tale of Derreck Kayongo, a Ugandan living in the US, who was shocked by the waste from hotel soaps – every visitor gets a new piece of soap, every day, and the barely used soap is being thrown out. "Are we really throwing away that much soap at the expense of other people who don't have anything? It just doesn't sound right. … My dad said people in America can afford to throw it away. But I just started to think, 'What if we took some of this soap and recycled it, made brand new soap from it and then sent it home to people who couldn't afford soap?'”
The CNN article cites statistics that every year, more than 2 million children die from diarrheal illness in developing countries. Simply washing hands with soap could be a first line of defence. Mr Kayango argues that the problem is not the availability of soap, but its cost: for people on the mythical dollar a day, a soap bar is simply too expensive to purchase when there are many more pressing priorities such as food and medication. Fair enough.
Mr Kayongo sets up what is now the Global Soap Project. Here’s CNN’s description:
“So far, 300 hotels nationwide have joined the collection effort, generating 100 tons of soap. Some participating hotels even donate high-end soaps such as Bvlgari, which retails up to $27 for a single bar. Volunteers across the U.S. collect the hotel soaps and ship them to the group's warehouse in Atlanta. On Saturdays, Atlanta volunteers assemble there to clean, reprocess and package the bars.
"We do not mix the soaps because they come with different pH systems, different characters, smells and colors," Kayongo said. "We sanitize them first, then heat them at very high temperatures, chill them and cut them into final bars. It's a very simple process, but a lot of work."
A batch of soap bars is only released for shipment once one of its samples has been tested for pathogens and deemed safe by a third-party laboratory. The Global Soap Project then works with partner organizations to ship and distribute the soap directly to people who need it -- for free.”
Rethink this for a second: The Global Soap Project requires managing the participating hotels and the collecting volunteers. The volunteers pay for shipping. The soap people need to buy machinery, pay for space, do lots of sorting-producing-heating-sanitising-testing type things ('a lot of work', as they say), pay for shipping ... to get soap to Uganda.
Here's the thing: Uganda has shops. Many. Even supermarket chains. Uganda also has soap manufacturers. When I lived in Uganda ten years ago, you were given those long soap bars for free at the petrol station if you purchased a certain minimum amount of petrol. I have heard of recent fuel and sugar shortages, but no soap shortages have hit the headlines.
If you think distributing free soap to Ugandans who can’t afford it is a good thing, then this is probably single-handedly the least efficient way of doing it. It is also latently ignorant and patronising: Send US rubbish to the ever grateful Ugandans.
How about sending some cash to Uganda to buy the soap there and then have it distributed by the local partner organisations?
Brains, people. Use them.
But heartwarming, hey?
25 August 2011
More Le Sigh from the US – or: God’s Recruitment Process Flawed
It’s a good day for Africa stories from the US: Here’s a fun article about the Riegers, a family from Tillamook who are about to move to Gulu in northern Uganda as missionaries. God called them, you know. They will set up the Rieger Ministry that will ‘focus on orphans, child moms, ex-child soldiers and those afflicted with HIV/AIDS.’
Susan Rieger is ‘excited about what she has to offer the women and girls of Gulu. “I’m going to teach nutrition, gardening, work in the school, and develop exercise programs for people with AIDS.” She’s quite fit and likes running, but anticipates that being difficult:
‘She and her daughters will wear modest dresses and avoid doing anything to put themselves in overt danger, such as running for exercise. This will be a difficult adjustment for Susan, who is an avid runner.
“I put in 30 to 40 miles per week here,” she said. “When we get there I’m going to have to do step aerobics and yoga in the house. I might be able to run with Joe, but I would have to wear a dress, and we would have to go early in the morning before it gets too hot.”
I’m not really sure how a dress is going to help. I checked with Jane Bussmann (not known to jog in dresses) and she said she went running in Gulu, no probs.
She’s also not so confident about the school system:
‘Susan will also be homeschooling four of her own children in Africa. “In Uganda there is no public school,” she explained. “Every child who attends school has to be able to pay the fee, and the highest grade they teach is sixth.”’
