NEWSHUMAN RIGHTS

A few little kids in Nicaragua always used to bid us farewell at the end of the day with the parting words "hasta nunca" which translates to "see you never." Oddly enough, these children would say that even if we were going to see them the next morning, but at the end of my month there, "hasta nunca" took on a different meaning... I may not see these beautiful children again.

I still think about my students and friends - Armando and Ulises, Tatiana and Lester, Gabe, Fabre, and Adrianna - all the time. I see them in the pictures up on my bulliten board and in my memories of my summer. I hope that I will return to Nicaragua in the Spring to serve with an Orphan Network trip and perhaps steal away for a day or extend my trip to pay a visit to our beloved barrio (village) where Manna Project is located.

For me, going into the trip, I knew I was going to get to know these communities and then in a month's time have to say 'goodbye.' Allthewhile, knowing who was going to carryon our efforts and mission - the same community of volunteers that had been doing a superb job for nearly a year before us. However, this week marks the end of Manna Project's 13-month program. The 8 year-long volunteers will be packing up their belongings, donating their stuff, finishing up their lesson plans, and handing over the reigns to the new team of year-long volunteers. What a difficult position to be in!

Indeed, service always does a great service to the volunteer. In stepping out to live for others, we inevitably get taught a lesson, have our lives changed, and feel touched by beautiful and painful experiences.

I commend these Manna volunteers for their commitment to the communities of Cedro Gallan, Chikilistagua and La Chureca for the last thirteen months. They have gone from being a new kid on the block who hardly spoke Spanish and couldn't drive a stick shift car, to the most beloved gringos that some of these Nicas will ever know.

And now they will be replaced; replaced by amazing and bright new volunteers but still replaced. Will they be forgotten? Is that okay? After devoting so much of their life to these people, can another gringo with the same rubia (blond) hair just swing in and take their place?

I really dont know if the people will remember them after a number of years...for now, the new gringos will not be able to compare to their dear friends who are moving on. Nothing the new group does will meet the standard they set, until everything sets into place and the communities become adjusted to one another.

Manna Project provides a truly amazing opportunity for average Americans to step out of their world and into another, not just for a week or a month, but for over a year. Through that year, both the volunteers and the Nicaraguans they are serving will grow to be genuine friends and confidents and will learn important and substantial lessons from one another. And then, at the end of the year, things will change. The Americans will return home and the Nicaraguans will be introduced to their new friends. Is it okay to continually take and place strangers into these people's lives? Can we ask young Nicaraguan children who don't understand what love is because their father walked out on them when they were little and their mother beats them, to grow cross to an young American, and then in a year's time, they too will be gone?

I don't know what the best system is, so I do not ask these questions to point out a problem or propose solutions. I simply ask these questions in reflection and challenge of pursuing a continued life of service.

Could you give it all up? Would you go and never come back?

I am so thankful that there are people in this world who would answer yes to both of these questions without second guessing. (And I'm thankful for those that second guess, and go anyways!)

For me anyways, I hope it's not 'hasta nunca' to these people. I'll be back!

Last Wednesday, the Government of Nepal “eclipsed” expectations when they declared a public government holiday because of a brief solar eclipse that took place before most government officials wake for their morning tea.

What does this have to with our work of trying to deliver a life-saving fortified peanut butter to Nepal’s severely malnourished children?

Unfortunately, a lot. A great product without a great distribution system is useless. And events like these by the Government of Nepal coupled with the usual historical criticisms of the Nepali government (neglect, nepotism, incompetence, laziness, corruption, and more) raise doubts about using the Government’s Logistics Management System (LMS) to deliver the ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) we are working to produce.

No doubt there are some extraordinary, dedicated government employees (including the Chief Nutrition Officer at the Child Health Division, Raj Kumar Pokharel). But I have visited far too many derelict, unstaffed “government-run” health posts in rural Nepal (like the one pictured below in one of the richest hilly districts in all of Nepal) to believe that the few dedicated civil servants can ensure that this life-saving peanut butter would (a) make it to its destinations across rural Nepal and (b) actually be used in the appropriate way if it reaches its destinations.

So this begs a difficult question that is applicable across all fields of development:

How can you design a program that provides what should already be a guaranteed public service without totally circumventing the public system and thus making it weaker and less accountable to the people it should be serving?

The potentially great thing about this Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) that is being piloted in Nepal is that it could really enhance existing public health structures and programs (because it also includes protocols beyond only treating severe malnutrition with RUTF including de-worming, systemic infections, and vaccinations). It is currently being implemented not by some INGO but through the Government system in one district, and my recent trip to document the program indicates that it is working SO FAR.

