Mama Knows Best...

My mom decided to stop by the office one day on the way home from one of her meetings and her visit actually turned out to be a really fun and interesting learning experience. I really admire my mom, as she is incredibly smart, confident and supportive and I have learned so much from her over the years. When my mom stopped by, I took her on the 'grand tour' of the cute little office (which she loved...we have very similar taste!) and she got to meet about half of the office, as many are out of town...Elizabeth and Caroline are in India touring around to see different orphanages-so exciting! Anyway, when I brought my mom back to meet John and Lisa, we were all quickly engaged in conversation, which Anna joined later, and it made me think of a few different ideas...

While mom was talking about the work she was doing with a First Tee (an organization that works on developing life skills for kids through the game of golf), it was so interesting to watch these adults so engaged in each other's stories and experiences. They seemed to truly be life-long learners, which is something I admire and plan to be. Dialogue between passionate and smart people is the most extraordinary thing to me; all it seems to take to turn small ideas into big, awesome projects are people who believe in their mission and decide to take action. Caroline, the founder of The Miracle Foundation, is an example of this and it's quite inspirational. Everyone who works at TMF seems to so invested in what their doing and I love hearing them talk about their trips. They know many of the kids on the walls by name and can talk about their personalities. I really admire their passion and devotion. 

We also started talking about efficiency issues within NGOs, such as the huge amount of time and money spent on administration and office work as opposed to the actual groundwork that makes the real difference. I realize such work is necessary to do the busy work, but it is becoming more and more obvious to me how important it is to be organized and business-like in such work. Taking care of the fundamental aspects is crucial for an organization to succeed and thrive. Another issue related to efficiency is the problem of what seems like wasted potential in humanitarian action. There are so many passionate people and groups with amazing ideas who are doing notable work to help others around the world (some more than others it seems…). I think it’s important to figure out ways to put different like-minded organizations in contact with each other so as to not step on the other groups’ toes. This would eliminate much of the administration and busy work costs, as well as putting forth a much more concentrated and powerful effort. This may be a path I want to pursue in the future…

I can’t emphasize enough how important informal conversations and research have been for me. Although I learn so much through school and books, the knowledge that sparks a passion for me is usually gained through unexpected ways. Okay fine, this is not new advice; we’re raised to recognize the value in listening to the stories of our elders, only benefitting once we truly respect and internalize the lessons they hold. But still, it is through experience that I understand a line of advice I once heard, urging me to be careful with whose advice I buy, but be to be patient with those who those who supply. While talking to Lisa about one of my writing projects, we started talking about what sorts of things actually help as opposed to what we think will help. She described an example from the orphanages in India in which the shoes given to the children are not always worn because it is not the cultural norm in the areas in which they were raised. Her statement reminded me of some instances I read in my new favorite book, ‘Half the Sky’ by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

While explaining some of the debates about foreign aid and assistance, Kristof and WuDunn mention that even after providing all the necessary resources, the “the system often fails.” For example, women are taught to sterilize bottles and given formula to avoid transferring AIDS to her children, but the formula is often thrown away immediately. This occurs because the mothers know there will be a stigma placed on her family if she doesn’t breast-feed because then the other villagers will know they are HIV-positive.  The authors also describe a UN project intended to help women in Nigeria increase their cassava yields as to earn more money and help their families. They were successful initially but ran into a few problems. As a staple crop, cassava harvesting was women’s work in the Nigerian village, so due to the limited resources (time, technology, etc), there wasn’t enough capacity to sustain the increased cassava yield. So processing equipment was implemented, but this led to toxic run-off that had to be dealt with by creating new systems to avoid the toxicity. Once they women had substantially increased their yield, they were able to harvest beyond subsistence and cassava became a cash crop. Cash crops are supposed to be men’s work, so the men in the village took over harvesting the cassava plants, spending their earnings on their own pleasure (instead of on things that would benefit the community) and the women ended up worse than where they started.

I think these examples are pretty self-explanatory, as they point out the lack of cultural understanding that can seriously undermine aid efforts. Taking time to actually talk to local people and determine what cultural norms must be taken into consideration and what actually needs to be done is much more effective (in terms of money, time, amount of change, etc.) than making assumptions about what WE (the ‘first-world’, the ‘West’, etc.) think THEY need. I briefly studied about the aid issue this semester in my Global Inequality and Foreign Policy classes and I found it to be fascinating. After studying about it this semester and now thinking about it again during my internship is really starting to make me think about how I can possibly get involved in reforming aid policy or helping to change the standards for transparency and handling of money in NGOs. I’ve always been so frustrated by the millions of dollars thrown at problems that are mishandled or swindled away. When you really analyze just how little it takes to really solve a problem, it makes you realize how much potential there is to seriously eradicate global problems like poverty and inequality and, by solving these, foster a more peaceful world.     

So those are just a few things that have been on my mind during the past week or two… I’m working on another post to update y’all on what I have actually been doing here recently at the wonderful Miracle Foundation. It’s getting to be pretty fun! I can’t believe I only have three more weeks….that is, if I don’t come help out on my own!