Category Archives: Development and Intervention

ACF and My Last Week

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As the end to my hopskotch volunteering, Erik found me some work with his team at ACF International.  Erik works in food security and last Friday I helped for a few hours since they needed to sort through an excel sheet of some 1,500 names to find conflicting reports.  This week, though, I got to do my ILF expertise: data entry!  The food security program gives unconditional funds to a number of beneficiaries in villages to ensure that they can provide for themselves.  On Monday I had an overview with Cresencia, a woman from Erik’s team, and four surveyors.  We went over the questionnaire and I made some changes to the main document while the surveyors translated everything into Luo.

Tuesday was my free day.  I spent a lot of time at home working on homework and gave dumplings a second try (turned out okay!) and then went out with a bunch of friends to PanAfric for Erik’s birthday dinner.  Food was delayed (like, two hours delayed) but it was great hanging out with everyone and I got see Martin and Annett’s place (they have little houses for all of their animals in the compound – too cute).  Got home and crashed soon after.

For the rest of the week I’ve been spending mornings (and a little bit of the afternoons) upstairs at the ACF office entering data from the questionnaires.  It’s interesting because I’ve never been an advocate of handing out money to people.  I’m still not fully convinced that it’s a sustainable program or that it helps any more than other methods that might promote more ownership.  That said, it’s been interesting to see how the money is spent.  Almost without fail, the beneficiaries are spending money on life essentials: food, health and education mostly, sometimes shelter.  On Wednesday I also took the position of native-English-speaker and edited some case studies written by German- and Luo-speakers to make sure they sounded good to donors.

Friday afternoon I spent relaxing and packing.  I threw all of my clothes and books and stuff together, and I hung out in the compound a bit.  I also ran around town a little getting soda for Alison’s farewell party.  The party was a lot of fun, I tried to dance a bit but that – as expected – was piecemeal at best.  But I got to hang out with a lot of people one last time and it was a lot of fun.  However, as the party wound down we realized there was a party crasher in our midsts.  Soon thereafter, Alison lost her phone and when I called it it was turned off.  So, we patted down the stranger and kept him inside – until a bad coincidence in which I was the last one outside and I turned away and then heard the gate shutting.  I ran outside and heard footsteps across the field, but couldn’t figure out how to give chase.  In the end, it was a really frustrating end to the evening, and I feel really bad for Alison.  Hopefully she can find the numbers to her Kampala friends and use my phone while we’re there together.

I’m spending the night at the ILF house tonight, and then I’ll finish packing in the morning.  Kampala, here I come!

Work! And a little worry.

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In the days since the World Cup, there’s been a lot of confusion and hearsay. I heard confirmations that a bomb was deactivated in an area in southeast Kampala. Also heard unconfirmed reports of a bomb being deactivated at a petrol station. I know a lot of expats in Kampala are (understandably) worried and are trying to get out of there. Lira has been quiet, but most of us have an ear to the south and an eye on the news. My basic plan of action is to avoid Kampala until it’s time to leave, and then figure out exactly how safe Kampala and Entebbe will be.

In the meantime, things are maintaining regularity here.  Still no work.  Hope was actually really angry about not having funding yet, and when she found out just how soon I’d be leaving she was even more unhappy.  I ended up asking around and nudged myself into possibilities.  Yesterday I seconded myself to International Lifelife Fund and helped Alison with data entry.  It was nice to have a longer workday with actual work and also be able to hang out with her and Ama.

ILF has a sort of two-pronged program, and I was helping the environmental department which sells fuel efficient stoves to people (the other is sanitation with wells).  The stoves, called okelo kuc, are portable and use less charcoal and take less time to cook.  The environmental department oversees stove distribution and do surveys.  When I was in Gulu I ran into ILF doing pricing surveys, asking people in Gulu town how much they would pay for them.  Yesterday, I did some data entry including information for potential vendors of stoves and a small stack of the aforementioned pricing surveys.  If you want to learn more about the stoves, there’s a bit on their website.

Yesterday there was also some torrential downpour – it reminded me a lot of the occasional insta-storm back home.  I ended up moving with Alison and Ama and watched a movie before Alison and I double-teamed a pasta and bruschetta (she led, I followed) before watching another movie and then I proceeded to crash there.

Today I’m probably doing some more data entry, and tomorrow I’ll be shifting to another volunteer opportunity where I’ll help a woman who is running a really small nursery school.  The last half of this week is proving more beneficial than the first half of my 2 month stay in Lira.  Plus, I’m always on call from Lisa for when the UNOHCHR goes into the field.  Supposedly, funding will come through next week for NACWOLA, but I don’t know if I believe that or if programs will start right away.  I think I’ll be bouncing back and forth for a bit – but I’m glad to be productive!

