Secretary General Ban Ki Moon opens the UN’s 2008 report on progress towards the Millennium Development Goals with several cautionary notes. “The economic slowdown will diminish the incomes of the poor; the food crisis will raise the number of hungry people in the world and push millions more into poverty; climate change will have a disproportionate impact on the poor.” Secretary Ban goes on to attribute some of these threats to progress on a lack of concerted effort and attention by developed nations.
Some people say that development aid has a decreasing role to play in improving livelihoods. There is no question that development – economic and social – must be led from within communities, states and regions. But can we really expect developing nations to unwind the issues facing them in an intensely interconnected world without aligned efforts from developed countries?
Secretary Ban goes on to say that “the current troubled climate poses a risk that some advances in reducing poverty may unravel. Some gains, however, cannot be undone. A child will forever benefit from the primary education he or she might not otherwise have received. Many individuals are alive today thanks to a measles vaccination or antiretroviral therapy for AIDS. These and other examples provide ample evidence of what can and has been achieved with sound strategies backed by political will and financial and technical support.”
As we all weather this uncertain time, we can’t forget how poverty, or social and political instability increase exposure to an severe economic downturn. We also can’t forget some basic human facts. The ties that bind are between people, and then between communities.
In a time when we might want to turn inwards, and when a dollar is worth more than ever, organizations like the IHF are more important than ever. By deepening ties between communities, we are able to stretch donors’ dollars to very great lengths. And by building sustainable partnerships between communities abroad and students in the US, the IHF creates a groundwork for the ongoing support that developing communities and countries need. As Secretary Ban says, some changes can never be undone. This goes as much for a child in the developing world as for a student at a top US university.
When a few other members of Brown University and I started the IHF Brown chapter, we weren’t completely sure what we were getting ourselves into. What exactly was SYJAC and how did it affect the daily lives of its community members? What difference could we, a group of American students, do in the lives of the indigenous people of Chiapas, Mexico? Our winter break trip to San Cristobal de las Casas taught us all this, as we experienced firsthand and participated in the process of community building and international activism. Our main project while in San Cristobal was to paint the SYJAC community center, which was only being marginally used for a daycare center and was essentially a giant block of cement. The painting took about 7 days of full labor, and included numerous random tasks such as attempting to communicate in our stumbling Spanish with the paint shop workers, and helping the 3- to 5-year-old daycare members to slap their handprints all over the finished painted walls. It was exhausting work, but very satisfying to see the place brighten little by little. After a lot of sweat, perseverance, and paint smears, we completed the center and inaugurated it with a community party on our last weekend in Mexico. The party was a chance for us to connect our work to the people we were working for, and realize that just this simple act of painting a center would have lasting effects.Now that the center was painted, it would be used for a number of different local projects and fundraising efforts to provide sustainability and institutionalization for the community. Now that we are back in the US, we plan to keep in touch with SYJAC and the community’s progress. We will help in any way we can with local projects, and we are in the planning stages of beginning a letter exchange program with a local Chiapas youth group, in order to foster an interchange of cultural and societal ideals about our different societies and potential for positive change. Through these plans, we hope to keep the SYJAC spirit alive on Brown’s campus and continue to be promoters of social change.
The TED lecture linked below is fabulous. It has some of the better data visualization I have seen. And the story told by the data is narrated wonderfully by the speaker, statistician Hans Rosling.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html
Dr. Rosling’s story centers on two truths. First, his analysis demonstrates that the so-called ‘third world’ is anything but monolithic. Indeed, it is unrealistic to think of regions, or even of countries, possessing similar development characteristics. See Rosling’s demonstration of child mortality in South Africa, Uganda and Niger at about minute 14. This display really brings home that development is a community issue. Money quote – “the improvement of the world must be highly contextualized.”
The second truth that Dr. Rosling testifies is the importance of bringing this insight to students around the world. He states how excited his students become when faced with data that allow them to grapple with the enormous complexity of development in a focused, coherent manner.
These two truths connect deeply with the insight at the heart of the IHF’s mission – that communities must take the lead in their own development; and that immersion in community-led development, supported by leadership development and education, will produce the next generation of leaders for the development sector.
Here is a wonderful video on a spring break trip Haverford College students took as part of a class taught by Political Science Professor Anita Isaacs. Many of the trip’s participants are now part of the IHF Haverford chapter. Four years ago, I participated in a similar trip and months later founded the IHF Haverford chapter as a response. This video does an incredible job of explaining the complexities of Guatemalan society, its history, and how this class trip inspires young people to live in solidarity and work for change. Some images in the video might be disturbing.