Well. Uganda has a free primary education system, although I expect that like in Kenya, some ‘fees’ must be paid regardless, and the quality probably isn’t impressive. Wikipedia says: ‘The system of education in Uganda has a structure of 7 years of primary education, 6 years of secondary education (divided into 4 years of lower secondary and 2 years of upper secondary school).’
Anyhoodle. More substantially, what bugs me is this:
Here is a population that has indeed lived in incredibly difficult conditions. How is a bunch of Americans, well intended, but who seemingly can’t use google, who literally have no idea where they are going, qualified to address this? “These people have lived in trauma, it’s all they know. It is our mission to teach them how to function in peace.” Because you understand what it’s like to live in a civil war zone, because you have the skills for post-traumatic stress disorder counselling?
Susan Rieger plans to “to mentor and disciple child moms. I want to get to know them and teach them how to tend their children. The idea is that if we love on them and show them love, they will then be able to turn and love their children.” Because Ugandan child moms don’t know how to love their kids, and they don’t have parents, family, mothers and grandmothers to teach them parenting in their own community?
Is it just me, or is there something quite (albeit unintentionally) patronising about this whole venture?
Susan Rieger is ‘excited about what she has to offer the women and girls of Gulu. “I’m going to teach nutrition, gardening, work in the school, and develop exercise programs for people with AIDS.” She’s quite fit and likes running, but anticipates that being difficult:
‘She and her daughters will wear modest dresses and avoid doing anything to put themselves in overt danger, such as running for exercise. This will be a difficult adjustment for Susan, who is an avid runner.
“I put in 30 to 40 miles per week here,” she said. “When we get there I’m going to have to do step aerobics and yoga in the house. I might be able to run with Joe, but I would have to wear a dress, and we would have to go early in the morning before it gets too hot.”
I’m not really sure how a dress is going to help. I checked with Jane Bussmann (not known to jog in dresses) and she said she went running in Gulu, no probs.
She’s also not so confident about the school system:
‘Susan will also be homeschooling four of her own children in Africa. “In Uganda there is no public school,” she explained. “Every child who attends school has to be able to pay the fee, and the highest grade they teach is sixth.”’
Well. Uganda has a free primary education system, although I expect that like in Kenya, some ‘fees’ must be paid regardless, and the quality probably isn’t impressive. Wikipedia says: ‘The system of education in Uganda has a structure of 7 years of primary education, 6 years of secondary education (divided into 4 years of lower secondary and 2 years of upper secondary school).’
Anyhoodle. More substantially, what bugs me is this:
Here is a population that has indeed lived in incredibly difficult conditions. How is a bunch of Americans, well intended, but who seemingly can’t use google, who literally have no idea where they are going, qualified to address this? “These people have lived in trauma, it’s all they know. It is our mission to teach them how to function in peace.” Because you understand what it’s like to live in a civil war zone, because you have the skills for post-traumatic stress disorder counselling?
Susan Rieger plans to “to mentor and disciple child moms. I want to get to know them and teach them how to tend their children. The idea is that if we love on them and show them love, they will then be able to turn and love their children.” Because Ugandan child moms don’t know how to love their kids, and they don’t have parents, family, mothers and grandmothers to teach them parenting in their own community?
Is it just me, or is there something quite (albeit unintentionally) patronising about this whole venture?
Le Sigh: First Lady-Type Persons Visiting Dadaab
Mike Pflanz recently wrote a great piece about the visit of Jil Biden, the US Vice President’s wife, to Dadaab. Dadaab is really the hotspot of ‘look, people are dying!’ tourism at the moment. Here are the logistics behind Biden’s two-hour visit, according to Pflanz:
‘Watching the wife of the US vice-president touring the world's biggest refugee camp for famine-hit Somalis was a scrum of television cameramen, international reporters and Washington staffers thumbing their BlackBerrys. A circle of secret-service agents, their oversized shirts flattened by the hot wind onto the outlines of bullet-proof vests and pistols beneath, fanned out, watching 'the perimeter'.
Parked off to the side, waiting to whisk the visitors back to the airport, was a convoy of 29 polished vehicles, including armoured US embassy Land Cruisers driven the eight hours up from Nairobi the day before.
Two US Army Hercules C-130 aircraft were flown in – one as a backup in case of technical hitches – to transfer the Americans to Dadaab from their overnight flight from Washington. They would fly home the same day.’
