Maybe their hearts were in the right place. Maybe not. Either way, these are solid contenders for the title of “worst attempts at helping others since colonialism.”
- One Million T-Shirts for Africa
- TOMS Buy One Give One
- Machine Gun Preacher
- 50 Cent Ransoming Children in Somalia
- Donor Fund Restrictions
- Making Food Aid the Same Color as Cluster Munitions
- Making USAID a foreign policy tool
When I was volunteering over in Uganda one of the biggest lessons I learned is that programs will only be sustainable if the community takes a vested interest in the project. It might be great for aid workers to come in with a program about HIV/AIDS, but if the community does not see that as a major problem the project will fail as soon as the workers leave. Unfortunately, this makes the community look like they are not appreciative and also makes programs hesitant to work with the community in the future because they do not have a track record of keeping these kinds of programs alive. The truth of the matter is that the community sees other issues/problems as having greater importance and funnel funds/resources to fixing those instead of keeping the aid workers program going. (How about that for a stream of conscousness) We also talked a lot about this concept in our COPC classes and that is why getting community involvement/participation is one of the first steps of the cycle. Food for thought!
No comments:
Post a Comment