Thread by @Lynn_Nothegger

Ok, wasn’t going to go there but there are a lot of people completely missing the point David Lammy is making. Here’s where I went from being that ‘white saviour’ to seeing it as deeply problematic.

A couple of years ago, I was invited on a trip to Kenya with a group of bloggers from around the world. To write about maternal health and the importance of contraception access.

We also visited the CDC / KEMRI research and treatment facilities which were helping Kenyans with HIV and other infectious diseases such as TB. And yes, we visited slums.

Even while we were there, many of us were slightly uncomfortable. For me, it was the first time being exposed to many issues that I hadn’t considered. Issues that I’ve continued to read up on and inform myself about since.

Such as when one of the young women I met talked about the way Africa is presented to the world. Even that it’s ‘Africa’ which is the continent not the individual countries. I was in Kenya.

She said that ‘Africa is more than babies with flies on their eyes’. Which is the very image that Comic Relief relies on to shake money from the pockets of people who feel sorry for these starving babies.

And in some ways, that’s understandable. It’s sending a message to your target audience to convince them to take action. I work in marketing. I recognise the tactic. Make your audience feel emotion and they’ll act.

But it’s so damaging as that’s the image that we have of this vast and varied continent.

I stayed in a hotel that was as expensive as a luxury hotel here in Germany. We had better mobile network coverage even in the remote areas of Kenya than I have here in Germany or 30 mins drive from my parents house in Scotland.

Nairobi has a thriving, young IT entrepreneurial centre. They are years ahead of most western countries in terms of mobile payments.

I was a privileged white woman being shown around slums and mud huts so that I could influence my readers back home. But I was only reporting one side of the story.

I was reporting on the lives of young girls who wouldn’t go to school because they couldn’t afford sanitary protection. And the importance of family planning in changing the lives of women and their families.

And yes, all of that is important. But here’s the rub. The only reason I was reporting from Kenya is because we need someone who looks like me to talk about these issues. Because we don’t listen to the people who live there.

We could invite Kenyans to talk about their country and what they need. We could ask Kenyan comedians on a comedy show. We don’t because it wouldn’t raise money that’s needed. Because British public wouldn’t watch it.

Talking about this isn’t dismissing the work that Comic Relief and others have done for so many years. It is just saying that it’s time to move on. It’s time to learn and listen. To think about these issues differently.

How can we move from charitable giving to a more sustainable assistance for communities in countries like Kenya? Is it Fair Trade agreements that directly benefit the producers? Or something else?

I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers but we have to be willing to ask the questions. To get beyond the hurt feeling and ‘well, we’ll keep our money and help children in OUR country’ attitude.

And we white people have to shut up and listen (and I’m aware of the irony of writing this huge thread about this as a white woman but maybe it will make some people stop and think).

Poverty porn raises a lot of money and you may think that’s more important but it also strips the dignity from so many people.

I have photos of an amazing teacher who directly benefited from international programs to treat TB. And I can’t forget the dazzling smile of the HIV+ mum whose child was born negative because of CDC programs.

But we were also shown around slums and hospitals. In one, a woman had just suffered a miscarriage. She sat on her bed, facing the window as we trooped past. We’d be up in arms at the invasion of privacy if that was at home.

We asked personal and intrusive questions about the sex lives of people who had been diagnosed with HIV. How much dignity did these people have? Why did we have to tell their stories to encourage people back home to care?

Lammy isn’t being divisive. He’s opening a conversation. One that it seems Comic Relief just doesn’t want to have, which is a bit troubling to me. But don’t make this about this one MP (whether you like him or not).

Make it about the way we approach charitable giving, particularly in countries in Africa, and who we are centring in these discussions. If it’s the plucky British celeb with a heart for African orphans, it’s time for a rethink. / end of thread.

The only thing worse than a huge thread is one with a PS but I'm going to add some links on this topic. Have a read and a think.

This one is brilliant, from Chidera Ihejirika
afropunk.com/2018/06/white-…

The first article I read about this was this from Pippa Biddle, whose school group was so bad at building a library that locals had to sneakily take it down at night and rebuild in the morning.

huffingtonpost.com/pippa-biddle/l…

And this series on the trip I took is incredibly insightful. Most of the 'bloggers' were trained journalists (which I am not). I was there as a 'mummyblogger' representative. theguardian.com/science/the-la…

Here's an article about Nairobi's tech hub, which was just taking off when I was there. wired.com/story/kenya-si…

And I didn’t even touch on the issue of colonialism and why many countries even need aid. See thread here.

https://twitter.com/lottelydia/status/1101459858161844225?s=21

Thanks to @MattPage for introducing me to @selfhelpafrica - here's an example of a program that focuses on the people in Kenya, hires local folk and lets them talk for themselves. One way forward perhaps selfhelpafrica.org/uk/young-farme…