And we’re working our way down the hierarchy: Just now, Cindy McCain, wife of US Republican Senator John McCain, has found her way to Kenya and to Dadaab. She found horror, death and starvation of biblical proportions, as she recounts in an interview with her daughter Meghan McCain:
‘It’s a horrible situation that has been going on for quite some time; it escalated recently due to lower-than- normal spring rains and lack of food security due to the increased conflict.’
Yeah, that. And also two decades of civil war in Somalia and no functioning government, which doesn’t really help. Aidan Hartley recently pointed out in a good piece in the Spectator, ‘Drought didn’t cause Somalia’s famine’: ‘the ‘Somalis’ are not starving. The victims are mainly the weak or minority clans — or anybody who has not armed himself to the teeth. Add to this political mix the failures of the United Nations and its main sponsors.’
Well, she does try to look at the context. Here’s an insightful piece of analysis:
‘There are bad guys roaming around this place not because they want to be good citizens but terrorists. Somalia is where the pirates are. We’ve had so many issues in regards to our military. They kidnap people on a regular basis— kidnapping is an industry there. It’s in our best interest to make sure these people are helped. I also encourage those that have the means and are willing to come here—and I’m particularly pointing at Hollywood.’
But my favourite bit of the whole article – Meghan: ‘If you weren’t my mother, I wouldn’t know this was going on.’
Try reading the bloody news, for crying out loud.
‘Watching the wife of the US vice-president touring the world's biggest refugee camp for famine-hit Somalis was a scrum of television cameramen, international reporters and Washington staffers thumbing their BlackBerrys. A circle of secret-service agents, their oversized shirts flattened by the hot wind onto the outlines of bullet-proof vests and pistols beneath, fanned out, watching 'the perimeter'.
Parked off to the side, waiting to whisk the visitors back to the airport, was a convoy of 29 polished vehicles, including armoured US embassy Land Cruisers driven the eight hours up from Nairobi the day before.
Two US Army Hercules C-130 aircraft were flown in – one as a backup in case of technical hitches – to transfer the Americans to Dadaab from their overnight flight from Washington. They would fly home the same day.’
And we’re working our way down the hierarchy: Just now, Cindy McCain, wife of US Republican Senator John McCain, has found her way to Kenya and to Dadaab. She found horror, death and starvation of biblical proportions, as she recounts in an interview with her daughter Meghan McCain:
‘It’s a horrible situation that has been going on for quite some time; it escalated recently due to lower-than- normal spring rains and lack of food security due to the increased conflict.’
Yeah, that. And also two decades of civil war in Somalia and no functioning government, which doesn’t really help. Aidan Hartley recently pointed out in a good piece in the Spectator, ‘Drought didn’t cause Somalia’s famine’: ‘the ‘Somalis’ are not starving. The victims are mainly the weak or minority clans — or anybody who has not armed himself to the teeth. Add to this political mix the failures of the United Nations and its main sponsors.’
Well, she does try to look at the context. Here’s an insightful piece of analysis:
‘There are bad guys roaming around this place not because they want to be good citizens but terrorists. Somalia is where the pirates are. We’ve had so many issues in regards to our military. They kidnap people on a regular basis— kidnapping is an industry there. It’s in our best interest to make sure these people are helped. I also encourage those that have the means and are willing to come here—and I’m particularly pointing at Hollywood.’
But my favourite bit of the whole article – Meghan: ‘If you weren’t my mother, I wouldn’t know this was going on.’
Try reading the bloody news, for crying out loud.
10 June 2011
Buy fragrance, donate water - how does that work?
A Ghanaian friend sent me a blog post on this Acqua for Life Challenge sponsored by the Giorgio Armani:
http://www.acquaforlifechallenge.org/en/content/project
It promises to provide 100l of clean water for every bottle of fragrance bought.
Since I do finding-out-things for a living, I was curious how exactly this worked.
The one bottle of fragrance = 100l of water equation sounds like a great deal, but is clearly a PR tool: lots of charities use something similar to fundraise. The send-a-cow charities often let people choose cows, goats etc from a catalogue to send to a specific village, but typically, that money goes into the fund for a programme rather than to individuals. Which makes sense, but it's still a little dishonest in advertising. Same with Kiva, the online small loan platform: people who choose to provide a small loan to help small entrepreneurs in developing countries are given the impression that their money will go to a specific entrepreneur. Again, this is not true, as the money is bundled and then given to (micro) finance institutions to onlend to their clients. This has been debated online quite extensively recently.
