meeting in the aisle

Day 5 - Walk in Her Shoes

Sponsor me as I Walk in her Shoes

For five days in a row I have walked 10,000 steps, and I have two days to go. These are the things I am discovering:

• Oh man, my life is too sedentary! 10,000 steps a day is hard when you have an office job. Lucky for me, my job involves a bit of moving around, but I still struggle to make my 10,000 steps without concerted effort.
• The streets are alive! With cool grafitti. With leaves turning every shade of orange. With people who are just waiting for the opportunity to smile back.
• My belly is full! I eat three meals a day, and I do my walking in comfy sneakers, and I am very aware of how lucky these two things are because many women and girls in developing countries are walking in bare feet, with empty bellies, and carrying heavy water bottles and bags with firewood in them. And I actually think about this a number of times during the day as I check and recheck my pedometer, eager for an extra thousand steps to magically appear.
• My friends and family are generous! I’ve already raised $585 - over half way to my target. Thank you! But there is still time for you to join the group of people with warm fuzzy donation feelings.

Sponsor me today - all money raised goes to CARE’s poverty-fighting projects working with women and girls in developing countries. And don’t forget, it’s tax deductible. Too hard an opportunity to refuse!

I’m Walking in Her Shoes!

Every day millions of girls are kept out of school because they’re too busy collecting water, food and firewood for their families. Millions of women spend the majority of their days doing the same, which severely limits their ability to earn an income, participate in leadership or governance activities, or learn new skills which could help them break free from poverty. And I know this stuff isn’t just spin - I’ve seen it. Too many times.

Which is why I’m joining in CARE’s fundraiser Walk In Her Shoes. From next Monday I will walk 10,000 steps per day for seven days while raising money for women and girls living in poverty. Given we’re heading into the grips of winter, the prospect of strolling Melbourne’s streets all gloved up is not as delightful as it could be…but walk I will!

I’m setting myself the very conservative fundraising target of $300, and I’d love if you could help me reach it.

Sponsor me, or even better, sign up yourself.

p.s. Don’t forget it’s tax time, and all donations over $2 are tax deductible.

Is ‘The Amazing Race’ really better than poverty porn?

There is quite a debate raging at the moment about poverty porn and the negative imagery and stereotypes many charities use to raise money.

Over at Wronging Rights there is a discussion about the positive portrayal of “the real Ghana” in the American reality TV show The Amazing Race (TAM) acting as an ‘antidote to poverty porn.’

I recently saw the episode where contestants go to Dhaka, Bangladesh, and I was also impressed with the depiction of one of the most populous cities in the world where poverty is visible on every street.

Wronging Rights praises TAM for showing Americans struggling to do things Ghanains do every day, showing a positive and cheerful side of Ghana, and showing realities like traffic jams and homes with TVs.

In Ghana, TAR confounds expectations by doing the exact opposite. It (a) shows bumbling Americans; (b) highlights the lives of Ghanaians in Ghana; (c) rejects poverty porn. - Wronging Rights

There is an acknowledgment that the comments coming out of the mouths of some of the contestants are pretty awful:

“I hope I get to hold little African babies” - a female contestant.

But there is much support for the depiction of a different side of Ghana than one portrayed by fundraising charities (I use ‘different’ as opposed to ‘real’ because there are many versions of the ‘real’ sides of places - but that’s a whole other blog post on its own).

My problem with this argument is that this TV show does a better job at portraying people living in Africa than charities who use poverty porn because it is like comparing apples to oranges - we’re talking about completely different things.

The purpose of The Amazing Race is to entertain. It is not a documentary, it is a competition, and it most certainly not reality.

How can this be compared to a fundraising appeal which seeks to raise the money needed to fund aid projects? While it is wonderful to think that portraying entertaining, happy, funny images of developing countries and that being enough to inspire people to dig into their pockets - fundraising departments are often skeptical at how effective this would really be.

I want to be clear here that I am just as disappointed at poverty porn myself, (and have said so here and here), but I think this comparison between an entertainment show and fundraising appeals is unfair and unrealistic.

What would be more helpful in progressing the charity world on from relying on poverty porn would be more examples of charities raising substantial amounts of money and support using positive imagery.

To start, I suggest looking at the way Charity:water fundraises. Right now their landing page doesn’t have a single image of sad looking people living in poverty. It’s the same story with their christmas appeal and even when they are informing you about the problems of dirty water, they manage to do it without a single heart-wrenching image.

Kudos to you (yet again), Charity:water…