Language, Power, and Global Health: the privilege of speaking English
My first couple of overseas jobs were pretty much just being the native English speaker on staff. Right after undergrad, I was an intern with the American University in Cairo. I drafted or edited every piece of writing that came out of our office. Later on, after my master’s degree, I was an intern… Read More »
Not giving money
If there is one question I get asked most often by people who don’t work in international development, it’s what can I do beyond just giving money? First of all, there is no “just” about giving money. Money is the lifeblood of international development. We can’t run programs without… Read More »
Change Hurts
There has been an interesting blogosphere discussion of crowdsourcing in the last few days. The usual crew of people who think about aid – this time humanitarian response in specific – seem to be polarizing slowly into pro and anti-crowdsourcing camps. I linked you to the calmest posts there. There are positions staked out all… Read More »
Ushahidi, Twitter, and the future of foreign aid
Text of a short talk I’ll be giving next week: I want to tell you a story about crowdsourcing, social media, and how the world is changing. A little while ago, we saw an outbreak of brutal ethnic violence in Southern Kyrgyzstan. Southern Kyrgyzstan is largely populated by ethnic Uzbeks, and they were being attacked… Read More »
International Development on Twitter, Part II – Five more people to follow
Joseph Kimojino @maratriangle Why you should follow: Fascinating first-hand account of wildlife protection in the Mara Triangle, complete with catching poachers, making tourists behave, and helping wounded animals. Sample Tweet: Three poachers arrested two nights ago and poaching activity seen in Mingu area. 14 snares collected this morning. Appropedia @appropedia Why you should follow: A… Read More »
International development on Twitter, Part 1
Ten people to follow on Twitter if you’re interested in international development. Not the top ten, necessarily – there are too many great people on Twitter for me to make that claim. But ten microbloggers who consistently engage my attention with interesting ideas: Glenna Gordon – @Scarlettlion Glenna Gordon is a journalist, photographer, and author… Read More »
What to read for insight
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… Read More »