But what happens when the pilot needs to expand beyond this one district that is quite accessible and has decent infrastructure? Will the LMS of the Government of Nepal guarantee this product reaches all the malnourished children that need it the most?

Experience suggests not, as many health posts remain unstaffed and are devoid of essential medicines that are all supposed to go through the LMS.

That’s why we are planning on working to design a distribution network for this product that operates as a Public-Private Partnership to identify and fill the gaps where the LMS doesn’t reach.

Our challenge is to do this in such a way that doesn’t completely replace the public system and relieve it of its rightful responsibilities. Any successful examples of doing this from around the world would be much appreciated…Thanks!

p.s. I have published a new photo album from my recent trip to rural Nepal to study the CMAM program. See the photos on Picasa here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/markarnoldy/NepalNUTritionPeanutButterCMAM?feat=directlink

or on Facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2423516&id=10221248&l=3868ea7760

When you need a solution for your organization, is it better to do it yourself or outsource it to another organization that is already doing it? When does the efficiency of partnership out weight the power of ownership to shape something specifically for your organization?

With the political situation still unsettled in Honduras, travel to communities has been hampered on days of protest to insure the safety of our staff. When work in the communities is put on hold, it means being flexible to take on new projects and to rearrange our schedules to continue making a difference while in the office. This week, I took on a side project of reviewing a list of organizations that work in Honduras to find possible avenues of collaboration and discover best practices that Global Brigades may also benefit from.

Many people criticize the non-profit industry for continuously re-creating the wheel by developing more organizations that do the same work, rather than working together. The health work that we do in Honduras is not an exception to this. As I was reviewing the list and studying the websites of each organization, I realized that there are many other organizations doing health work in Honduras. I found that many are doing the same work as Global Brigades, but even more so, organizations whose programs would compliment ours. I began to wonder why we weren’t already working with them.

During the two hour drive out to our pilot community health worker village today, I sat in the back of our pick-up truck, sharing my thoughts about NGO partnership with a recent graduate from UC Berkeley. Together, I as a business student and her as a pre-med student, we used our experiences in each area to brainstorm and discuss why it is that many organizations don’t collaborate, and more importantly how we, as Global Brigades, can do more to collaborate.

Our main take away was this: everyone in the field agrees that we’re all working together towards the same cause, yet there is a disagreement on how this should be done and want the power to be able to do it how they think is right. With the joy felt in helping others, many feel a sense of pride that their work is making a difference, and with that comes a crave for ownership to continue doing it their way. Sure, all organizations want to learn more about how they can increase their impact and help more, but most often, organizations want to do it themselves once they learn how.

During this conversation we came to agreement that we need more specialized physicians to come on Medical Brigades to provide specific treatments to the health problems plaguing our communities. All it would take is another volunteer to be dedicated to recruiting more doctors, surgeons, etc. because all of the logistics and infrastructure needed is already in place. But the real question is: do we do it ourselves or do we work with another NGO that already only recruits certified medical professionals for medical work in Honduras? How do you get two organizations with completely different models to work together for the same cause? How do you convince someone that you are a collaborator and not a competitor?

As our group of summer volunteers spent more time in the communities and working with classes, we naturally began to feel strong connections to certain people and families. A group of friends that sat together at a table in the back of our Advanced English class included Gabriel, Norman, Fabricio, Adrianna, Elaina, and Aldo. They were all about our age, give or take a few years, and are eager and rather accelerated learners.

Usually we had a lesson planned and then had an alternate lesson for when this table finished the exercises. Often, however, normal conversation about life, language, and anything else that could come to mind would float into the mix. I sat at this table from time to time to help with the lesson and grew to really enjoy their company. Other summer volunteers also became quite close to them and soon they were frequenting our house to just hang out, get guitar lessons, or play catchphrase.

One afternoon this group of friends came over to tell us about a non-for-profit organization that they had started themselves in the Managua area. They call themselves 'Nicayuda' which is a portmanteau word combining 'Nicaragua' and the verb 'ayudar' for 'to help.' Nicayuda is an NGO composed of 7 young Nicaraguans who acknowledge a need for public preschools in their country.

There are a number of good private preschools in Managua but they are also immensely expensive. Thus, Nicayuda has opened a couple public preschools in which young impoverished children can begin learning. That week, after hearing these friend of ours talk about their NGO, a group of the MPI (Manna Project International) Summer Volunteers paid a visit to the preschools. Unfortunately on that day, the preschools were closed due to the swine flu scare. We did get to see the facilities a bit though and later I saw some pictures of Nicayuda's endeavors.

