Category NGO

For International Women’s Day (just past), here are a few links that I have been collecting over the last little while. Despite progress, women are still under-represented and under-valued in countless ways. Happy Reading! 🙂

‘We still have a problem with female authority’: how politics sets a trap for American women (The Guardian)

After My Abusive Relationship, I Couldn’t Leave The House. Travel Opened My World Up Again. HuffPost

My life got easier after top surgery. Is this what male privilege looks like? (Guardian)

A new poll shows what really interests ‘pro-lifers’: Controlling Women (Guardian). Far from truly caring about protecting women and children, denying access to full reproductive health services, along with other rights that men have, is ultimately about men (primarily) attempting to control women.

Warren jokes men who think marriage is between one man and one woman should ‘just marry one woman’. CNN – Let’s put our own action and integrity first, before we engage in discussion with others about their actions. Another one I have seen recently (I think on Facebook)… Any men who genuinely care about limiting the number of abortions in the world should get a vasectomy first. 🙂

These people have a country to run. (Macleans) – A look at an amazing and progressive government, and what leadership looks like, when barriers are removed. 🙂

Fighting the tyranny of ‘niceness’: why we need difficult women.
(Guardian) – To be clear, being nice and being strong are not at all mutually exclusive. However, sometimes, difficult decisions need to be made, or conversations need to be had, and women do not deserve to be limited only to roles where they are only passive and “not difficult” for others.

The queue for women’s toilets is a feminist issue. (Guardian) – Anybody else tired of long lines that men never have to deal with? 🙂

Running Out of Children, a South Korea School Enrolls Illiterate Grandmothers (New York Times)

And, on a lighter note, here is a great article about Robert Munch and The Bag Bag Princess (CBC). A perfect book to go back to for International Women’s Day… 🙂

Here is what I am listening to today – Here and here . (Just finished part 1) Well worth listening to. There are, unfortunately, still strong currents, in some development circles, that promote dynamics that are misguided, and really harmful. To set the record straight, Africa is not a country, it is a continent. Unless you are going on a trip to the whole continent, you are not “going on a trip to Africa”. You are going to (or were in) a specific country or countries. Listen to the podcasts for further discussion of this and other dynamics. 🙂

Coming up next: “Called, Not Qualified” (here). One of my biggest, most long-standing issue with how some projects are still run. Wanting to do a job, and being qualified to do it, are two very different things. Hopping on a plane (or driving somewhere else), doesn’t change that. If you are not trained or qualified to teach in a school or as a social worker or to run a poverty reduction program or something else, you are not doing any favours by “volunteering” to teach in someone’s school or work in an orphanage or distribute goods and services in a community – especially if you live somewhere else and simply drop in for a short time before leaving again.

Making yourself the star of someone else’s life (or using their kids in your pictures, without a long-standing relationship, especially if you are using those pictures for fundraising) takes agency away from others, which is the opposite of what true development projects aim to do. We can, and must, do better. 🙂

I’ve been off for a while, but will be getting things caught up here in the next while. Stay tuned! 🙂

Sojourners Website

What more is there to say? It still happens, far too often, and the worst offenders are the least aware of how negative their actions are. In all of most extreme cases that I am aware of, in my cirlces, all would strongly deny any problems with their actions. Finding ways to change that narrative, when certain notions of what “helpful” looks like, is not easy, but absolutely essential. Please share widely in your circles. It’s a conversation that needs to happen. 🙂

Here are a couple of key quotes:

“It leads to paternalism: doing things to or for others rather than seeking to empower and build local capacity. It makes us into heroes rather than empowering others to become the heroes of their own stories.” (Bold mine).

“It prevents mission, aid, and development work from being dialogical and participatory; the so-called experts swoop in with their answers and expertise and fail to include the voices of local leaders, organizations, and stakeholders.”

https://sojo.net/articles/6-harmful-consequences-white-savior-complex

We must stop trying to medicate the symptoms of the white savior and look at the deeper disease. It’s one thing to realize it’s not ethical to use poverty porn or post selfies with children who we have no relationship with. It’s another thing entirely to reflect on the colonial roots of white, Western, Christian supremacy. That means doing some hard, inner work if we’re white people. It means working to change the narratives that sustain injustice. (Bold mine).

I love this post https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/how-do-we-get-better-at-failure/ and the idea that organizations need to be much more open about failures, and using this to lead to changes. I have seen a variety of situations in which openness to admit failures is important. That includes, but is not limited to

• apathy (maybe things aren’t perfect, but it’s how it’s always been done) and
• resistance (This is how we have always done it, and we are not going to consider changing our ways.)

Some failures are more open (eg failed to account for an anticipated cost in the budget). Others, though are more subtle and harder to change. For example, sometimes, what got an org to where they are is not what is needed to move them forward. For example, a new organization might operate with a very lean staff and key positions all being held by the CEO/ED. However, after time, that structure needs to change, and the CEO/ED will need to hand over key positions to someone else, or risk the long-term viability of the organization.

In countless ways, what an organization/project needed in the past will not fully reflect what is needed in the future – so depending on the past, and repeating, will never get the best results. However, I see this coming up a lot – holding on to certain ways of doing things and failing to try new things, and thus creating a failure itself, since the old ways aren’t always relevant for the present or the future. Somehow, I think, organizations need more ways to check in and note those things – basically “That may have served us well in the past, but it isn’t what we need moving forward.”

I also like the idea of making check ins more frequent. Instead of this being something that is done once a year (or every few years, or more), I see value in making this a regular, key part of how organizations operate. Increased openness to learning and growing can only help. 🙂