Archives 2020

NOTE: The Facebook boycott is still ongoing. Please share widely in your circles, and subscribe to newsletter updates on the website to stay up to date on what is happening at Menno Adventures! 🙂

There are more philanthropists than ever before. Each year they give tens of billions to charitable causes. So how come inequality keeps rising? 

Guardian

A long read, but well worth it. Not saying that I absolutely agree with every detail (specifically around the role of the non-profit world), but the general idea that I want to pull out from here is this:

Regardless of whether the ultra-wealthy occassionally use their wealth for something that happens to benefit the rest of the world, that doesn’t justify the massive wealth imbalance that allows them to be so “generous.” If CEOs and others paid their fair share in taxes, if corporations truly paid the true cost of their operations (including cleaning up pollution), if companies capped CEOs salaries (including benefits) at something reasonable and paid all staff a living wage with good benefits, if we rethink the relationship between how public goods benefit private profit, the ultra-wealthy would have a lot less money to “donate.” Likewise, at that point, we would have a lot less concern that the interests of a handful of individuals are displacing the work of government and civil society.

Here’s a bit of context to help understand what we are up against…

To understand how rich billionaires really are, use this calculator. (Guardian) (See below)

How Long Does It Take Tech CEOs to Earn Your Salary? Here

Extreme wealth inequality has a variety of negative impacts, even when some of that wealth happens to be used for things that some people see value in, as the opposite is also true. Just as someone can buy a policy or change that someone might like, someone else can just as easily buy off a government to get a policy that people strongly oppose

Yet the priorities of plutocracy, rule by the rich, and democracy, rule by the people, often differ. The personal choices of the rich do not closely match the spending choices of democratically elected governments. A major research study from 2013 revealed that the richest 1% of Americans are considerably more rightwing than the public as a whole on issues of taxation, economic regulation and especially welfare programmes for the poor. Many of the richest 0.1% – individuals worth more than $40m – want to cut social security and healthcare. They are less supportive of a minimum wage than the rest of the population. They favour decreased government regulation of big corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wall Street and the City of London. (Bold mine.)

Here

And also…

The common assumption that philanthropy automatically results in a redistribution of money is wrong. A lot of elite philanthropy is about elite causes. Rather than making the world a better place, it largely reinforces the world as it is. Philanthropy very often favours the rich – and no one holds philanthropists to account for it.

Here

And one more quote…

Philanthropy is always an expression of power. Giving often depends on the personal whims of super-rich individuals. Sometimes these coincide with the priorities of society, but at other times they contradict or undermine them. Increasingly, questions have begun to be raised about the impact these mega-donations are having upon the priorities of society.

There are a number of tensions inherent in the relationship between philanthropy and democracy. For all the huge benefits modern philanthropy can bring, the sheer scale of contemporary giving can skew spending in areas such as education and healthcare, to the extent that it can overwhelm the priorities of democratically elected governments and local authorities.

Here

To be clear, this is not, in any way, suggesting that non-profits, civil society or good governance are futile. Rather, it is the opposite – they are so critically important that they can not be risked to appease the personal whims of the ultra-wealthy. A better system is possible, if everyone truly pays their fair share. 🙂

Facebook moderators call for advertiser boycott to be extended: Guardian

In line with the continued failure of Facebook and other social media organizations to effectively manage hate speech and misinformation, the Facebook advertising boycott from this website will continue into the fall, and possibly later, unless significant changes take place before that.

Until then, I am counting on you to help me out! Please share this widely in your circles, join directly through the website (subscribe to newsletters etc) instead of only through Facebook, and encourage others to do the same. Facebook is opening banking on small businesses to give up the boycott before they have to make any meaningful changes. Let’s not make life so easy for them. 🙂

On the website, there are new pages and resources that have been added, and new items are regularly being added to the online store! We have a wide range of really cool sustainable items, including laundry detergent, upcycled yarn , Palestinian Fair trade products, bedding, phone cases and more!

