No matter how self-aware we are when we come into international aid, philanthropy, or social enterprise, most people, especially in the beginning, operate from a worldview in which change in poor people’s lives is possible with our help.
As I’ve written before, the jury is still out on this in my mind.
In my career, I have had to fight hard to not let the overly technocratic, abstractionist tendencies of this work pull me under. When I started, my young, idealistic self from a small town in Nebraska was driven by passion and even if naïve, I was excited about the possibility of making the world better. I suspect that all of you started in that very same place. But where is it we find ourselves now?
“Sorry but not now! I have to have my project results to donors by 5pm!” to person holding village survey report. An illustration from Trocaire’s Leading Edge 2020 report http://bit.ly/115IdLN
A couple of months ago, on a Friday, I met with a group of impressive young people from an organization called Thinking Beyond Borders in my office. They had just returned from a gap year traveling to four countries, where they were focused on studying development theory and learning how to become effective agents of change. They spent their first week back in the U.S. and were in Washington DC., where I live, to met with various multilateral agencies and NGOs.
Here’s what one of the students wrote to me in their thank-you note afterwards:
“After a week of some somewhat disheartening meetings, it was great to see that somebody in this town has a pulse!”
These young people were so hungry, after only a week among development professionals, for an open and real conversation about development work!
Their “new eyes” reminded me about how much reductionist perspectives frame aid work and philanthropy. This can make us appear less sensitive, hardened, more disconnected, less caring, less open to possibility.
Our ability as “thinkers” to high-mindedly question everything about “what works” can insulate us. It can become just a tool of our egos. It can create a “gotcha mentality.” And it can greatly remove us from the realities of those with whom we’re supposed to be working in solidarity.
I guess it’s a good reminder for us all.
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