Category Archives: social change

NGOs, international aid, and the need to be critical

This honest and damning post by Ilaria Allegrozzi about her reflections on the aid industry is an absolute must read. I admire her ability to speak out about something that many are afraid to address. I agree with her outrage and her sentiments about how NGOs are essentially mushrooming in conflict zones and the developing…

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{Guest Post} Forced Marriage – Will criminalisation lead to prevention?

There are estimated to be around 5,000-8,000 young people in the UK being forced into marriage. David Cameron has announced he wants forced marriage to be made a criminal offence. However, not everyone agrees that this will help the victims. The government feels that the signal they send out to not criminalise it is a…

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A vision to end torture

I’m incredibly excited that one of my favorite organizations – International Bridges to Justice – has launched a TED talk by Founder & CEO, Karen Tse. IBJ is also featured as #3 on Huffington Post’s “Best of TED 2011 Countdown.” Take a few minutes to watch Karen’s talk below — and to join us in…

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Who are we really working for?

Rosetta Thurman’s blog post, “Who do you really work for?” got me thinking. Rosetta writes that those of us who work for non-profits are ultimately working for the people our organization serves. That’s a nice idea, but sadly I feel is a bit too idealistic and optimistic. And from what I have seen, it doesn’t…

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Shooting Water

Recently, I read a beautiful book called “Shooting Water” by Devyani Saltzman. Shooting Water is about the process of filming a documentary called Water, which focused on the lives of three widows in an ashram in Varanasi, India. Saltzman is the daughter of Deepa Mehta, who wrote and directed the film. Surprisingly, there was a…

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Questioning the international development system

I wanted to quote an excellent blog post by Karen, a grad student in international affairs: We are trained to think like short term consultants. Everything is project/program based. We are trained to measure everything through statistics, through case studies. A project seems to be measured as “successful” if you get it funded by a…

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Imprisoned, with nowhere to go

During my time working with an Afghan NGO providing free legal services, I have heard many stories of women who have been imprisoned on false accusations or “moral crimes” such as adultery and running away. Running away is not even a crime under Afghan law, yet many women and young girls are detained and held…

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Young Feminist Blogathon: Video post on the Girl Effect campaign

One of my New Year’s resolutions from a year ago was to post a video blog at some point during the year. Almost, ahem, a year later, I’ve finally put in the effort to make this resolution a reality! I’m a bit nervous posting it, but I hope you all enjoy this video blog! It…

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On our generation and finding purposeful work

In the past few days, I blazed my way through “Work on Purpose” by Lara Galinsky and Echoing Green, devouring the stories and winding pathways of the five social entrepreneurs profiled within. This book is a reflection of our generation – slightly confused, constantly searching, never settling, seeking meaning. For Generation Y, work has been…

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Cultural Relativism and women’s rights: ending FGC in Senegal

Right now, there’s an excellent series going on over at the Gender Across Borders blog called “Culture and Human Rights: Challenging Excuses for Gender Based Violence.” I will be following the posts in this series, but I also wanted to bring up discussion about the topic over here. Cultural relativism is used worldwide as an…

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