Much of what I have been learning from my time in Nicaragua is the concept of empowerment. We teach classes and work and give to the communities of Cedro Gallan and Chikilistagua not for our own gain and not to just provide classes but instead to provide a means for opportunity. By learning how to read and by learning English, people from this community might be able to use these skills to find open doors waiting for them. I have been asked again and again about whether NGOs should occupy a constant presence in developing nations. While I don't believe they should create too strong of a sense of dependence, if they are indeed doing good work then the good must continue. As I pondered this question, however, the ideal situation continues to come to mind: Nicaraguans serving Nicaraguans.

That's a hard concept to wrap one's mind around considering how poor most of Nicaragua is; How can the poor help the poor? Will we simply ask the 'not as poor' to help the 'dirt poor?'

Nicayuda fits perfectly into this model of Nica's helping Nica's. These young people aren't starting an NGO to boost resumes or merely because they are bored and have nothing better to do. These new friends of ours are putting themselves on the line and meeting a need with their own abilities. They are currently working on gathering resources and aid to improve the conditions of three preschools in the Managua area. If you are interested in learning more information, please friend Nicayuda Nicaragua on Facebook or email Norman at nicayudaconorg@gmail.com.

Before coming down to Nicaragua, we were encouraged to bring clothing donations with us. As I packed, I felt more secure in bringing a larger duffle bag, knowing that about half of its contents was donations. I was happy to be relieved of them when we arrived as well.

It wasn't until the very end of our time in Nicaragua that we saw these donations come to use. Manna Project International has a no donation policy- instead of straight up giving people handouts, instead MPI would rather teach someone the value of items and an honest days work.

One our group's biggest projects was to set up a 'venta' or store to be held on our final Friday working in La Chureca, the municipal city dump. The prices would be set low to attract people to come as well as to make the clothing more affordable for the patrons.

For a couple days leading up to the big sale, there were bags upon bags and a room full of boxes to search through and sort first.

At one point it seemed like a shipment of clothing from the 80's exploded in our house or that we had been transfered back in time. Some of the donations were quite fun to look through, including this cowboy boot vest (pictured below) and the 30 or so babies velvet onsies!

Eventually we got through all the piles and rebagged them to be taken into La Chureca. When we arrived at the school/community center we had to set it all up, which meant unpacking the bags, setting up the price lists, and figuring out an adequate system of getting people in and out in an orderly fashion.

The rhythm would be set to 10 people allowed in at a time, 15 items per person, 15 minutes. They flowed in one door and out the back door and people were allowed to get back in line as long as they would wait their turn. As the first group came in, our neat folded piles of clothing turned into disheveled heaps but soon enough the piles began to diminish and get smaller. The venta was turning out to be quite successful.

As an American consumer, who has paid a visit to the mall since returning to the states, it was amazing and awe inspiring to see a pair of American Eagle pants priced at $44 being purchased for 5 cordobas. With the current exchange rate, that amounts to a whopping $1! Now, that, is a steal!

Despite such amazing mark downs and the push to make these people feel a sense of worth in allowing them to be consumers, at times I could still hear people mutter under their breaths "No hay nada" (translation: "There is nothing").

This was shocking to me. There was clearly stuff. We had filled the bed of a pickup truck quite high with luggage of clothing. It's funny and sad that some of these Nicas, despite being given an opportunity to buy nice good clothing for cheap, still saw a need to complain.

Sure, it would be a whole lot easier to simply be given free stuff, but I remember feeling quite important and accomplished buying my first big purchase with my own money back in middle school. I hope that our donations, that old floral dress I used to wear, Michael's beloved striped polo, and even that oh so lovely cowboy-ish vest make it into appreciative hands and clothe the bodies of beautiful souls trapped in La Chureca.

Sincere apologies for the long silence. A combination of regional unrest, waterborne illness, and electrical failures (blown out resistors) prevented posts this past week. There are many interesting stories to tell including an offensively placed garbage can meant to protect someone from the rain and a nighttime police visitation. I cannot write about these here, so I will move on to other important topics.

...no pictures in posts to come

...can no longer access twitter

I have been in Uganda for a little over three days now, and while I have yet to begin my work with ORUDE, the local microfinance and community development NGO in Jinja, one facet of Ugandan life already stares me in the face, shaking my core.  Tragically, many Ugandans perceive their identity as inferior to the buzungs (white people/foreigners) because they have dark skin.

Before I continue, let me be clear, I am not making any racially charged accusations throughout the rest of this post, but trying to accurately report what I witness on a day-to-day basis while living in Jinja.