Check it out: http://www.haverford.edu/multimedia/video/2008June/digging/
Check out this video on the IHF Dartmouth chapter’s work in Yambiro, Ecuador. Our partner, the Ali Shungu Foundation, was so pleased with the work the chapter did, the community showed up in impressive numbers for the projects, and the IHF couldn’t be more proud of their work!
http://www.alishungufoundation.com/New/dartmouth/index.html
We maintained our friendship with Natalia and Chonita over the years - always checking on how they were doing and making small talk whenever we made a site visit, but when we came back to Santiago in August of 2007 for a full year, we began to see much more of Natalia, Chonita, and Chonita’s little brother, Domingo. Each time, Natalia told me more about her situation, including the seriousness of her husband’s condition and the lack of support from her family and in-laws. She had heard about a rehab program which had been successful for some other notorious Santiago alcoholics, and she wanted to send her husband, Max to this program. I sat quietly, thinking about her roundabout request for a loan of Q1200 ($160) for the three months of rehab while I watched little Chonita and Domingo, clearly underfed, devour six bananas in one sitting. I then agreed to the request and told her that she didn’t have to pay me back; but of course, Natalia continued offering to do a variety of things on my behalf.
Three months later, Max returned to his family and I finally met him. He had noticeable symptoms of liver damage and lots of unexplained pain, but he was extremely grateful to everyone. He began attending Alcoholics Anonymous or his family’s church on a nightly basis and has since been actively working or searching for work and providing for his family. He is now almost eight months sober.
Through Natalia’s “volunteer” work, I realized that she had a special skill with a measuring tape and a good eye for textile quality. Apparently, Natalia had spent a few years working in a sweatshop in Guatemala City. So, when the IHF’s Just Apparel project was in need of a quality control manager, she was a perfect fit (and of course the project pays her a living wage and ensure a relaxed working environment!). She has been working as a leader with Just Apparel since April and her family is now making a consistent living wage. Chonita has started school, the family moved into a new house in the government funded Post Hurricane Stan reconstruction site (yes, they were victims of the 2005 mudslide as well), and Max is contributing to the family instead of taking from it.
While this is a story of one family, it is representative of the kinds of long-term relationships that stem from the long-term partnership model of the IHF. These relationships are not only valuable in and of themselves (for all parties involved); they also allow us to move beyond generalities and demographics into unique stories and respond to the specific needs of specific people. These small steps and individual stories each contribute to a larger process of empowerment and grassroots change.
We met Natalia in 2005 when the IHF was working primarily with children in Santiago Atitlan. Natalia was the mother of one of the youngest children we received in the after school program and one of the biggest pains in my neck. Chonita, then 2.5 years old, was always crying, screaming, and hitting the other children. Despite the fact that her older cousins were always there to help her, she was never pleased. Finally, I got the chance to speak with her mother, Natalia, one of the best female Spanish speakers in this predominantly Tzutujil speaking community (most women in the community don’t understand the national language of Spanish). Natalia told me that Chonita didn’t talk much yet, but when she did, she was always complaining about how much her tummy hurt. “Ok, why don’t we just take her over to the hospitalito and have her stool tested?” I said with a knowing tone. I myself had just tested positive for giardia, a common parasite in the area. “No,” Natalia said, “We just don’t have enough money.” I proceeded to convince her not to worry about it that the Hospitalito was sponsored by other foreigners and they would give her a significant discount. She was only persuaded when I promised to accompany her and Chonita to the hospital. While we were in the waiting room, Natalia explained why it was that didn’t have enough money — her husband was one of the town drunks and drug addicts and he stole from her every time she had a few quetzales — he even stole her clothes and sold them for money!
After the positive parasite diagnosis came back, the final cost of the test, consultation and medicine was Q12 (about $1.60). Natalia only had Q2 to her name (about $0.27), so I told her not to worry about it and paid the tab without thinking twice. I then made sure I explained thoroughly to Natalia how to avoid contracting parasites yet again.
The next day she brought me two frog keychains made out of beads. She told me that she had made them for me since she couldn’t pay me back in cash. Maybe, she argued, I could sell them in the United States for more and make some money. Over the next few weeks, Chonita quickly became my favorite among the kids. She was always laughing, playing, and giving out hugs.
The IHF has just released its Summer 2008 newsletter. Check it out.
There is nothing quite like waking up in a new place, around people you’ve only just met, expecting to start your first day of work, and realizing that your stomach is so cramped up it hurts to be awake, let alone move. It happened to me shortly after I arrived in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, and I survived, but allow me to explain what transpired before I knew that I would be ok.
