Month: November 2008

Giving thanks

By Alanna Shaikh | | 1 Comments |


I am thankful for emigration.

My father was born in Calcutta in 1939. His family rode the death trains in 1946, after their apartment complex was firebombed. They ended up in Karachi, with the rest of the IDPs, who, of course, became refugees once the subcontinent split. In 1962 my dad went to Canada – to study at McGill – and never lived in Pakistan again.

I am a native speaker of the world’s language of privilege. I have never gone truly hungry, I have two degrees, and I didn’t give birth until the age of thirty. These things are true not because of any particular giftedness on my part. They are true solely because I was born in Syracuse, New York instead of Karachi, Pakistan.

This wouldn’t be true if my father had left school when his parents wanted him to. If he’d decided to study in Islamabad instead of Montreal. If he’d married the girl arranged for him instead of choosing my mom and breaking with his family. If he’d married a woman who could go back to Pakistan with him.

One path un-followed, just one, and I would not be the aid worker blogging here about the need to treat your local partners well. Instead, I’d be that local partner fighting for respect. I’d have less money, more health risks, fewer choices in my life and a shorter life in which to make those choices. I’d have to struggle to make a good life instead of having it handed to me.

And so, every year on Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the hard choices my father made, for the life he won for his children. I am thankful for the freedom of movement that let his family flee for their lives, and let my father make himself a new life.

And I remember: I did nothing to earn this.

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(photo credit: my mom)
From left to right: My dad, myself, my brother. Maybe six years ago.

A manifesto of sorts

By Alanna Shaikh | | 8 Comments |

Development work is designed to change people’s lives. Its specific goal is impacting human beings and the way they live. Done badly, it does damage. This makes it inherently serious, as serious as practicing law or medicine and it should be treated that way. If you want to practice medicine, you don’t start your own clinic. You go to medical school.

I am not telling you not to get involved. We need good people working in development. We need them desperately. But warm bodies and enthusiasm don’t help people. Good programs help people. And it’s very hard to create good programs if you are starting from scratch. There is an enormous body of knowledge, both academic and practical, on how to improve peoples’ lives. Not taking advantage of that body of knowledge is unfair to everyone involved.

What to read for insight

By Alanna Shaikh | | 4 Comments |


I’ve got a lot of blogs in my RSS reader. 166, to be precise. And I treat it like an email inbox, and I keep up with it. They’re smart blogs, and I love the feeling of learning new stuff all the time. Sometimes, though, I want to step out of the familiar blog comfort zone. You need a little randomness to generate new ideas. You need synergy. This is what I read to find that:

Trackernews – It’s still in beta, but I am already impressed. It is a human-curated news and information site specifically designed to help readers make new connections.

Silobreaker – Another aggregator site designed to inspire insight. It’s intended to break down the walls between different disciplines and broaden your perspective. I really like the Network search function.

Worldchanging – Styled as an online magazine, it features articles and blog posts on a range of topics, withing a general theme of achieving positive change. It’s a combination of aggregated content from other places and original writing.

ChangeThis – ChangeThis is made up of manifestos, mostly related to marketing and business. All original content.

PlusNews – HIV-related news from all over the world. Original content, written by journalists for PlusNews. HIV/AIDS is a multi-faceted problem, with a multitude of causes and responses. In many ways, it’s a microcosm of most of the challenges facing the world. Think about HIV and you’re thinking about everything.

Edited to add: Commenters Ryan and Peter have added some excellent sources. Take a look.

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(photo credit: StrangrThanCandy)
Chosen because I really had no idea what to illustrate this entry with, and it’s a cool looking picture. I think it looks kind of like a world map.

Jargon of the Day: Silo/siloing

By Alanna Shaikh | | 0 Comments |

Jargon: Silo or siloing

Translation: Means exactly the same as stovepipe/stovepiping. Which I suppose is logical because both are long skinny things. I find myself enraged, though, that we went to the effort of developing and using two different jargony terms for the same pretty straightforward concept. It seems like a deliberate attempt to make discussions as difficult as possible for outsiders.

Reader Question – Can you share some of your experiences in which inexperienced nonprofits did more harm than good?

By Alanna Shaikh | | 22 Comments |


Dear Alanna,

I too am starting up a very small nonprofit, and I admit that I am not comfortable with all of the issues you raised in your blog on November 8th.

Can you share some of your experiences in which inexperienced nonprofits did more harm than good?

DR

Dear DR,

Here are four ways that a small (or large) NGO can unintentionally do harm to the community it’s trying to serve.

1) You can waste the time and effort of a community by initiating projects which have little chance of success. It’s hard to identify a good project for a small community. Community buy-in is no guarantee of success; possessing deep local knowledge doesn’t make a person omniscient. Projects that have little chance of success include vocational training in sewing and handicrafts, beekeeping, and raising chickens. If you waste a year of the community’s time on a broiler chicken project that never makes a profit, that’s a year of time and effort which could have gone to real income generation or looking after children.

2) You can leave communities convinced that they need outsiders to solve their problems. If you raise $3000 for a backhoe to clear irrigation ditches, then what happens next time the ditches silt up? The farmers’ cooperative will never realize they could have cleared it with hand shovels, or raised the money by charging a membership fee.

3) You can damage beneficial community structures, or solidify harmful structures. Your choice of community intermediary elevates that person or group, by putting them in control (real or perceived control) of valuable assets. If you work with existing power structures, you can support and entrench inequalities, such as sexism or racism, which are already present. If you chose partners who are not part of the current elite, you can destabilize delicate community balances, and erode resilience.

4) You can construct a building and then not provide funds for maintenance or staffing. A school needs a teacher. A clinic needs a doctor or nurse. All buildings need upkeep – painting and repairs at the very least. A building with not funds for maintenance is a drain on community resources in perpetuity, or an eyesore.

I recommend reading Michael Maren’s book The Road to Hell; it has its flaws but it is very sincere and brings up a lot to think about.

Best,

Alanna

Readers – if anyone has case studies or examples, please comment.

Edited to add – 1) Check out the fascinating examples in the comments and 2) Owen has two more ways an incompetent NGO can hurt the population it is trying to help.

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(Photo Credit: Copyright Glenna Gordon)
She gave it to me as an example of aid with unintended consequences.