The children on the street shout "Muzungu!" as I walk by.  The men and women not-so-discreetly whisper "muzungu" while I pass their store fronts.  It is enough to make any individual stand out, but interestingly, I am not isolated, but greeted because of the color of my skin.  Despite years of racial subjugation by the British before Ugandan independence, children hold my hand just to feel the "whiteness."  Many view me as holistically superior because I say, "Nza America" (I come from America).  Would you not expect a dislike or even distrust of whiteness?

The most outstanding example I can provide relates to a comment by my teacher here in Uganda.  While I would prefer she remain anonymous, she is a very well respected and admired woman on Jinja.  With many degrees, and incredible local knowledge, she does amazing things for the FSD staff and people of Jinja.

In a recent training session, we were in small groups attempting to create sample work plans in preparation for our real projects.  Admirably, my teacher demonstrated the importance of including the community in all development work through an interesting example.

She roughly proclaimed that it would not be sufficient to provide her with bleach to turn her skin white.  She said this would not fix the problem, for once we left, she would run out of bleach and then her skin would turn black once again.  Instead we must provide the tools to build capacity and development.

While I agree with the importance of capacity building of local members so that they can grown themselves, and the sentiment was certainly judicious, my stomach turned upside down when I heard those words.  Coming from a friend and admired elder, how am I to react as a 21 year student?

I leave you with this to ponder.  How do race relations in the US, especially between black and white relate to this example?  In many ways they are almost diametrically opposite. In some ways, they are oddly similar.

I encourage you to discuss.  Have you been abroad where your skin color greatly affects your identity?

Note: note everyone here in Uganda feels this way.  This may seem obvious, but I want to note it.  I met several students studying in Rochester Hills, MI (very close to my home), a few days ago in a local library.  I know they do not feel this way.  But the fact that someone so intricately linked with the community, with such a position of responsibility consciously/subconsciously does, speaks loudly to the role of race in Ugandan society.

We need your suggestions on the best short videos out there in the social/non-profit sector! Send us a link to your favorite videos as a comment, and we’ll send you some fortified peanut butter from Nepal someday! (hey, it’s the best we can offer right now…).

The need for compelling videos from the social/non-profit sector is the topic of this short and simple post because we are gearing up to make a film of our own.

Here’s the deal:
An awesome friend (Bryan Wilson, a recent UT-Austin grad) has come to Nepal to help share the reality of the malnutrition situation here with the rest of the world.  Soon we will be headed out to rural Nepal where a pilot nutrition program is being carried out the Government of Nepal in coordination with Concern Worldwide and UNICEF. This program is known as Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM). Scan below at my previous posts to learn a bit more about this program, and why it’s important.

But the short story is that CMAM is a vital component of ending acute malnutrition in Nepal. Without it, peanut butter or any other product is useless. It flips the current failed system of treating malnourished children on its head and takes treatment to the children instead of the other way around. But for this to succeed, donors need to be convinced this is the right program for Nepal.

Because we have a hunch that this is the right program for Nepal (or rather, the ONLY program that could reach Nepal’s malnourished children), we are setting out to highlight this work. We are going to the pilot district with our modest photo and video technologies, some notepads and pens, and our eyes and ears. We will capture an immense amount of material then find an editor who can hash together a video for us pro-bono. *Note: We also welcome recommendations for incredible editors who work for free (or peanut butter).

I’m interested in seeing what videos have been effective and compelling for you. If we base our video off models that have worked in the past, ours will have a better chance of success.

So please share links to videos that have inspired, informed, and moved you to act for a cause in the comments section below! We hope to create another one for your list…

To stay up to date on the NepalNUTrition Project and learn about how you can help, you can read blog posts here every Tuesday and Thursday or follow @NepalNUTrition or @markarnoldy on Twitter.

Hearing that “waiting to die” was the default treatment prescribed for most severely malnourished children in Nepal and knowing that 99% of these children don’t have a system designed for them broke my heart. Hearing that this “wasn’t an emergency” broke my patience and my belief that our development frameworks and rules are at all rooted in the concepts of social justice.

If 99% of all severely malnourished children in a country don’t have any treatment, how is that not an emergency?

Apparently this situation is not “bad enough” for some, and if we can’t prove that this is an “emergency” in the eyes of donors, the bad news is that this “non-emergency” will continue, because a big-time donors are only used to supporting CMAM (Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition, as discussed in my last blog) in the “emergency context.” Traditional donors only fund for emergency situations and promoting this program in the “development context” instead of “emergency context” takes donors out of their traditional framework and comfort zone.

