The Globals' Generation?

Or the "cool American 20-something heros" with the "white savior complex"?


This week I came across two very different articles about young people in international development work. The first is 


I encourage anyone who has time and has interest in this sort of thing to take a look at them both, and make your comments here.


The first is: "'Globals' Generation Focuses On Experience" by Sam Sanders (NPR)
The second is "The White Savior Industrial Complex" by Teju Cole (The Atlantic)


Together, from my perspective, the contrasting perspectives from these articles make an inseparable pair. I don't think you can understand one without the other. I don't think either is quite useful without the other. The fact is, there is a growing number of young people, like me, who want to not only see the outside world, but be a dynamic and valuable part of it. And as we will learn, assuming we learn with open eyes and mind, there is an easy way to travel the world and stroke your ego, and there is a difficult way, that takes time, frustration, confusion, and feelings of uselessness intercepted by small, real victories. When we get here, we all oscillate somewhere in between. 


The following is from an email to my colleagues in Burkina and Cameroon, as we have been discussing the Cole article and what it means in our partnerships.


The discussion of forging partnerships is one that we will have continually throughout our careers. It's part of what makes development work challenging- having to always reflect on the purpose of your work in the great context of global dynamics and the often blinded human desires to simply "do good for the world".

Of course, the Globals article resonated with me in terms of the trajectory of our lives as being strikingly different from previous generations. As development work and travel are getting more and more popular for "cool American 20-something heros" (as Cole calls them), we have to be concerned that young people aren't just flooding into Africa with all hopes of saving the world without having anything sustainable to offer.

As young researchers, I truly feel like we do have something sustainable to offer, as long as we do pay close attention to our relationships with our partners. We are fortunate here in Togo to work with very educated, very motivated people. One thing that draws me into qualitative research in international health is that the benefit we offer is not so much our resources or our privileged background, or our superior knowledge. It is a fresh and different cultural perspective, a means for people to look at their culture and society in a deeper and fresher way, that if done  in an ideal fashion, can be free of the superiority complex. Qualitative tools, I believe, allow for that, and are even more valuable when you have a diverse team of people designing and implementing them. In the same way, I think some of our Togolese partners should be invited to the States to help us do a qualitative study on why Americans waste so much energy, or what we really believe our health rights and policies ought to be.

I would never give up international work on account of "Dead-Aid"- like criticisms, but I find I need to constantly keep myself in check to really be a "partner". What we do here is a microcosm of what we want to happen in the world. We need to constantly be careful not to let the "white savior" in us prevail, and really strive to set grassroots for a world of global partnerships?

The hardest part of all this is the outside world's admiration for the "White Savior" and ignorance to the complexities of global politics, development, and culture. If the "Global Generation" is truly upon us, I challenge any of you young people out there to become leaders of it. Set an example of humility, patience, respect, and the importance of defining what you really will offer when you travel abroad. 

Pictures- Lomé and Kpolimé

My Street in Lomé

Kpolimé- where we went for a weekend hiking trip

Natural paints in the artist's village

A work of natural art on Annie's arm

Chez Paul- a cute little restaurant where we had lunch, fresh pineapple juice, and relaxed in the hills

The grand marché in Lomé

I fell in love with this one

What we're trying to do here

So I suppose now I’ll catch you all up on what I’m doing.

I’ll be here until August 24^th. Maybe. At least that’s the plan now. And then I go back. Maybe. And do a PhD? A Job? Maybe. Bounce around the world a little bit? Stay on the Togo project a bit? I’m not sure yet. I have options, which is great. Being here has invigorated me, and made me realize I’m still young, healthy, and able to really have the freedom to gather new experiences at my choosing. But for the moment…

I got this gig through Hopkins’ Research2Prevention project: www.jhsph.edu/r2p. It’s a USAID funded effort to find out more about what we call HIV MARPs, or “Most-At-Risk-Populations”. The populations we are focusing on here in Togo are MSM (Men who have sex with men) and female SW (Sex workers, aka prostitutes). There is really hardly anything known about what’s going on with these populations in West Africa because they are so stigmatized and hidden, but it’s about time somebody started paying attention. Funding for HIV/AIDS prevention out here typically goes to projects that are general, blanketed… that paint billboards of a man and woman couple holding a condom leaving MSM thinking that they’re not at risk. The point of this research is to first of all, get the prevalence of HIV and other STIs in MSM and SW and estimated the size of the populations. We’re doing this in Togo, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon. There are pretty cool methods to do this, and Annie is the advisor for these numeric, quantitative research activities.

 Then there is a qualitative side of it- which is what my job is focused on. We want to know the in-depth experiences of these populations as they relate to HIV prevention, testing, and treatment. Are they accessing services? We’ll being doing interviews and focus groups and talking analyzing qualitative data to really paint a picture of these populations that to this day are still many unanswered questions about.

But we are far, far from collecting the data. The project is interesting yet, but the preliminary work is tough. It’s going through documents, protocols, budgets. And Annie is great- she commands the room, knows how to push things along. But as for me, I just chime in every once in a while. It’s quite funny how Togolese, or most West Africans I am aware of in general, work. Every since line is debated upon, examined… And they typically show up at least 45minutes sometimes an hour late to the meetings. Our job at this point is translate the documents, let them work on them, and just to be there if they have questions, which they have lots. Our favorite in the past week was “Well why do we need to pay the participants for the qualitative interviews? They’re just coming into talk!”

We have quite a cast of characters. Some spunky women, sharp but menacing young men, a plump and jolly accountant, and a suave and hip, yet terribly fidgety young, gay guy.  Yet they are all very educated, and though the pace of work is slow here, they are really doing a good job. There are moments of laughter, moments of arguing, moments, many moments, in which I have no idea what is happening. But we are looking to finish the documents on Monday, which will be quite a relief. Then, we’ll work on trainings and site development. I’m not sure what to make of all this yet, but so far so good. Is this kind of work, this kind of life for me in the end? Too early to tell.

We had a little 4^th of July lunch for our colleagues. Annie and I impressed ourselves by making a genuine American picnic- hamburgers, hotdogs, potato salad, and a good ole apple pie.

I miss you all but have heard its quite hot back home. The ocean breeze and the rainy days are keeping us pretty cool. We’re off to some mountains for a hike today. I’ll get better about taking pictures.

Hope you are still reading-

Emily