Justice for all

Last night, I finished reading “Strength in What Remains” by Tracy Kidder. It’s the incredible, heartbreaking, and moving story of Deogratias, a young medical student in Burundi who became a refugee during the genocide. It tells the story of his harrowing and indescribably difficult escape from Burundi and his subsequent arrival in the U.S. In the U.S., he doesn’t know the language, he doesn’t have a place to live and becomes homeless, and joins the ranks of the poorest of the poor - despite the fact that he was an extremely intelligent scholarship student back home.

The book then chronicles the challenges he faces in adjusting to life in the U.S. and obtaining permanent residency. However, unlike many immigrants and refugees, Deo manages to get into Columbia University. He completes his undergraduate degree there and eventually becomes a medical student at Dartmouth. He also joins with Partners in Health and tirelessly pursues his passion of improving health for the poor in his home country, Burundi. He doesn’t give up, and now he is the leader of an organization that builds health clinics in Burundi called Village Health Works. I loved this story because it demonstrates the resilience of the human spirit in the face of incredible, seemingly insurmountable odds. Despite coming to the U.S. completely impoverished, he somehow manages to succeed and do incredible things. His desire to better the world drives him forward. At the same time, I can’t help but wonder how much of his journey is due to luck — the book mentions many instances in which he was, simply, lucky: a Hutu woman decided to help him escape across the Rwandan border, he met a nun in the U.S. who is extraordinarily compassionate and took it upon herself to help him, an older couple saw something in him and took him in, even helping him pay for his education. Whether it was luck or destiny or inner talent and willpower, he did it. And his story serves as an example for the rest of us: that nothing is impossible.

Perhaps my favorite quote in the entire book is this one:

A phrase he’d put together out of his dictionary kept coming to him. “A different planet.” New York had many planets. Better, he thought, to be in Burundi, if Burundi were at peace, than to live on the wrong, impoverished planet in New York. This place made you feel like you were simply not a human being. How could you be a human being like everyone else, if your circumstances were this different?

This quote stuck in my mind throughout the book because it makes me wonder: is this true? Is it true that being among the poorest of the poor in the U.S. is worse than being an “average” poor person in one of the poorest developing nations? Most people still come to the U.S. and think of this country as the “land of opportunity.” Yet, I wonder — is that golden land a myth? What is the reality for the poor in the U.S.? Although I have worked with a number of low-income individuals through my volunteer service with LIFT, I still feel like their circumstances are far better than what the poor face in countries like Burundi or India or China.

However, I think what Deo is alluding to in the quote above is not simply the material circumstances, but the psychological ones. After all, it seems clear that daily tasks such as carrying (unclean) water for miles to your home in scorching temperatures is a misery that few in the U.S. must experience. Yet, perhaps being poor in America means you are surrounded by incredible opulence. That you are an outlier - that you are cast out from society. In the very bottom of the heap. That you are granted no respect, that people treat you like a child, and that you are dehumanized. In that way, you feel so alone that you cease to feel human. It’s the inequality that perpetuates these feelings.

Ultimately, I don’t know. I’ve never been in such a situation in the U.S. (or abroad) so I don’t really have any authority to speak about this topic. But this is my personal understanding of the quote, and I think it’s important to ponder whether this quote rings true or not. If it is true, then it makes the case that much stronger for working on domestic poverty issues — which are often seen as less important than international issues.

This quarter, as I approached the end of my time here at Northwestern, I found out about LIFT, a national movement to combat poverty and expand opportunity for all people here in the U.S. I immediately applied to become a volunteer, but I only wish I had found out about the organization earlier. LIFT provides incredible opportunities for college students to make a positive impact, and provides great services to low-income individuals.