So here is a classic case of the “dangers of development talk.” Several of Nepal’s nutrition levels surpass the emergency cutoffs set by the WHO, yet it’s not being classified as an emergency because there hasn’t been a sudden, drastic deterioration of the nutrition situation in recent years. The argument seems to be that “because Nepal has always been in an emergency, we cannot qualify it as an emergency” --which I hope seems senselessly circular and completely irrational to more than just me.

This certainly lit an indignant fire under me. Now I understand why Paul Farmer refers to some of these international players as “TBMEs” or Transnational Bureaucrats Managing Inequality. But my indignant fire is likely to extinguish hopes of attracting donors funds for this program, as I’m sure no donors like to be told that “they don’t care about malnourished kids enough.”

So what would you do? We are a small player trying to make a big impact in shaping the future of Nepal’s nutrition program. Knowing what you know about the situation, if you were placed in a boardroom with donors who may or may not fund the scaling up of a community-based nutrition program, what tools, methods, and strategies would you use to convince them this is vitally important and worth their money?

Please share your ideas because it looks as if this theoretical situation will become real in the very near future. The Head Nutrition Officer at the Child Health Division of the Government has asked me to work with UNICEF to bring all the key players together for a meeting as soon as possible. Your thoughts and advice are much appreciated.

To stay up to date on the NepalNUTrition Project and learn about how you can help, you can read blog posts here every Tuesday and Thursday or follow @NepalNUTrition or @markarnoldy on Twitter.

Consider this:

Throughout the next ten days, I will be studying the processes of economic and political development in developing nations at Northwestern University’s Chicago campus with a clear focus on the past and current state of Uganda. With this training and background knowledge, our efforts will be better informed and prepared to have a direct, immediate and positive impact on the people of Ugandan during out seven week stay. Since we will be working at the grassroots level, our work will focus on developing community, local institutions and infrastructure, meaning that my posts will tend to be micro examples of the role of either single individuals or small groups with the support of larger NGO’s on international development. I expect to have little experience with governmental influence, despite the tremendous role foreign aid currently plays in the Ugandan economy and political structure. Therefore, I would like to take at least this post to discuss the role of the international-state community in international development.

In the course of my preparation, I read “Foreign Aid and the Weakening of Democratic Accountability in Uganda” by Andrew Mwenda, originally a Ugandan citizen, currently serving as a John Knight Fellow at Stanford University. The article critiques the conceptual role of foreign aid in all African nations with Uganda as the case study.

Using a vast variety of statistics and intuitive reasoning, Mwenda concludes that in order to “promote democracy and accountability, the West should discontinue aid flows.” While this is a polemic statement, the notion firmly asserts the issue of Africa’s Western dependence created through the international community’s, the IMF’s and the World Bank’s good natured policies of debt forgiveness and governmental aid packages. Foreign aid ought to be renamed foreign relief to indicate the temporality of its presence. “Aid” creates dependence and destroys government’s accountability to its citizenry, derailing the democratic process.

In order to understand how drying up foreign aid might induce stronger and more sustainable growth, let us look at a few key statistics.

Foreign aid currently makes up “50 percent of the Ugandan government’s budget.” 12.5 percent of that same budget is spent on “political patronage” i.e. corruption. And with the 2005 G8 agreement to cut Africa’s debt and double foreign aid, erasing “80 percent of Uganda’s total debt,” administrative districts increased from “56 to 80” while public administration expenditures increased by “$120 million” out of a $8.5 billion GDP. These statistics combine to demonstrate that when large components of the national budget come from “unearned” sources, the government can rely on those external sources for purely political practices such as increasing the bureaucracy through fragmentation and creating more political positions for further patronage, meanwhile eschewing the needs of the citizenry.

While neither I nor Mwenda would argue that aid cannot have some significant short term benefits, such as providing “free primary education, basic health care, infrastructure rehabilitation and maintenance,” we assert that it simultaneously undermines the democratic process by attributing unearned development and accomplishments to the party in power, thereby distorting the political system. In Uganda, foreign aid disincentivizes important internal reforms in tax code, crucial to long term development, by forcing politicians to avoid losing elite patronage. Debt forgiveness only leads to future borrowing, like lax parenting of whiny children encourages further whining.

Overall, the argument against foreign aid draws strong parallels to the popular arguments against the American welfare system. It creates dependence by disincentivizing stricter self-governance and allowing individuals and governments to avoid personally and politically difficult issues.

I will return to this topic in next week’s posting, hopefully with some concrete answers into how governments, NGO’s and concerned individuals can continue humanitarian efforts but focus them towards more productive results.

Think about it.

- Aaron J.