But back to fragrance purchase = water for kids. So how *does* this work?
The website is full of very pretty blue pics, and hardly has any useful information. Nothing of substance even here:
http://www.acquaforlifechallenge.org/en/content/whats-ghana
I then consulted Google, and Google tells me that the implementing partner organisation, Green Cross International (GCI), is a Geneva-based non-governmental organisation founded by President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1993. Its main areas of activity are:
• conflict prevention
• sources of conflict and war, and
• value change
The section on structure and organisation shows an impressive governing and honorary board. See here:
http://www.gci.ch/en/who-we-are/structure-and-organisation-of-green-cross-international.
Robert Redford is an honorary member - yumm!
The staffing section is much skinnier with 11 employees: http://www.gci.ch/en/who-we-are/staff.
Since this includes the president, vice president, and chief operating officer, it's a bit top heavy, but they might all be incredibly effective in preventing conflict. It doesn't strike me as an organisation that has much experience in carrying out on-the-ground water projects, but then they have a local implementation organisation: Green Cross Ghana.
But back to my initial quest of finding out how this water for fragrance thingie works:
I have dug around a bit and found the Ghanaian school programme under Conflict Prevention, sub-category Water for Life & Peace, sub-sub category Access to Water and Sanitation. Logical, not so? There's the 'Case Study Ghana'. I'm not sure this is quite the right term as Ghana seems to be the only project and is actually a pilot - they state that they plan to expand the project beyond the five communities that they currently work in.
The programme was launched in February 2010 and plans to do this:
'SWGS aims to provide safe drinking water, as well as sanitation, environmental and health awareness for children and their local communities in transboundary river basins. This includes:
1. Setting up a rainwater harvesting system
2. Providing ecological latrines
3. Bringing more water to the communities by building additional water systems
4. Running educational programmes'
(from http://www.gci.ch/en/what-we-do/conflict-prevention/water/access-to-water).
I can't find more details. They have a backgrounder on the school initiative in Ghana to download, but it basically repeats the information from the website.
So I still don't know how one bottle of fragrance = 100l of clean water actually works. I'd be keen to see the amounts raised through this so far, and what exactly they have been spent on – and how much went to GCI and how much to their local implementation organisation. When I clicked on the Aqua for Life Challenge website, an automatic counter told me that 44.646m litres of water have been ‘raised’ so far.
I think I’d also be more comfortable with donations being used for such a project if the implementing organisation had done the pilot already and had therefore demonstrated its expertise in running such projects.
http://www.acquaforlifechallenge.org/en/content/project
It promises to provide 100l of clean water for every bottle of fragrance bought.
Since I do finding-out-things for a living, I was curious how exactly this worked.
The one bottle of fragrance = 100l of water equation sounds like a great deal, but is clearly a PR tool: lots of charities use something similar to fundraise. The send-a-cow charities often let people choose cows, goats etc from a catalogue to send to a specific village, but typically, that money goes into the fund for a programme rather than to individuals. Which makes sense, but it's still a little dishonest in advertising. Same with Kiva, the online small loan platform: people who choose to provide a small loan to help small entrepreneurs in developing countries are given the impression that their money will go to a specific entrepreneur. Again, this is not true, as the money is bundled and then given to (micro) finance institutions to onlend to their clients. This has been debated online quite extensively recently.
But back to fragrance purchase = water for kids. So how *does* this work?
The website is full of very pretty blue pics, and hardly has any useful information. Nothing of substance even here:
http://www.acquaforlifechallenge.org/en/content/whats-ghana
I then consulted Google, and Google tells me that the implementing partner organisation, Green Cross International (GCI), is a Geneva-based non-governmental organisation founded by President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1993. Its main areas of activity are:
• conflict prevention
• sources of conflict and war, and
• value change
The section on structure and organisation shows an impressive governing and honorary board. See here:
http://www.gci.ch/en/who-we-are/structure-and-organisation-of-green-cross-international.
Robert Redford is an honorary member - yumm!