Tru Earth Laundry Strips

Facebook Fails to Appease Organizers of Ad Boycott NYT

As the Facebook advertising boycott continues, this website continues to add its’ voice to countless others who are calling for Facebook to be held accountable for hate speech, violence, misinformation and other significant problems that it is allowing to continue.

Facebook does not yet seem moved to action, and appears confident that people will continue to use the platform (eyes on screens) and spend $ (advertising revenue). We all have a part to play in speaking up against hate. In that spirit, here is my ask for today:

ACTION: This website does have a Facebook page, and that is a way that many in this community are connected. My ask for today is that you join others by following the website (here) by email/through WordPress. Not only will you get more information (the website has far more details, resources and an online store!), you will be able to stay connected without opening Facebook.

By joining others on the website, you will be a part of helping make a statement to Facebook, and contributing one small action towards change against hate speech. Click here for details.

NOTE: In line with the boycott, I will not be promoting this on Facebook. Please share widely within your circles. See you soon!

Click here for details.

Freelancers and others frequently get asked to work for free, or for significantly reduced rates. It definitely happens in the non-profit world, and I have heard from others that it is frequently a problem in the creative world as well.

Along with strong support for a Universal Basic Income, and significant caps on CEO/executive and other high earner salaries to close the gap between low and high earners, let’s start from the premise that everybody deserves to be paid fairly for the skills and expertise that the bring to a project. We all deserve to have a living wage, whether freelancer or not.

Happy watching! (And thanks to everyone in the video for testing the theory in the real world, so that I don’t have to do it! :))

Watching from Facebook? Join us on the website for more great resources!

As many of you may have already heard, a boycott has begun, Stop Hate for Profit – withdrawing advertising dollars from Facebook until they strengthen their regulations and policies related to hate speech, violence, misinformation and other related pieces.

I personally know that I, and this website, are a very small operation, and my few dollars of advertising that I have spent do not register in any meaningful way in Facebook’s advertising budget. At the same time, I firmly believe that we each need to use our voice – in whatever form that takes – to stand up for what is right. Collectively, we can create changes that none of us can do on our own.

So, in that spirit, I will not be spending any money on Facebook for July and August, and possibly later. This could change (earlier or later) depending on the status of the boycott and if/when changes happen. I will do my best to keep you updated on things as they evolve.

In the meantime, for those of you who have joined us only on Facebook, I would like to offer extra encouragement to come over to my website and join there! All of my posts (which you see on Facebook) are there, plus I have lots of extra resources, and an online store, filled (and growing!) with lots of cool, sustainable items!

If you know others who might be interested in joining as well, please share this around. The more the merrier! 🙂

The online store is continuing to grow! Looking for more ways to be sustainable? Not sure what options are best? Looking for someone else to do the research for you to save you the time?

The MennoAdventures online store is growing and adding new items! Whatever you are looking for, we have it! 🙂

Here are a few items to highlight. Check the online store regularly for updates and more cool, sustainable items!

TruEarth Laundry Detergent Strips (no more shipping huge plastic bottles full of liquid detergent!): Click here to order.

Darn Good Yarn: Click here to order

EcoLunchBox. Click here to order ECOlunchbox

So much more than just lunch boxes. Great, reusable containers and other items for a variety of uses!

TomatoInk: Click here to order: TomatoInk

TomatoInk.com is a supplier of Earth-friendly ink and toner and eco-friendly printer supplies and accessories. We hope to help save the world, one cartridge at a time.

By providing our customers with green choices, we not only conserve precious natural resources, but we also help you conserve some green in your wallet. Our recycled and remanufactured printer peripherals give the same high quality results as their brand name counterparts, but cost up to 80% less! Now doesn’t that feel good?

Click here to order: TomatoInk

We also have fair trade Palestinian embroidery items (here), amazing bedding (here), Pela phone cases (here: Pela Case) and more. Want more details? Check out the online store page on the website.

NOTE: These are all affiliate programs. By clicking on the links before making your purchase, you are helping to support the sustainability work that this website is doing, along with supporting the many sustainable businesses that I partner with. Thank you for your support! Happy browsing! 🙂

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Donations of any size are gratefully accepted to help cover the costs of maintaining this website. Click here to donate. Thank you for your support!

