Transitions

Yesterday was our final gathering of #Globaldev Communicators Connect in the Healing Solidarity Collective, where we closed out with a burial of the word "BENEFICIARY" in the international aid and philanthropy sector.

As much as possible, can we please just say "PEOPLE"?!

For almost 3 years, Joan Okitoi-Heisig and I have organized this space and have enjoyed welcoming so many people to be braver together in reimagining communications related to "helping" around the world.

Painting a fuller picture of people’s lives in our rapidly-changing world is becoming part of everyone’s job.

We've hosted 27 sessions since October 2020 for people who wanted more honest and in-depth conversations about working within power asymmetries and global inequalities while trying to communicate about "doing good."

The theme of yesterday's gathering was “Transitions” to reflect this closing chapter of #Globaldev Communicators Connect within Healing Solidarity, but also to inspire and fuel our ongoing personal and professional transformations within our sector.

Our meetings have largely supported participants to learn from other communicators in the sector (we welcomed different guests and topics each month) and reflected on where/when we personally might be able to take more “risks” to ignite change in how our organizations communicate about our work.

We invited amazing (!) communicators from FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund , Oxfam Novib , Africa No Filter , Fondo Acción Urgente - LAC, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) , Mangal Media, Whose Knowledge? , Urgent Action Fund - Asia and Pacific , and Positively African Media - folks paving the way when it comes to narrative change, offering examples of how to do nonprofit communications with more integrity. We also welcomed amazing artists and leaders like Neha Misra , Onyango Otieno , Vidushi Yadav , Isabel Crabtree-Condor , Efe Levent , Natalie Lartey , Priscila Bellini , Deepthy Menon (She/Her) , Cassandra Herrman , Kathryn Mathers , and Ma?mouna Jallow , who shared with us their time, talents and triumphs (and challenges!). We are deeply grateful. ??

We honor everyone who arrived to these 27 sessions with your enthusiasm, questions, frustrations, ideas and commitment to changing the way we communicate about our work. For all that you do, day in and day out, to usher in this needed transition, we are deeply grateful. ??

Finally, we honor Healing Solidarity , our hosts, our home, and where our content will continue to live and be accessible. To the HS staff and supporters for making this work possible and the continued invitation to reimagine practice in the global development sector, we are deeply grateful. ??

In these meetings, people connected with peers who are also trying to challenge the “infusion of outside expertise” paradigms within their organizations, and they got honest about what this requires of ourselves, our teams, and our communications strategies. For communicators in the Global North, this may mean understanding the power in "narrative framing" or the selection of words, images, editing, comparisons, and even what stories to cover that can perpetuate societal-wide stereotypes in the dominant culture or shift values. For communicators in the Global South, this may mean recognizing and unlearning the internalized white gaze of development.

Regardless, the jobs of communicators in these times are to encourage and amplify previously ignored voices and create opportunities for all people to connect with universality of the human experience.

Narrative change in the global development sector matters because this is how stereotypes, generalizations, victimization, exploitation, heroism, white dominant culture, and other systems of oppression are exposed, challenged, and healed.

We can all speak up against and amidst injustice when we have built a sense of community - less alone in our concerns and more supported in our own needed growth, learning, and leaps forward.

At least that is what Joan and I hoped would happen in these gatherings when we first started out, almost three years ago now.

As we all continue the work to transition from charity to solidarity in our communications, what do we want to celebrate and what work remains to be done?

What are you transitioning at this time?