The staffing section is much skinnier with 11 employees: http://www.gci.ch/en/who-we-are/staff.
Since this includes the president, vice president, and chief operating officer, it's a bit top heavy, but they might all be incredibly effective in preventing conflict. It doesn't strike me as an organisation that has much experience in carrying out on-the-ground water projects, but then they have a local implementation organisation: Green Cross Ghana.
But back to my initial quest of finding out how this water for fragrance thingie works:
I have dug around a bit and found the Ghanaian school programme under Conflict Prevention, sub-category Water for Life & Peace, sub-sub category Access to Water and Sanitation. Logical, not so? There's the 'Case Study Ghana'. I'm not sure this is quite the right term as Ghana seems to be the only project and is actually a pilot - they state that they plan to expand the project beyond the five communities that they currently work in.
The programme was launched in February 2010 and plans to do this:
'SWGS aims to provide safe drinking water, as well as sanitation, environmental and health awareness for children and their local communities in transboundary river basins. This includes:
1. Setting up a rainwater harvesting system
2. Providing ecological latrines
3. Bringing more water to the communities by building additional water systems
4. Running educational programmes'
(from http://www.gci.ch/en/what-we-do/conflict-prevention/water/access-to-water).
I can't find more details. They have a backgrounder on the school initiative in Ghana to download, but it basically repeats the information from the website.
So I still don't know how one bottle of fragrance = 100l of clean water actually works. I'd be keen to see the amounts raised through this so far, and what exactly they have been spent on – and how much went to GCI and how much to their local implementation organisation. When I clicked on the Aqua for Life Challenge website, an automatic counter told me that 44.646m litres of water have been ‘raised’ so far.
I think I’d also be more comfortable with donations being used for such a project if the implementing organisation had done the pilot already and had therefore demonstrated its expertise in running such projects.
10 March 2011
Congo on the Brink: No – really?
I have learned about this thanks to actor Ben Affleck: "Having just returned from the Congo last month I can assure you that Congo is on the brink" (source).
Thank you, Ben. This was news to me. Or was it? Wait. Hasn’t Congo (Congo-Kinshasa, I assume, although Congo-Brazzaville isn’t so peachy either) been on the brink for, errr, years now? In fact, this is DRC’s address, in case you ever want to mail something:
DR Congo
On the Brink
Central Africa
Actor Affleck testified before the US Congress's Human Rights subcommittee. I don’t doubt Affleck’s good intentions for a second, but it beats me why anyone would listen to an actor on DRC, even one who has visited DRC several times. There are easily a gazillion people more qualified to speak about DRC, and anyone who doesn’t object to be told about DRC by an actor needs to get his/her head examined. And as long as Affleck doesn’t recognize this, he can’t be serious either.
And more aid, Ben? What exactly is more aid going to do?
That is all.
Thank you, Ben. This was news to me. Or was it? Wait. Hasn’t Congo (Congo-Kinshasa, I assume, although Congo-Brazzaville isn’t so peachy either) been on the brink for, errr, years now? In fact, this is DRC’s address, in case you ever want to mail something:
DR Congo
On the Brink
Central Africa
Actor Affleck testified before the US Congress's Human Rights subcommittee. I don’t doubt Affleck’s good intentions for a second, but it beats me why anyone would listen to an actor on DRC, even one who has visited DRC several times. There are easily a gazillion people more qualified to speak about DRC, and anyone who doesn’t object to be told about DRC by an actor needs to get his/her head examined. And as long as Affleck doesn’t recognize this, he can’t be serious either.
And more aid, Ben? What exactly is more aid going to do?
That is all.
28 February 2011
Club-footed Social Media Poverty Poster Child
So this is a little intriguing: News.com.au has an article about Darren Rowse, described as ‘one of Australia’s biggest bloggers’, and his trip to Tanzania to ‘to test the idea that social media can be used for good.’
I think that one of the cool things about the internet is that you don’t actually need to go anywhere to check things out. Darren surely must have access to google and online news as well, so he might have heard the odd story or five about an entire Twitter and Facebook-supported revolution in Tunisia and Egypt. Maybe he could have sat down and googled around Africa/East Africa a bit and checked out what people here are up to in social media and the internet in general?