As the pandemic shutdown continues, with some restrictions lifting in various places, several things have shifted, particularly around how we, collectively, source and prepare food. People are baking more – yeast shortages, unheard of before, are now a common occurrence, with flour and other supplies flying off of the shelves. At the same time, increased discussion regarding the possible/likely links related to our current mainstream factory farms/animal food systems (in terms of individual health, zoological diseases and their role in this pandemic, and overall climate health) has increasing numbers of people seeking out more plant-based options.

At the same time, when switching key aspects of how we buy and prepare food, many people struggle with how to make that transition, particularly when also managing other aspects related to living in a pandemic.

Help is on the way! Are you looking for help with plant-based eating? I am now offering coaching sessions – all about how to switch to plant-based eating, whether you want to go 100% plant-based, or start with a few simple changes to how you eat.

Sessions will be customized, depending on what you are looking for, and where you are starting from, and may include, among other things:

– learning simple tricks and ideas about how to switch to more plant-based eating

– finding recipes or resources to help make meal planning, or travelling easier

– sharing and exploring resources related to reasons for switching to plant-based eating

– switching to reduced waste and/or plastic with food purchasing, storage and prep

– other items as requested.

You may choose one-on-one, or invite a few friend to form a group, or book a larger group session. I will do my best to customize sessions to where you are at – whether you are looking for quick and easy or more complex food projects.

NOTE: I am not a certified nutritionist. You are responsible for your own health decisions. I am here to help provide ideas, work with you and to share my experience on the journey towards plant-based eating.

Questions? Want more information? Curious about rates? (I aim to keep my rates as affordable as possible for everyone!) Go to the website and contact me for details. I look forward to hearing from you! 🙂

I am very pleased to announce that two new items have been added to the online store! As of today, TruEarth Eco Laundry Strips, as well as Pela Compostable Phone Cases are both available!

Details are on the online store page – here.

Want to go straight to the manufacturer’s website to put in an order or learn more? You can do that as well: Pela and TruEarth.

Stay tuned for more details. I am hoping to have more items in the store in the next few weeks.

Happy Browsing! 🙂

I saw a quote on social media few days ago, and am sharing it here. While I was searching for that one, I came across a couple of others, that I am sharing as well. Happy Monday!

These quotes are relevant in all of the areas that we talk about here – development, food, sustainability and others. As we all deal with this pandemic, and the climate crisis, our collective failure to listen to experts – who have been calling for massive changes to prevent a climate crisis for decades – can not be ignored. Changes to our choices – individually and collectively – need to be radically rethought, so that we come out of this pandemic with a Green New Deal (in various forms, locally and globally), with related changes to how we live, work, eat, use energy, get from place to place and support each other collectively, among others.

And a couple more…

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Donations to support this work are graciously accepted. Details on the website. Thank you for your support!

Based on wide-ranging interviews with former employees, board members, and others who have intimate knowledge of Mortenson and his charity, the Central Asia Institute, Three Cups of Deceit uncovers multiple layers of deception behind Mortenson’s public image. Was his crusade really inspired by a desire to repay the kindness of villagers who nursed him back to health when he became lost on his descent down K2? Was he abducted and held for eight days by the Taliban? Has his charity built all of the schools that he has claimed? This book is a passionately argued plea for the truth, and a tragic tale of good intentions gone very wrong.

100% of Jon Krakauer’s proceeds from the sale of Three Cups of Deceit will be donated to the “Stop Girl Trafficking” project at the American Himalayan Foundation (www.himalayan-foundation.org/live/project/stopgirltrafficking).

Jon Krakauer

When Three Cups of Tea was first released, the book suddenly became frequently talked about – at least in some development circles. In my circles, responses seemed to fall (very roughly and unscientifically) down two lines – those who thought it was an inspiring and fact-filled story, proving that all you need to be an excellent NGO worker is to be a nice person with a nice story and, on the other hand, those of us (mainly people in the NGO world in some way), who saw countless red flags, both in his story and in the development model he was advocating for. Full disclosure: From the beginning, I have been firmly in the second camp.

