The Blue Sweater

What a wonderful coincidence! I did not bring enough reading material on our trip to Kenya, so when Laurel said she had a few books, I took her up on her offer to borrow The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz (Rodale Books, 2010). I can honestly say that the combination of this book and our trip radically transformed my worldview in a most important way. Novogratz begins her book by saying:

“They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I took mine and fell flat on my face. As a young woman, I dreamed of changing the world. In my twenties, I went to Africa to try and save the continent, only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving. Indeed, when I was there, I saw some of the worst that good intentions, traditional charity, and aid can produce: failed programs that left people in the same or worse conditions.”

Reading her story while traveling through Kenya was a powerful educational experience.

Much of my service experience in schools has been to help the children collect money, books, clothing, etc. to give to others less fortunate than we. While the intent may have been good and the results may have been better than doing nothing, Novogratz cites example after example to show the problems with this model. She talks about a woman named Aisha in Kenya who told her that she and her friends were tired of white American women coming with answers without knowing enough about the people they were trying to help to even have any questions. Novogratz and her foundation strive to identify the most competent people in an area and invest in and support them to bring about change. She sees these people as partners and collaborators rather than poor people who need to be saved. The changes brought about by this model have proven to be much more sustainable and therefore effective.

Our ESHA group has struggled with the following because of our experience: What if our desire to help causes a culture to change dramatically or even disappear? For instance, could efforts to help educate more Kenyan children receive an education lead them to turn away from their traditional occupations or cause certain dialects to die out and be replaced by Swahili or English -- and should we worry about that?

As is often the case, the more we come to know, the more we want and need to know. This book and this trip certainly made us want to learn even more.

Muddy

Laurel reads to Pauline Labarakwe and Ntacha Orbora, Ngurunit

(Photo credit: Muddy Waters)