I drank some water, lied down, and texted Heidi, the Just Apparel project manager that I would be working with. “I’m not feeling so great, I’m just going to lie down a bit longer,” I wrote. I didn’t want to be a chore on my first day. 30 minutes later I threw up the water, and 30 minutes after that I dry heaved because there was nothing left in my stomach to throw up. By that point I had called Heidi, but I still didn’t want to be a pain, and I figured it had to be a virus that would pass.
Sadly, though I suppose this makes for a better story, it did not pass that easily, for the rest of the morning my stomach would not stop hurting and I would periodically throw up/dry heave. At one point Heidi was checking on me and I went into the bathroom to dry heave some more. Heidi made the executive decision that it was time to go to the hospitalito. I was reassured that the Hospitalito was a good place and filled with American volunteers. I thought back to my 19-year-old roommate’s spring break trip to Latin America where she had been asked to administer shots and other drugs for the first time. “Don’t let me have a ‘doctor’ like that,” I thought.
When I got to the hospitalito, they had a lot of difficulty finding my shrunken, dehydrated veins, and may have stuck me a couple times before they could get the IV in, but otherwise I received very good care. It turns out I had giardia, a nasty parasite that was attacking my stomach and intestines. I was sent home with some Flagyll medication, which does wonders to kill the parasites, but tastes terrible. Within a couple days I was out and running again, and I finally Ihad my first day of work.
It’s striking how easy it is for a comparatively wealthy volunteer from the US to contract a parasitic infection, get treatment, and get back to business, while so many children around here have chronic intestinal problems. Giardia is just a part of life for the population of Santiago. Clean water is hard to come by, and it’s certainly not cheap. The sewage system here is rudimentary, and in the outlying areas, latrines are far from universally available. I suppose people’s bodies get used to parasites (any doctors who can confirm that in the comments?), but after what I went through, it’s hard to imagine.
I’ve learned that if you come from the right place you can get sick in a foreign country, around people you barely know, and live to smile about it… though you might want to wait till the stomach cramps go away to laugh - it hurts a lot less.
Katie
This morning Heidi and I were talking to the lawyer who’s helping us out with the legal formation of the Just Apparel Partner Artisans’ group. Specifically, we were discussing the contracts that we had asked him to draw up between the artisans’ association and Dolores, our general manager, and Natalia, our quality control specialist. Natalia works for JA part time at an hourly wage of 10 quetzales, which is more than double what she made when she worked at a textile factory in Guatemala City and about one and a half times the Guatemalan minimum wage computed hourly. We expressed that we were hoping to formalize that relationship and give Natalia the benefit of being a contractually employed worker. And that’s when we stumbled inadvertently into the labyrinthine mess that is Guatemalan labor law.
You see, if I understand our conversation correctly, there’s no such thing as a part-time job in Guatemala. The minimum wage is not computed hourly, but rather monthly, and there’s no provision for someone who works less than eight hours a day six days a week to earn a prorated salary that varies by hours worked. That monthly minimum salary is Q.1310 ($175). But, naturally, there’s also a government-mandated “bonificacion incentivo” (incentive bonus) that each worker has to receive. The last time I checked, a mandatory bonus isn’t an incentive. It’s a raise. So that brings the monthly salary to Q.1560 ($210). In addition to the mandatory monthly bonus, the law also requires a mandatory bi-annual bonus of one month’s salary. So, for every twelve months of work, the law requires fourteen months of salary. That means that over the course of a year, a worker is legally entitled to Q.21840 ($2950).
Now, from the perspective of the US, that sounds pitifully small, right? A family of six (average for Guatemala) with two workers would still only earn $3.70 per person per day, which isn’t exactly the makings of a life of material comfort. As someone working to promote grassroots development efforts in Guatemala, I would love nothing more than to see everyone here earning more than the minimum wage. There’s just one catch. With all the bonuses and the like, the Guatemalan minimum wage comes out to be 118% of the estimated 2007 GDP per capita. As a point of comparison, if the US were to mandate a minimum wage that large, the minimum annual salary would be $54,100. Using the 55-hour work week that’s common in Guatemala, that would compute to a minimum hourly wage of around $18.90, or 2.75 times the federal minimum wage once it rises this summer.
Given the level of income inequality in Guatemala (the wealthiest 10% of Guatemalans earn over 43% of the country’s income), it’s currently impossible for everyone who works to earn minimum wage. There’s simply no way. It appears that the Guatemalan state may have let its good intentions get ahead of what is realistically possible. I have to ask if perhaps it wouldn’t be better for the government here to lower the minimum wage a little, allow for an hourly minimum wage for part-time employment, and bring a larger percentage of the population into the formal labor force, thereby at least granting those people basic labor rights, even if they weren’t earning an exceptional salary.
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