Because then we might not have ended up with the usual little poverty poster child for his initiative. This time, it’s not flies in the eyes and a distended belly:
‘Rowse said one of his main goals was to let people from Tanzania tell their own stories. "A little boy with a club foot or a cleft pallet (will) be able to tell his story in a way he may not have been able to do," he said.’
I think he meant cleft palate, but aside from that, I hope he also asks a business woman in her shiny big four-wheel drive to ‘tell her own story’.
‘We'll be blogging on the road, really, wherever we can find internet access, tweeting and creating videos.’ Just bring a smart phone and you’re good to go wherever there’s network coverage. That's how we do it here. The whole mobile thing, you know. Look it up. It's on google.
Yeah yeah, good intentions. I know.
I think that one of the cool things about the internet is that you don’t actually need to go anywhere to check things out. Darren surely must have access to google and online news as well, so he might have heard the odd story or five about an entire Twitter and Facebook-supported revolution in Tunisia and Egypt. Maybe he could have sat down and googled around Africa/East Africa a bit and checked out what people here are up to in social media and the internet in general?
Because then we might not have ended up with the usual little poverty poster child for his initiative. This time, it’s not flies in the eyes and a distended belly:
‘Rowse said one of his main goals was to let people from Tanzania tell their own stories. "A little boy with a club foot or a cleft pallet (will) be able to tell his story in a way he may not have been able to do," he said.’
I think he meant cleft palate, but aside from that, I hope he also asks a business woman in her shiny big four-wheel drive to ‘tell her own story’.
‘We'll be blogging on the road, really, wherever we can find internet access, tweeting and creating videos.’ Just bring a smart phone and you’re good to go wherever there’s network coverage. That's how we do it here. The whole mobile thing, you know. Look it up. It's on google.
Yeah yeah, good intentions. I know.
20 April 2010
Angelina Jolie to protect civilians through use of digital communications
From some past inquiries, I’m still on the UNHCR mailing list and occasionally get their mailings on Somalia. They usually involve five-digit figures of refugees fleeing the fighting in Mogadishu and elsewhere. This is sad. And sadly, this is also effectively routine. The fighting in Somalia has been going on for two decades and for a number of reasons that turn this into a complex and incredibly difficult to resolve conflict.
Since I write mostly about economic and business issues, I typically click these alerts away. However, yesterday I read on for a change when I received an email titled ‘Angelina Jolie appeals for safety of civilians in Somali capital’. According to this press release, Angelina Jolie 'expressed her concern for the lives and the well-being of thousands of displaced people who are trapped in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.’ The text goes on to state: ‘I am deeply troubled by the complete and utter disregard for human life in Somalia. ... I fear for their lives. I appeal to those who carry on fighting not to shell and target civilian neighbourhoods.’
That is very kind of Ms Jolie. A tad late maybe since this has happened to civilians for two decades. Never mind. Don't knock good intentions. But I hope that UNHCR have the Al Shabaab and assorted other fighting parties on their mailing list, too.
I ran this past my focus group (i.e. Facebook friends). Several people recommended shipping her and assorted supporters off to Mogadishu for an on-site event. Internet connections are of course available in Mogadishu, but this would certainly get around the question of whether the fighting parties are included in UNHCR’s mailing list. As Mr G said: ‘And she's supposed to be one of the more intelligent Hollywood stars. I feel genuinely sorry for the truly thick ones.’ Maybe if George Clooney also chipped in?
Since I write mostly about economic and business issues, I typically click these alerts away. However, yesterday I read on for a change when I received an email titled ‘Angelina Jolie appeals for safety of civilians in Somali capital’. According to this press release, Angelina Jolie 'expressed her concern for the lives and the well-being of thousands of displaced people who are trapped in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.’ The text goes on to state: ‘I am deeply troubled by the complete and utter disregard for human life in Somalia. ... I fear for their lives. I appeal to those who carry on fighting not to shell and target civilian neighbourhoods.’
That is very kind of Ms Jolie. A tad late maybe since this has happened to civilians for two decades. Never mind. Don't knock good intentions. But I hope that UNHCR have the Al Shabaab and assorted other fighting parties on their mailing list, too.
