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Challenging the Current Approach to Development

5/16/2013

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I am 10 days short of a year here in Ocotal, embedded for the first time in the world of "development". And my loosely-defined, altruistic ambitions have been challenged and I am disappointed. I am trying to work out how to make lemonade from the remaining lemons that haven't been spoiled.
I have been debating with myself for days about how to write this blog, balancing a number of concerns:
  • how to be honest without being brutal
  • how to express my feelings without biting the hand that has fed me for the last 12 months (especially in terms of giving me a first-hand and valuable experience)
  • how to honor the best intentions that people have while recognizing the reality (and shortcomings) of the outcomes
  • how to temper my own glass-half-empty tendency

No more debating! I will dive right in with some random though clearly connected thoughts and feelings, based on my clearly limited experience.

In Nicaragua, there are bucket loads of trainings, forums, talks, investigations, publications...and what seems like slow and little progress.
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Almost every flight I have ever taken to Managua has a religious group with logo´d T-shirts, on its way to an annual "mission" to help or save someone.
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The boundary between providing resources for people to help themselves and paternalism is a slippery slope that only gets more slippery with time.
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The larger the non-profit, the more it feels like just another corporation, only with a privileged tax status and without the ROI expectations of other for-profits.
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Things get done in the non-profit world through sub-contracting that requires endless documentation, oversight and a cost with every contract.
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In delivering services, non-profits in the development chain focus on the demands of the organization above and not on the needs of the people below.
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As we get more "connected" technologically we become more disconnected from realities, manipulated by images...such as these.
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An employee in a non-profit is out to survive just like anyone else in a job and responds to the demands at work placed on him/her by the system in general.
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The current system is convenient to those within the system who work in it and those who give to it. Needs are met and consciences are appeased.
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The current system clearly responds to needs, but what is less clear is to what extent it meets those needs and whether there is another way to meet them.
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It's easy to pick holes, it's much harder to fill them, especially when the holes look so large. Never before did the for-profit world start to look like an attractive option.

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Where do you start when cell phone coverage (provided for profit motives) is wider-spread than drinking water, electricity and health care?
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At what point are NGOs part of the problem if the state doesn't do its part and if people don't do for themselves what thay are able to do for themselves.
So I will try to sit with this discomfort and doubt and be present to today's opportunities, trusting that a loving and thoughtful approach will lead to some clarity.
“At the end of the day, the questions we ask of ourselves determine the type of people that we will become.” 
Leo Babauta
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Winter in Ocotal

5/16/2013

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Nature´s way of bringing in the winter (the rainy season) in Ocotal. We are surrounded by these glorious flowering bushes and trees, and the rains haven´t even come yet, and probably won´t for another  5 or 6 days. These were taken by en excellent photographer and dear friend - sadly not by me.
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"El Chavalo Con Su Burro" (The Boy and His Donkey)

5/12/2013

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PictureOriginal photo
Today is a momentous day. I received delivery of the painting in the opposite column.

The picture on the left was taken by a local photographer. I bought the color version of the photo and asked a local artist, Patricio Marin, to reinterpret the photo focusing on the boy and his donkey. The two had come into town for a parade of donkeys, designed to raise awareness about the importance of this animal to local farmers.

The artist has captured perfectly the comfortable relationship between the two. The boy´s face clearly shows a somewhat worn and jaded perspective, appropriate for someone way beyond his youthful years. His secondhand T'-shirt with the word "roar" (something he would probably never do), his Yankee cap and his one pair of "new jeans", which would only ever be worn on very special occasions, tell us a lot about his life, local culture...and the migration of second hand clothes from the US to street markets in Las Segovias.

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"El Chavalo Con Su Burro" (oil on canvas, 31.5"x39")
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    Background

    I sold house, car and most of my furniture to move to the small town of Ocotal in Las Segovias on the Honduras/ Nicaragua border.

    I planned on staying a year, but ended up staying two years, caught up by the country, its people and the work.

    To visit the place where I was volunteering, follow the link below to ILLS:

    El Instituto de Liderazgo de las Segovias

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© Copyright 2018 Richard Richards, Bournemouth, Dorset, UK
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  • Home
  • Personal Musings
  • All About "Presence"
    • en Español
  • NON-PROFIT
    • Photos
    • Nicaragua (in English)
    • Nicaragua (en Español)
  • About Richard
  • Contact