I’ve been with The 1010 Project for a little over a year. At the same time, I was working my way through graduate school at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. At the office, I learned about humanitarian work by doing, and through discussions with those who had been with the organization for some time. At school, I learned about international development by reading and listening to others who had been in the field for years. Some of my teachers in both settings were from America, some from Africa, and some from other parts of the world.
I was presented with the argument that “fixing” the problems in the developing world is best left to the “experts” in the West. It is assumed, or “proved” through analysis that the West knows best. While I was presented with evidence both for and against this theory in school, I found my real answer in the work that I was doing with The 1010 Project. The founder of the organization, Andrew Syed, was fond of saying (paraphrased) the following:
People in America have this picture of people in Africa standing there with their hands open, waiting for someone to come and help them, to rescue them. That picture couldn’t be farther from the truth. Africans, as well as the rest of the developing world’s people, are already hard at work in their communities affecting change from the bottom-up.
He’s right. We often say at the office that we don’t provide handouts or a hand-up, but that we extend a helping hand. That means “listening to, learning from, and humbly serving alongside the true experts in the development field – the poor.” On our last visit to Kenya, during one of our various meetings with community-based organizations, I realized (suddenly) that I wasn’t teaching them anything. Our Kenyan partners were explaining everything to us!
Whether it was previously-unknown microfinance instruments, or how to cook building bricks out of mud and rock, or how to provide healthcare and antiretroviral drugs to those with HIV/AIDS, our team was truly learning alongside experts. In fact, they laughed at us when we didn’t understand concepts that to a resident of Kenya might seem laughably simple. And we laughed right along with them, not just because they were right, but because we were friends.
Towards the end of our stay in Kenya, I was reading an op-ed in Business Daily Africa called “Time to attack myth of Western superiority.” It was written by Eveline Herfkens, the founder of the UN Millennium Campaign and former Dutch Minister for Development Co-operation. She said that in recent years, it was inspiring to see “… Africans stand up against the insulting paternalism of some parts of the international aid community.”
It was a great article, and it reaffirmed my belief in one of her exhortations:
It is high time to attack the underlying myth of Western superiority: we lecture —you listen; we give —you receive; we know—you learn; we take care of things— because you can’t.
If my short time in Kenya taught me anything, it’s that the myth of Western superiority is on the way out. Humanitarian organizations in the West and beyond have learned (most of them), that partnering with social entrepreneurs in the developing world and developing friendships with them can be a powerful way to affect change. I couldn’t agree more.
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