Having heard bits and pieces over the years about the follow up from the original book, and then his second book, I hadn’t thought about it for a long time, until an unrelated discussion happened to bring it to my attention. A quick search, and some reading, got me at least partly caught up on what has happened in recent years.

Many of my concerns with the original book, and the work that followed, are covered in detail in Three Cups of Deceit. Without writing a full dissertation on everything that is wrong with Three Cups of Tea, I will summarize a few primary concerns here. These are my points (ie not quoted directly from Three Cups of Deceit), but they are generally shared among various critiques that have been written of Three Cups of Tea:

1) It promotes the idea (long ago disproven) that work in development requires only that someone “be a nice person who wants to help”. As with countless other jobs, being a nice person is obviously required, but is in no way a substitute for professional expertise or knowing what you are doing/how to do it well. And, ultimately, the damage done by poorly managed development projects is so destructive (to communities and to other organizations), that being “naive but well-intentioned and nice” results in impacts that are actually not a very nice for others at all.

2) It is overwhelmingly, factually inaccurate. It is fiction posing as non-fiction.

3) It is extremely disrespectful of communities that he claims to want to serve and help. The focus is on him and his imaginary hero-story – where he is the knight in shining armour saving helpless communities from themselves. He sees himself as Santa Claus, dropping in from the outside to deliver gifts, then leaving again. That is not development – it is the epitomy of White Saviour Complex.

4) It promotes a model of development that is not grounded at all in modern best practices, and is actively harmful in many ways – far more than can all be identified in one post. His model promotes a world-view that is highly colonialist, disrespectful of others, and not effective at achieving his stated goals. For example, putting funds towards teacher training or other things would have had a greater positive impact on education than putting it towards construction. That said, given that he seems to have kept most of the funds for himself, it can’t even be said that he put the money towards construction – but that was the theoretical aim, it seems.

5) The active mismanagement of funds and other problems risks decreased trust, by the general public, of the work that really good NGOs are doing. Hopefully, the reverse is true, and people will learn from this, and really appreciate the excellent, transparent and accountable work that countless good NGOs are doing. 🙂

I am grateful to the author of Three Cups of Deceit (and others), for doing the hard work to fact check an organization that has been unaccountable for far too long. Based on what I was able to find currently, I was not able to (in a fairly brief search), definitively determine the current status of the organization. That said, I can say definitively that it is not an organization I would donate to, or recommend that others donate to. If you have a copy of Three Cups of Tea on your shelf, consider replacing it with Krakauer’s well-written critique, instead.

Want to read more about this? Here are a few more resources, with a few key quotes. All are well worth reading.

(Note that some of the resources on this topic are a number of years old, from when some of the more significant allegations of corruption and misuse of funds came to light publicly).

How the U.S. military fell in love with ‘Three Cups of Tea’ – Washington Post

“No amount of tea with Afghans will persuade them that we are like them, that our war is their war or that our interests are their interests,” said Michael Miklaucic, a longtime official with the U.S. Agency for International Development who is currently serving at the Pentagon’s National Defense University. “The war in Afghanistan isn’t about persuasion or tea. It is about power.” (Italics mine).

WP

What Mortenson Got Wrong – The New Yorker

Another reason I’ve always had trouble talking about Mortenson’s books is that it’s hard to give an alternative for people who feel the need to act. Even before the reports of C.A.I.’s mismanagement, I saw little value in this model of development. It’s centered around a foreigner, and the foreigner has no special expertise in either education or Central Asia. Even a balanced and reasonable individual is likely to fail in this situation. 

The New Yorker

Three Cups of BS – Foreign Policy

Over the last 50 years of studying international development, scholars have built a large body of research and theory on how to improve education in the developing world. None of it has recommended providing more school buildings, because according to decades of research, buildings aren’t what matter. Teachers matter. Curriculum matters. Funding for education matters. Where classes actually take place? Not really. (Italics mine).

Foreign Policy

Here are a few more:

CharityWatch Hall of Shame: The Personalities Behind Charity Scandals and

3000 Cups of Deceit by Jon Krakauer.