At LIFT, I volunteer for a few hours every week. I work one-on-one with clients, who are generally (but not always) low-income individuals. Anyone can come in, and I have often had highly skilled and well educated individuals come in for assistance. I work with each client for 50 minutes (sometimes 2 hours, depending on the situation) and provide them with any assistance they may need. Usually, people want help with typing, emailing, other computer skills, resume and cover letter writing, and the job hunt. These are the most common reasons for appointments. However, many clients also come in with questions about finding affordable housing, legal dilemmas, and a number of other challenges they encounter.

My time at LIFT has been amazing. For the first time ever, despite my years and years of volunteering, I feel like I’ve made a concrete difference in someone’s life. This past Friday, one of my clients didn’t show up for our meeting, so I gave him a call to find out if something was wrong. Turns out that I couldn’t have heard better news. He found a temporary job that he had already begun this week, and had also had a great interview for another longer-term position that he was really excited about. On the phone, he was so genuinely happy that I couldn’t help but smile. He thanked me over and over again for helping him with the job applications. I was thrilled, and couldn’t help but feel amazed that in some small part, I had been able to help him find a job. My second client of the day was a young immigrant, and his sincerity and willingness to work hard struck me. I found myself getting attached and hoping, deeply, for his success. As I was leaving, another client told me that his day was so much better after his visit to LIFT; he too thanked me for volunteering, even though I hadn’t even been the one to help him. I left the office SO happy that I almost screamed out in excitement; fortunately, I was able to restrain myself.

For the first time ever, I feel useful. And I realize how much I love working with people one-on-one. I’m hooked, and I know now that I want to directly represent low-income individuals in some capacity in the future. Although I have tried all forms of volunteering - like working at soup kitchens and homeless shelters, tutoring at after-school centers, working at hospitals, packaging food through Campus Kitchens, and interning at at least 4 different human rights and development non-profit organizations - I have never felt like I’ve actually made any difference. Now, I have found that elusive feeling of usefulness - at last. I love the personal connection, and I love getting to know individual’s stories and feeling invested in their lives and their progress. Social change is incredibly difficult, but for once, I feel like it is possible. Until now, I was almost resigned to the notion that I’d try and try my whole life without feeling like I’ve achieved much. Now, I feel that if it is possible to make a difference in the life of one individual — then anything is possible. I feel encouraged. Empowered. Like the sky’s the limit.

My time at LIFT, though short, has also shown me how valuable public interest and legal aid lawyers can be. I have seen or heard of many clients embroiled in legal problems; juvenile justice issues with their kids, insurance problems, and landlord-tenant issues, among them. It strikes me that a lawyer can make all the difference and can reassure clients, provide them with hope, and stand behind them although the rest of the system may be against them, especially when they encounter complex legal issues they cannot hope to confront alone. My work has made me want to pursue public interest law and some sort of direct representation more than ever, whether it is in the fields of criminal law, immigration/refugee law, or civil legal aid. I cherish the personal connection with a client. These are people struggling to make a living and to succeed, just like you and I. The difference is that the system is completely against them, and that they must struggle far more than we must if they are to achieve the same things. What they need is someone to listen to them and advocate on their behalf; they need someone to simply believe in them, and assist them in reaching their greatest potential. Someone to turn the system on its head and level the playing field.

But in thinking of my own role in this entire process of ’social change’ or ‘combating poverty,’ I wonder if I just enjoy taking on the role of the ‘giver.’ Tales From the Hood wrote in his blog recently that Americans tend to love being the giver; this ideology makes providing aid or assistance all about the donor. It’s not about the poor, but ultimately about the people doing the giving: the rich. That’s clearly an example of misplaced priorities. Although I may be biased, I do try to be critical of myself. And looking at my own actions through this objective lens, I do conclude that I enjoy feeling like I’m helping another individual. Doesn’t everyone? Such sentiments, however, are not inherently bad in themselves. They are bad, however, if the donor / volunteer does not think about who’s on the receiving end and whether they are truly benefiting. In this case, I am constantly searching for ways in which I know I’m making a tangible, unabashedly positive impact. If I ever feel like my actions are not helping others, and if they are in any way harming others, I would stop those actions immediately and move on to a project or organization I perceive to be better. Of course, the main problem here is that my perception is not 100% accurate; there have been times when I have thought that a project I’ve been working with has been beneficial, when in reality there may have been reason to doubt its impact. So it’s a continuous work in progress - I am constantly striving to learn how to be more critical, more realistic, and better informed about the consequences of my actions and of the programs I support. However, I do feel that my work with LIFT and the organization’s model in general is a positive one. I do think that there are crucial ways in which LIFT can be improved to better serve the poor, but the model is inherently strong.