I ran this past my focus group (i.e. Facebook friends). Several people recommended shipping her and assorted supporters off to Mogadishu for an on-site event. Internet connections are of course available in Mogadishu, but this would certainly get around the question of whether the fighting parties are included in UNHCR’s mailing list. As Mr G said: ‘And she's supposed to be one of the more intelligent Hollywood stars. I feel genuinely sorry for the truly thick ones.’ Maybe if George Clooney also chipped in?
23 October 2009
What a pants idea! or: The no-knickers emergency
At first I thought it was spoof when I stumbled over the ‘Underwear for Africa’ initiative on Facebook. I had a closer look and realized that no, this was serious: a group of US Americans were trying to collect 1,000 undies for boys and girls (mercifully, they were looking for newly purchased knickers and not mitumba) by mid-December to distribute in a refugee camp in Kenya. Still, I was dumbstruck: Now why on earth would you want to drag a suitcase full of knickers to Africa? I’m quite used to all sorts of foreigners wanting to Do Something About Africa, but this must have been amongst the more ludicrous suggestions, alongside a shipment of teddy bears for Uganda organized by a Canadian teenage beauty queen that I had recently spotted (note to self: must pay more attention to teddy bear shortages in Uganda). Is this what Kenya has been reduced to – a no-knickers emergency?
I reposted the ‘Underwear for Africa’ initiative on my own Facebook page. The replies from my friends both Kenyan and non-Kenyan mirrored mine: ‘What the (expletive)’ and ‘I am now gobsmacked and slack-jawed at the same time‘. ‘I thought that’s a joke’ featured a few times. Also: ‘quite contemptuous … self-righteous and self-gratifying’. I found their efforts somewhere between incredibly patronizing and just silly. But I bit my tongue and wrote a tame comment on the group’s page: First, that there are a great many perfectly good shops in Kenya that sell underwear of all sorts, so why don’t they send over the money and buy the knickers here – assuming that the lack of underwear is really the issue? Save on transport and put some much-needed money into the Kenyan economy. And secondly, that ‘Africa’ was a continent with 50+ states.
I got some very friendly replies back from Rocky, who set up this campaign, and her husband Jeff. They admitted that I had a point, but, according to Jeff: ‘Obviously it would be better for the economy in Kenya if the purchases were made in Kenya ….However, the eighth grade girl who held the UFA drive may not have been inspired by collecting money. In fact, I'm quite sure she would not have been.’ Rocky added: ‘The reason why we decided to collect here and bring them over ourselves is simple. We are engaging others to be part of the process. You loose that when you simply ask for US$2 to buy underwear. The stories I hear from both adults and children alike when they empty the underwear racks, or PTA members excited to get the children involved in school projects such as this are amazing. People want to get involved. People want to become part of the process. People want to see, feel and be engaged in the bigger picture.’
The replies were, I found, very self centred: It had little to do with working out what really makes sense, and helping in the most efficient way possible. It was, in the end, all about feelings. Their feelings, their kids’ feelings. Is it really beyond a kid’s grasp to understand why a pocket money donation would make more sense than an underwear purchase in the US? It’s good to teach children to help others and get involved directly in the community, but that was just what irritated me: For the kids’ educational experience, why don’t they do something in their own local community? If they really want to help out in Kenya, it’s fantastically inefficient if people from literally the other side of the globe do this profusion of little-little projects here. Hook up with someone who already tries to work out how to keep Kenyan girls in school by helping them with both underwear and sanitary pads. There are so many initiatives by people who live and work here and not only give back to the community, but also do this is in a far more sensible way because they understand the place.
I’m sure the pants people have good intentions. But do good intentions give you license to do just anything? It bugs me that ‘Africa’ – because it’s always that amorphous big entity ‘Africa’, not one particular corner of this vast, diverse continent - has become a charity playground for half of the world to feel good about themselves. Knickers for Africa, actresses pronouncing on the civil war in DR Congo, and hug-an-orphan holidays. This attitude means that little attention is paid to the complexities behind the problems. Never mind that there’s actually straightforward business going on here.
