Individual actions within complex systems are key to dismantling hierarchical institutions’ ties to oppressive systems.
Internal champions for change within often feel isolated & without support, yet they hold an key role in fundamental changes to #globaldev ways of working. /1
Opportunities for building so-called “soft” collaborative skills remain largely unavailable to many "champions" in their professional workplaces. Find peers, comradeship, and belonging that will enable you to take more “risks” within your organization: healingsolidarity.org /2
The focus can be not only on the individual and professional growth needed for action, but on specific skills related to speaking up and to change management processes. And none of us can do this alone: how-matters.org/services/ /3
Together let's build the skills and confidence to have braver conversations with our colleagues. I believe we have to “build the muscle” to overcome learned helplessness & institutional inertia that is a result of privilege. patreon.com/howmatters?fan… /4
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In my communications consulting work, I advise #globaldev organizations to no longer view communications as an “add-on” service department, first beholden to the #fundraising function of an organization. /1
At this point in history, communications departments can and must be developing narrative change strategies that support the vision of the world they and their partners are building. #DevComms /2
Charitable portrayals of “helping” often conjure up victimhood and passivity in order to validate the assistance being given. #devcomms#comms4dev#comms4good#fundraising /2
There is a growing awareness that these portrayals uphold - rather than counteract - historical, deeply colonial, and continually politicized notions of “the other.”
People in rich countries don’t often hear stories about organized people improving their communities in the Global South or strong organizations pushing their governments to change policies that hurt poor people. #DevComms#aid#globaldev#NGOs /1
Rather, the aid system is built on an assumption that outside experts have the knowledge, skills, and resources that are lacking in poor countries and communities. /2
Also the aid system is predicated on marketing materials that show needy, desolate, and despondent individuals unable to help themselves, and so, the stories persist, even if they little resemble what is happening in reality, on the ground. /3