Barefoot and Begging - Comments on a Blog By RESULTS UK
Ricci Downard
In Our Generation We Can Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Unfair Trade. Campaigner for global justice.
Have just read “Barefoot and Begging - Pity Communications Do Everyone a Disservice” - a blog by RESULTS UK:
https://www.results.org.UK/blog/barefoot-and-begging-pity-aid-communications-do-everyone-disservice/
It brilliantly brings out three main points about the kind of lazy cartoon imagery that we sometimes see depicting poverty in the Developing World.
1. It strips away people’s history, their identity, their agency.?People of the Global South are not merely begging, they are actively engaged in development.
2. It strips ODA down to a simple “charity donation” mechanism.?This idea is too easy to believe as it is - we need to be showing and explaining how ODA is a really sophisticated global development tool.
3. Ra ra the Development Engagement Lab, whose research shows what kind of imagery helps encourage long-term support for donations and campaigns … the positive kind!
One thought experiment which I find useful in a range of different situations is to ask, “how would it be if our situations were reversed”.?If I were caring for children and other relatives in a part of the world where resources are very hard to come by.?If a journalist arrived from abroad and characterised my village as poverty-stricken, deprived, starving, desperate, helpless.?How would I feel?