Here’s the second installment of Feature Friday this week: Beyond Good Intentions.
Beyond Good Intentions is a wonderful ten-part film series investigating the effectiveness of international aid. According to the website:
The Beyond Good Intentions film series follows the round-the-world journey of first-time filmmaker, Tori Hogan, as she investigates how international aid can be more effective. Shot on location in eight different countries, the ten-episode series takes viewers along for the ride as Tori meets with countless aid workers and recipients to uncover more innovative approaches to helping communities in need.
The film series is great because it brings to light a lot of the criticisms of international aid that are often unknown to the general public. People assume volunteering abroad is great — but perhaps it’s not truly sustainable. People assume the Peace Corps is wonderful — but is the program really effective? With the advent of Muhammad Yunus’ innovative approach to ‘banking for the poor,’ microfinance has almost universally began to be viewed as a panacea to the world’s poverty…but is it really delivering for the world’s poorest communities?
Tori explores these, and many more important, controversial, challenging questions. What’s more, she presents the information in a series of engaging and enjoyable short films which are accessible to the general public. These films don’t use grandiose rhetoric or useless jargon…which is what is usually employed in these debates, often put forth by academics. Tori makes these issues interesting and easily understandable, thus reaching a large proportion of the population and drawing in young people.
Check out the clip below, where Tori investigates the practices of Kiva and microlending. Click here to access their YouTube channel and watch the rest of the videos.
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