On Development, Part IV

Eddie Levert, lead singer for the O’Jays, once said: “Money money money money, money.” To this day, no one is quite certain exactly what it was he was talking about, so we’ll assume that he was trying to describe the life of a Peace Corps volunteer.

I swore into service in late November last year, and in the past year of being a volunteer (and the three months of training before that) I’ve had one prior expectation blown more than any other: that I’m really needed. The Peace Corps volunteer’s role (among other things) is to bring knowledge and innovation to the community – to incubate the American “can-do” attitude in parts of the world where chronic under-development have entrenched a mentality of fatalism and inertia. It’s the reason why the Peace Corps enlists volunteers right out of college; they may not have too much experience yet, but they’ve got the passion to transform the lives of others. I’m a youth developer here, and I’d been an English teacher and led youth programs back in the States, so I felt pretty confident coming into the Peace Corps that I could shake things up in my community.

It took about two weeks to be absolutely convinced that my community shakes plenty on its own. There are several youth associations working in the Dar Shebab and out, language programs and a fair number of English speakers qualified to give classes, and youth who take their own initiative to hold programs on issues relevant to their lives. What they actually don’t have are resources – computers for technical training, cameras for film projects, soccer goals with nets in them, paints and pencils and sheets of paper – in short, what they don’t have is money.

This is a problem, not only for the youth groups trying to develop themselves, but also for me as a Peace Corps volunteer. You see, most development organizations aren’t really doing development at all, they’re charities. They show up in a community and ask the people what they need, and then they give it to them (or at least they give the money to go get it). The Peace Corps is different. We [ideally] ask the people what they have and what they want to do and what they need in order to do it, and then we spend two years trying to help them find it. The difference is that the first style of “development” leaves the recipient without the knowledge of how to go get more things, or how to get replacement things if the things they’ve just been given break, other than to ask some other “development” group. The second style makes the recipient invest his or her own time, sweat, and money in getting things, and makes sure they know how to do it themselves for the next time. The first way’s a lot easier, though, and that’s what happens most of the time.

And so it’s a real struggle, not the least reason for which is that your community doesn’t always appreciate the difference between development and “development.” Counterparts are constantly coming to you asking for money or equipment, and so you try to explain this idea of sustainability with as little condescension as possible, all the while fully aware that they aren’t likely to be able to put up their own money to get these things even if you do show them how.

But you have to choose one path or another. Here are some of the ways I’ve dealt with this in my work in Freedonia, which will hopefully illustrate the complexity of the situation. None is a perfect solution.

You could just say no. As of yet, I haven’t completely done this as I’m still trying to push each request off into one of the other paths, but there’s undoubtedly going to be a handful that don’t get addressed by the time I’m finished.

You could just give it. So far, I’m happy in knowing that I haven’t just given anything that was asked for, though I have been proactive in seeing holes and filling them without having them brought to me. For example, there’s no art going on at the Dar Shebab, and the Peace Corps office ships out left over reams of paper and other items from time to time, so I’ve collected a handful and just gifted them over to a guy who I think will be able to take them and build something from them. I also got some paints and other art supplies from another volunteer, so I included those as well. And I’ve made a pretty thorough collection of baseball equipment – gloves, bats, and balls for baseball, softball, and whiffleball – and, though it’s still all in my house, I’ve made it available for the kids (and it will be going to them when I leave). I consider that one to be “Goal 2” (increasing awareness of American culture on the part of the peoples served), however, rather than “capacity building,” so that’s a bit of a different story.

You could put together a grant. The Peace Corps has two different models for this, though I haven’t actually done either one. Yet. They require the community to pay for 25% of the project themselves to ensure both that there is local ownership and that it truly meets a community-identified need. I’m about to have a seminar with all the various youth-serving organizations in town to teach them about how grants work – those that come from the Peace Corps as well as from other organizations. This is often the crucible for the organization. There is so much of a culture of expectancy built from bad development that many aren’t interested in going through the hoops of all this process. Part of that’s our fault. The volunteer is usually the one who knows how to do this, and, as a result, is the one who usually does it. A lot of people we work with expect or look to us to fill in all the blanks. I’ll have to write later about the success or failure of my little workshop.

You could connect them with another source. I suppose that this is very much like putting together a grant, but if you can put your group in contact with another organization that provides funds or resources, then they can pursue their goals independently. Obviously, the Peace Corps isn’t opposed to communities securing funding for their projects, they just want to make sure that these funds are brought in by the community and don’t lead to a dependency on the Peace Corps. I just finished one of these. A counterpart of mine is the organizer of an annual film festival, and earlier this summer I convinced him to add an amateur youth film competition as a part of it. He loved the idea, but had just one very legitimate concern: the festival budget just didn’t have the funds to bring film teams from all Morocco to Freedonia and provide them with food, lodging, prizes, workshops, and all the other accoutrements of a film competition.

Fortunately, I had earlier that year met some representatives of the US Embassy responsible for youth programming and outreach who had told me to let them know if I ever had any projects going on that they could be a part of (the Embassy loves working with volunteers because we’re plugged into the local communities and can give them a hand finding effective outlets for development funds). I wrote them an email, we wrote them a grant proposal, and they just left town after having sponsored the entire youth amateur competition. We had eleven youth film-makers from nine different communities (two of which had worked with other Peace Corps volunteers to make their films), an American film expert who held a workshop on film-making, a panel of professional directors, actors, and critics to judge the entries and give feedback on their work, and live screenings of all the films.

It was a raging success, and you probably think that I’m just going to keep bragging about how great a Peace Corps volunteer I am, but there’s a dark side even this which might turn out to be my biggest achievement in all my service. To start with, both the Embassy and my counterpart expected me to play a much larger part securing and administering the grant than Peace Corps ideology prefers, and it might be the case that it falls apart next year. I hope it doesn’t, but I can’t put my hands in it next year in good conscience. I’ve provided the model, and it will be their turn to copy it. I’ve also been inundated with requests from other counterparts for me to set them up with Embassy funds for their activities. Some are great ideas and I hope that we can realize them, though for the most part I have to send them to my other counterpart to make their contacts. Others are going to be disappointed, and there’s going to be resentment over perceived favoritism. Hopefully I can direct them into one or more different paths to get the resources they need, but I won’t be able to help everyone.

I definitely built a bridge between the cinema club and the Embassy (though it remains to be seen how well it’s used), but in doing so I probably used up a lot of the support beams necessary in some of my other bridges. That’s not entirely a bad thing, though it will make my work harder. Then again, I’m the third consecutive volunteer in town, and that means that I have to take down the scaffolding crutches that my predecessors set up to start Freedonia’s self-development. It’s not going to make me any friends, but I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to transform communities and make friends. I still get to incubate the “can-do” spirit, only I have to do it by pushing people in the water. I can point out the life preservers and shallow water, but they have to swim there on their own. That’s development.