In the past few days, I have been keeping up with some emerging criticism sparked by an article published by NYtimes magazine by Nicholas Kristof (you can find it here ) about young people, young women in particular, who decide to start their own foreign aid projects in developing countries. He shared stories of young women who saved up their babysitting money, went to Nepal and started orphanages and other haphazard projects which were started in a seemingly simple manner. My first reaction to the article was pretty negative -- and as I shared with my grandmother, who sent me the article,
it is important to recognize that in this article he barely mentions any efforts being made by local organizations, so that it gives the impression that if there were no brave white women - these people would suffer, and wouldn't have anyone to name their poor starving babies after. it is so important to me that i am working with an organization that knows what its doing. everyone here is very connected to this work, knows the people and their culture and can see much farther into the future than i can about issues that may lay ahead. this fellowship is so interesting because i am essentially learning that i have no right to think that i can institute change in the lives of people whose culture i am still coming to understand. it frustrates me that the work of local people, like the people i work with, goes unnoticed and that white people from new jersey are put on some sort of pedestal for being brave and "not even having boyfriends!"
I started following through various blogs, other people's criticisms and opinions of the article, and of the larger structure of which international aid organizations are a part. This criticism, for those who are new to this field, can be summed up as follows:
People from developed countries who do development work have not made common cause with the poor of the world. It doesn’t matter if you’re with a large international NGO, a small DIY operation, a hulking multilateral like the World Bank, an Irish rock band, the Peace Corps, or whatever. Even if you move to a rural village on your own and live like the locals, you’re still there by choice. That’s a key difference between you and your neighbors that can never be overcome, no matter how much you love each other. You (and I) grew up in a very different environment, with relative luxury and a very different health and educational system. You probably have resources and contacts that could take you back to the US or wherever. You might care a great deal about the fate of a poor community, but your fate is not the same as theirs. (from findwhatworks.blogspot.com)
Essentially, outsiders can never understand the complexity of the situation on the ground. And even if extended periods of time are spent in one place, one is never truly a part of that community – and so development work, which is led by or carried out by such foreigners, will never truly reflect the long-term needs of the people. Especially if after a while, those foreigners decide it’s time to stop traveling and return to their countries to settle-down, have families and a mortgage. The project is then passed on to someone else – who may or may not have the same knowledge of the situation on the ground.
The debate, the questions, and the implications of sustainable, local, grass-roots development have been of interest to me for a few years now. Trying to understand my own role in the transformation and reform of development, or international aid was what motivated me to do this fellowship India in the first place. I knew that I would confront my own lack of knowledge, my own foreignness but perhaps also discover where I could apply the resources I bring with me (my background, my studies, my desire to understand, my questions, even my criticism) in a way that might be helpful.
I have felt, and continue to feel that it was mere chance that I was born into my family, into the life I can lead in the US, into the privilege I have. When I see small kids digging around in the trash at the end of my street - I wonder how is it that I ended up where I am and they ended up here? I don’t feel that coming to India and denying myself of my usual privileges (showers, toilets with seats, clean air, reliable transportation, etc) is some way to connect to people living here, or that it will lead me to appreciate what I have. What I am getting at – is that I have always felt that because I have a certain amount of power and access to resources, that I have some kind of obligation to contribute to this world, to make it a better place for those who do not have that same access, power, or resources.
But how is my contribution best applied? Where is it best applied? And how can my contribution be actually helpful to others rather than self-satisfying? All of these questions have led me here…Sitting in front of my computer, in an Indian office, reading articles about foreign aid, and wondering what kind of work I will do here with this NGO.
Perhaps I should start with a bit of background about where I am working. This NGO has a very grassroots approach – meaning that the change it tries to implement should come from the people, from the tools they already have: their local self-governance systems. In this way, the organization merely facilitates the connection between outside NGOs, government programs, and individual donors with the village governments. My organization then coordinates with these other groups to hold training programs, capacity building activities, exposure visits, health camps, campaigns, etc. In this way, the communities receive the training and knowledge, but it is really up to the village governments to make the changes that are necessary in the community – they have access to funds, as well, for which they can make proposals and receive grants to pay for extra teachers, health workers, street-lights, school uniforms, pre-school, paved roads, well-repair, etc.
So, in this sense, the organization that I work for is very grass-roots. So much so that they don’t actually even implement programs – rather they “disseminate knowledge and information.” It all seems just great. But I have questions about this too –
There is a lot of organizing of people…groups of people doing this, groups doing that – and they are also mostly just talking and meeting, and “disseminating knowledge” but even when I try to understand what this knowledge is that is being disseminated, no one can really adequately explain it to me.
..and its not that I want to see a project being implemented (or maybe I do) but I want to see something that I can connect to, that I can contribute to. Instead, there’s this hierarchy of knowledge and it goes down and down until it reaches the village level, so that eventually, the people themselves have the knowledge to do the acting themselves. Ok, I like this…but isn’t this sort of the opposite of a grassroots approach? Even if the acting is coming from the bottom, the knowledge, information, and persuasion behind that action is actually coming from the top, so in a way, isn’t that action not really genuinely coming from the bottom?
The counter-argument comes from the concept of grass itself. If an approach is grassroots, “bottom-up,” there must be someone or something that is “planting the seeds,” the knowledge is within the seeds that are planted. Very corny, but you get the idea. Still, I don’t know.
And, my questions remain – where can I be most helpful? I don’t have the knowledge on how to make a village-level governance system accountable. I don’t have the knowledge about how to encourage Muslim girls to attend school. I don’t have the knowledge to say where and when a well should be implemented in which type of soil. And, there’s also the fact that I don’t speak the language.
So, while I don’t want to sit in front of a computer, inside an office, writing to donors about how their money is being used to “disseminate knowledge and facilitate community collaboration and coordination of capacity building activities,” this is where I am most useful. This is where I can contribute. I can write in English well, I can organize and collect information, I can analyze data. So, here I am.
I still have this vision of sitting in a dusty field, surrounded by village women, laughing and talking with them, but I think I am trying to let it go. I go there to the field, sit with those women and talk with them, maybe, but I have to recognize that that sort of on-the-ground interaction is perhaps best reserved for others. And I think an important component is also recognizing the kind of burden that living out my romanticization of “ in-field development work” puts on others. To go out into the field, to sit with those women, to have a conversation with them, to lead a program with them means that someone has to drive me out there, someone has to translate for me – taking time out of their day, out of their work to take me there. And then I have to question also if this fantasy is one that is self-serving. And to a large degree, it really is.
So – I will continue thinking and writing about these issues. Til then, I will be here, typing away, finding synonyms for “collaborate” and “facilitate.”
( Comments / e-mails / feedback are appreciated on this one! )
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