My friend Wacuka had a closer look at the ‘Underwear for Africa’ blog where she found this: "Now, Rocky and I have already both discussed how silly the name of this project is. But underwear is a topic that is always good for a giggle. Especially with kids. Can you imagine the smiles on their faces and the laughter in the room when two crazy white ladies from America come bearing gifts of underwear?’ Wacuka’s wry comment: “I'm glad we're making so many people laugh this year. We should get some sort of comedy award." Robbie, in turn, was so incensed by the idea of underwear from the US when refugees need blankets, clothes, malaria nets and such things that he suggested an anti-pants campaign – let’s all go commando this weekend!
(written for Nairobi Star)
I reposted the ‘Underwear for Africa’ initiative on my own Facebook page. The replies from my friends both Kenyan and non-Kenyan mirrored mine: ‘What the (expletive)’ and ‘I am now gobsmacked and slack-jawed at the same time‘. ‘I thought that’s a joke’ featured a few times. Also: ‘quite contemptuous … self-righteous and self-gratifying’. I found their efforts somewhere between incredibly patronizing and just silly. But I bit my tongue and wrote a tame comment on the group’s page: First, that there are a great many perfectly good shops in Kenya that sell underwear of all sorts, so why don’t they send over the money and buy the knickers here – assuming that the lack of underwear is really the issue? Save on transport and put some much-needed money into the Kenyan economy. And secondly, that ‘Africa’ was a continent with 50+ states.
I got some very friendly replies back from Rocky, who set up this campaign, and her husband Jeff. They admitted that I had a point, but, according to Jeff: ‘Obviously it would be better for the economy in Kenya if the purchases were made in Kenya ….However, the eighth grade girl who held the UFA drive may not have been inspired by collecting money. In fact, I'm quite sure she would not have been.’ Rocky added: ‘The reason why we decided to collect here and bring them over ourselves is simple. We are engaging others to be part of the process. You loose that when you simply ask for US$2 to buy underwear. The stories I hear from both adults and children alike when they empty the underwear racks, or PTA members excited to get the children involved in school projects such as this are amazing. People want to get involved. People want to become part of the process. People want to see, feel and be engaged in the bigger picture.’
The replies were, I found, very self centred: It had little to do with working out what really makes sense, and helping in the most efficient way possible. It was, in the end, all about feelings. Their feelings, their kids’ feelings. Is it really beyond a kid’s grasp to understand why a pocket money donation would make more sense than an underwear purchase in the US? It’s good to teach children to help others and get involved directly in the community, but that was just what irritated me: For the kids’ educational experience, why don’t they do something in their own local community? If they really want to help out in Kenya, it’s fantastically inefficient if people from literally the other side of the globe do this profusion of little-little projects here. Hook up with someone who already tries to work out how to keep Kenyan girls in school by helping them with both underwear and sanitary pads. There are so many initiatives by people who live and work here and not only give back to the community, but also do this is in a far more sensible way because they understand the place.
I’m sure the pants people have good intentions. But do good intentions give you license to do just anything? It bugs me that ‘Africa’ – because it’s always that amorphous big entity ‘Africa’, not one particular corner of this vast, diverse continent - has become a charity playground for half of the world to feel good about themselves. Knickers for Africa, actresses pronouncing on the civil war in DR Congo, and hug-an-orphan holidays. This attitude means that little attention is paid to the complexities behind the problems. Never mind that there’s actually straightforward business going on here.
My friend Wacuka had a closer look at the ‘Underwear for Africa’ blog where she found this: "Now, Rocky and I have already both discussed how silly the name of this project is. But underwear is a topic that is always good for a giggle. Especially with kids. Can you imagine the smiles on their faces and the laughter in the room when two crazy white ladies from America come bearing gifts of underwear?’ Wacuka’s wry comment: “I'm glad we're making so many people laugh this year. We should get some sort of comedy award." Robbie, in turn, was so incensed by the idea of underwear from the US when refugees need blankets, clothes, malaria nets and such things that he suggested an anti-pants campaign – let’s all go commando this weekend!
(written for Nairobi Star)
20 October 2009
Africa! Drums! Mobile!
The Huffington Post (re) published this 'heartwarming story from Africa' about Samasource and outsourcing some unspecified kind of ITC work to people in, of all places, Dadaab refugee camp. It made little sense to me - all my questions in the comment section. Frustrating: It's usually easier to get media attention for that kind of story rather than (warning: shameless act of self promotion ahead) this.
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