For-Profit or Not-For-Profit?

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So, there are two or three things in the Africa/philanthropy/activism field I’ve been meaning to rant about.  This is one, and at least another will follow sometime.   Since they are rants, I apologize for any rambling or over-impassioned writing. Now, onward to companies I refuse to support.

In the philanthropic world, there are a couple of things that are all the rage.  One, is Toms Shoes. A lesser one is Ethos Water, a sub-group from the giant Starbucks Foundation. I have grievances about these two companies.

Toms Shoes is a for-profit company that’s selling point is this: If you buy a pair of $40-90 shoes, we’ll donate a pair to a needy child in South America or Africa. One for one. It’s that simple, and it sells like hotcakes to hipsters wanting to help.

My beef with Toms Shoes has several dimensions to it. When I first  heard about Toms Shoes, it was because my friend Mike was explaining his grievances to an Invisible Children roadie. Since then, I’ve looked more and more into the company and have come to pretty much the same conclusions as Mike.

  • First of all, giving shoes to kids is just not sustainable. When that pair of shoes wears out, they’ll just be waiting for the next trip Blake Mycoskie makes with free shoes. It’s be much better if community development helped empower people with jobs and maybe they could buy their children shoes themselves.
  • But the company is giving away shoes! That’s so genuinely kind of them! NO.  Since it’s a for-profit company, they don’t release credible numbers. But we do know that they outsource production, meaning these $40-90 shoes probably cost a fistful of dollars. The positive press they get for giving cheap shoes away more than makes up for the loss.
  • Want to make this a better model? Make the shoes fair trade. Employ locally here so that American parents can buy their children shoes; or  even better, employ on-site, so that  the local residents get jobs and their children get shoes. Maybe give them some personal finance lessons so that now they’re kids can wear those donated shoes to school. There are so many roads to improvement, but they cost this altruistic for-profit too much money to consider.
  • Youngsters wanting to be a part of something truly good volunteer to work for Toms or to promote the company in places like college campuses. As my friend Mike put it, it’s like Nike having volunteers. A company uses its “good deed” which doesn’t really cost it anything and it gets free promotions and even some free labor out of it, so giving shoes away in Argentina actually saves them a lot of cash.
  • Also, the shoes look okay, but those boots are hella freaky.

Ethos Water is that bottle that you see in Starbucks stores that boasts, right on the bottle in blue letters, “helping children get clean water.” For every bottle sold, the company donates $0.05 to a water-related aid agency that is helping some of the billion people without clean water get clean water.

My gripe with Ethos Water is probably even greater than with Toms. It is also multi-faceted, and I was introduced to my problems when standing in a Starbucks one day waiting to meet a friend. I picked up the bottle, read the label, saw the price, and just about kicked somebody (maybe Peter Thum).

  • For starters, each bottle ranges from $2-4. For one bottle of purified water. I could buy a 24-pack of bottled water at Fry’s for about $3.50. The equivalent in Ethos would be about $100, of which $1.20 would go towards real change-makers. Or I could buy said carton of bottled water and donate $96 directly to programs.
  • With all this eco-friendly craziness going on, you’d think they would at least be good in that regard. Even though it’s made by Pepsi Co, who uses recycled plastic in all their bottles – Ethos Water doesn’t. They introduce new plastics into the world.
  • Starbucks bought Ethos Water for $8,000,000. To date, Ethos Water has donated $6,000,000. That’s just a fun fact.
  • Another fun fact: one could donate $100 to Charity Water and do some good. To get $100 to affiliated groups through Ethos Water, you’d have to buy 2000 bottles, or spend $4000-8000 dollars. And you would be creating all that  plastic waste in your wake.

Now, I don’t mind for-profits that send a little to a charity, like when Yoplait collects yogurt-tops for Breast Cancer awareness (my grievances with the Breast Cancer awareness cause [re: industry] aside) or others. These are companies choosing to send a portion  to a cause. I don’t support companies founded on pathos and espouse this cause and misuse the disadvantaged to get your cash. My favorite, of course, is the non-profit sector. These non-governmental organizations actually do work, and many are transparent about how their money is spent. Not all are ethical, many have too much overhead (but that’s a blogpost for another day) but they  at least have a mission statement and are  restricted by NGO requirements.  So, if you feel like giving shoes to kids or building a well in a rural village, do it in a better way please. Or just don’t tell me about it.

EDIT: All links should be fixed. Sorry, I’m forgetful about HTML rules.