Ultimately, if you are constantly critical of your actions and their consequences, it is possible to not only feel good about helping but to actually make a positive difference in this world. There’s nothing wrong with wanting that warm, fuzzy feeling inside when you help others — but make sure that you ARE actually helping others in the process. Social change is possible — as long as you don’t allow your desire to be the “giver” take precedence over the needs of your beneficiaries, who are the important ones in the picture.

Recently, through a particularly enlightening conversation with a friend, I realized that there are, essentially, two pathways or methods of thinking about social change and development approaches. There is the “capitalistic” mode of thinking, and the “social justice” mode of thinking. While this is, essentially, the split that so starkly separates the Democrats from the Republicans, the same two viewpoints shape the actions of humanitarians, altruists, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and everyone else involved in the aid and social change business.

The first, the “capitalistic” mode, fixates on the idea that by harnessing capitalism and economic growth, we can made progress in the developing world. More importantly, this viewpoint emphasizes the belief that people are motivated by profit – and so, by trying to make “doing good” seem profitable, it becomes possible to “exploit” people’s inherent motivations (to better themselves and maximize profit or utility) for the greater good. Here is where the entire idea of social entrepreneurship comes in. Social enterprise and social business centers around the idea that you can make money and do good at the same time, and that in fact, you don’t have to give up making money or financial sustainability to contribute positively to the world. Corporate social responsibility comes with the same idea; that by being environmentally sustainable and by contributing to development projects, a company can improve its own image (and profits) by presenting itself as more socially responsible. Additionally, there is the ideology propounded by many aid critics such as Dambisa Moyo, the author of “Dead Aid” — the idea that we need capitalism to cause economic growth, and that we need to harness foreign direct investment and international trade to help low-income countries hop onto the train of development. Finally, and most importantly (I think), at the more micro- and individualized level of development and NGO approaches to poverty eradication, there are approaches focusing on income generation; these approaches include micro-finance, helping individuals start and grow their own small businesses, helping farmers increase their yields through low-cost and innovative agricultural technologies. Basically, the idea here is that by increasing their income, people will be able to pull themselves out of poverty. Icons like Muhammad Yunus and Paul Polak have emphasized that the best way for individuals to get out of poverty fast is by increasing their incomes. This is a more “capitalistic” method of thinking because it emphasizes the individual and what they can do to get ahead in life. And for the donors/the well-off classes in society, the emphasis is on proving to them that they don’t have to give up their lifestyle if they want to make a positive difference. There’s usually not as much talk of personal sacrifice, or what we have to give up for social change. For instance, by buying books from Better World Books, we can not only get the books we want, but also contribute to literacy projects! This perspective caters to the benefits that social business provides to both the donors/contributors & the beneficiaries.

