What is Development/Helping
and does it work?

Hopefully this section will give you a clearer understanding of what development is all about and help you make informed choices about how you help.

Development should be about involving poor people in the process rather than making them simply objects of the development industry.  People's input and ways are crucial to success.  We have seen over the years many grand schemes of helping, and some of those have alleviated hardships and improved peoples lives, but many projects have done the exact opposite, creating intolerable hardship for the environment, women and children especially.  For example, the privatization of resources such as water in Bolivia,  the pressure on countries to expand their eonomies globally, or the destruction reaped on the environment all in the name of development.

The thinking that development means economic development , and that the only way forward for many countries is to abandon their traditional ways of living, relentlessly expand as per se the macro development model, and poverty will be alleviated, needs to be changed or at the very least reviewed.  Having said this, it is also important for those NGO's and humanitarian organizations to understand the political, social and humanitarian contexts of the recipient countries, and not just be seen as easy and artificial money making machines separate to the organic growth of the country and its people.

Development has to start from the people and has to begin from where they are in terms of social, economic and cultural factors.  It cannot begin from the outside.  Democratic and trustful groups and organizations need to represent the views of the people combined with a sensible and appropriate embracing of modern and scientific ideas.  Maybe, not every country wants to, or can be like the models as proposed by the west.  It is not a turning back of the clock, but an inclusion of all thoughts and processes instead of mere economic development and industrial growth.  This huge challenge has to be led from within.

If development aims to alleviate poverty, and the considering the amount of money within the industry and the many years it has been around, then why are our TV screens still filled with images of hunger and despair.   Combine this with the current state of the world, it is little wonder that there has been an explosion of hatred and violence flying under the banner of religion and ethnicity.  The time for compassion and change is well and truly here, and hopefully this project embraces a few of those concepts.