The second mode is focused more on “social justice” and equality. The idea here is that we (here I’m talking about us — the well off, the privileged) should not simply have capitalistic, profit maximizing motives. Instead, this mode of thinking strives to change and shape the incentives that motivate people in the first place. Those who share this view believe that we have to actually CHANGE people’s minds to focus less on themselves and to focus more on the community and the world they live in. The idea is to emphasize equality, fairness, and to make people feel they have an obligation to give back. This viewpoint leads to an emphasis on higher taxes, increased social services and programs, more government spending, and international aid. By emphasizing that we, the privileged echelons of society, have an obligation to give back, contribute positively to the world, and help those who are worse off than us, this way of thinking emphasizes providing free services to the poor. Instead of trying to focus on increasing a person’s income as the primary way of getting them out of poverty, people and organizations with this perspective might try to provide free health services, free legal services, free infrastructure like wells, free access to education including building schools and providing scholarships to children, and much more. International donors fund many such projects because of the obligation to give back, but the ultimate goal is to have each country’s government providing such services to its own people. The emphasis here is on improving the quality of living through, primarily, the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor — whether this is domestically or internationally. This is very different from the previous “capitalistic” mode, in which each person is encouraged to maximize their own wealth and well-being.

Of course, in reality, many aid programs mix the two — they might provide microfinance and skills training along with health services or educational scholarships. But ultimately, there are definitely two divergent “modes of thinking” or perspectives at play when it comes to social change and international development.

What do you think? Is there one better way of going about social change & development, or are the two approaches best combined? Should we try to cater to people’s “innate” incentive to maximize their own profit & well-being, or should we try to change people’s minds to make them feel an obligation to sacrifice for the greater good?

In “Our Turn to Eat,” Michaela Wrong writes about Kenya:

Kenya’s foreign partners failed to grasp that a system of rule based on the ‘Our Turn to Eat’ principle was explicitly designed to prevent the trickle-down upon which they counted for progress. The better Kenya’s economy fared, the more unstable the country actually became, because public awareness of inequality - sociologists call the phenomenon ‘invidious comparison’ - deepened a notch.

It was a poor bet for the donors to make, for nothing sabotages development programmes more dramatically than violence. Decades of work on school-building, AIDS prevention and gender-awareness-raising are wiped out in a moment when the first shamba goes up in flames and its terrified family hits the road. Convinced they grasped the big picture, the donors somehow managed to miss the approaching near-collapse of an African state.

And:

As for the Western tendency to turn a blind eye to blatant graft and routine human rights abuse in the eagerness to save ‘the poorest of the poor’, it is a feature of donor relations across the continent.

And finally:

If they only set foot on the continent, idealistic Westerners would be astonished to hear how often, and how fiercely, politically engaged Africans…call for aid to be cut, conditionalities sharpened. Kenyan journalist Kwanchetsi Makokha is not alone in detecting an incipient racism, rather than altruism, in our lack of discrimination. ‘Fundamentally the West doesn’t care enough about Africa to pay too much attention to how its money is spent. It wants to be seen to do the right thing, and that’s as far as the interest goes.’

While I haven’t had the chance to read the whole book yet, I’ve read a few chapters through one of my classes. I find her quotes fascinating - that donors and aid agencies are so focused on helping the poor that sometimes they forget to think about the broader context in which their work is operating. It seems to me that donors are generally less willing to support more “abstract” projects such as human rights monitoring or anti-corruption initiatives, because they want “direct” results and want their money to directly go to the poor through education, healthcare, microfinance loans, etc. But being aware of this broader context is, as Wrong indicates, absolutely vital if genuine change is going to occur. The ultimate goal of NGOs should not be simply to provide aid but also to contribute to the creation of a capable, efficient state that itself can provide these public goods to its people.

This definitely requires a more holistic outlook, taking into account human rights violations and corruption as part of the context in which people live. There is a problem today where “human rights” and “development” are looked at as two separate areas. But they really need to be integrated in order to generate the best outcomes.

Also, I find it interesting that she (like Dambisa Moyo) is pushing for increased governance conditionalities, and for aid to be cut until governments change their corrupt practices. I definitely see the value in governance conditionalities but would shy away from advocating a complete cut in aid. I like Kristof’s balanced take on the issue, where he emphasizes that aid has its shortcomings but has also seen some successes. We need to find a middle ground between aid and trade (or some way to include both), and perhaps one way to do so is to begin with governance conditionalities.

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.