Puzzle Pieces of Change
Puzzle Pieces for Change
It’s neither a new or nor a groundbreaking statement that traditional development efforts are inappropriate and/or ineffective. They impose a Western worldview on someone else, and functionally, most traditional development interventions exist in siloes. Even the term “development” itself is a Western construct that implies a certain type of improvement that follows a relatively specific agenda – “we think you need this” (sanitation, industry, energy, etc.).
Traditional development in terms of infrastructure projects imposed by multilateral companies on local communities “for their own good” are clearly models of the past. Even institutions like the World Bank have for many years acknowledged the failure of “traditional” development and at least on paper, are looking for alternative models and ways to engage with civilians and civil society through innovative partnerships. We are now arguably in a transition space where we are not only redefining what development actually is, but who it serves, why it is done, and what the overall goal is.
I would argue, we’re taking – or we should be taking – a systems view of development to understand its effectiveness, or as Donella Meadows would say, the “leverage points” for change. Systems thinking is something thrown around in development spheres and in academic institutions – although not as commonly as you would expect, and definitely not applied as the norm.
Although it sounds somewhat complicated, systems thinking is really simple – I like to think of it as a puzzle – the system is the whole puzzle together, the final picture that you see on the box from the beginning and have to work on various sub-puzzle sections to complete. In terms of development, the whole puzzle is the end result – what sort of reality are you helping a locality create? Are the local community members in the picture? Are the most vulnerable members of the local community in the picture?
The main issue with my puzzle metaphor is that it implies a two-dimensional picture, and one of the key components of a systems perspective is that it includes the interactions between different parts of a system – the feedback systems and loops that influence each other. So perhaps a 3D puzzle is more appropriate…
Regardless, people complete puzzles differently – some start on the perimeter, forming the border. Others work on a certain corner section. Others start from the middle out. But the key is that they are all working towards the same ultimate vision.
A puzzle is a relevant metaphor for change in terms of identifying leverage points for key interventions, forecasting interactions between interventions and formulating a picture of the final objective. For instance, a common first step of puzzle making is finding the corner pieces. These are “keystone areas” for change.
At Windly, when we look for organizations to support, amplify, or partner with, we look for organizations that embrace this systemic perspective or are working towards key pieces of this system that we have identified, even if they don’t realize it themselves.
As an individual, even if you aren’t a humanitarian, development, or environmental practitioner (although I would argue that everyone can and should be J), there are easy ways to begin to see things from a systems perspective. Some of these include:
- Understanding the historic context something operates in is an easy first step towards systems thinking. This basically helps the brain start processing in a way that looks beyond what’s directly in front of you.
- Look for big impacts made by something seemingly small. In the natural world, keystone species are species that hold a seemingly unlikely influence on their natural environment – in other words, without them the ecosystem collapses or changes drastically. Bees are a keystone species.
- Begin looking for interactions between different things. In climate change studies, we can look at increasing atmospheric temperatures from a systems perspective, particularly a positive feedback loop. A useful example is when temperatures rise in the atmosphere due to greenhouse gas concentration, permafrost melts in the artic, releasing more greenhouse gases and further increasing the atmospheric warming and releasing more permafrost, and so on and so on. A positive feedback loop is a self-reinforcing cycle.
Systems thinking is not a “new age” or ultra-liberal approach to change; rather it’s a pragmatic and strategic assessment of a situation that is dynamic and multifaceted. It allows for creative innovations to emerge as solutions are explored and it can include a variety of sectors and stakeholders. In short, it’s a necessary model for complexity – and it’s the way we approach every project here at Windly.
Why do we go? An insight into Windly's travel philosophy
Sit on camp chair.
Observe. write. consider.
This “linear” observation
seems strange.
Wash laundry. Fill jerry can.
Cow shit. Dog drink. Baby drink.
All one body.
Men sit, watch, read, text.
Women labor, wash, fill, direct.
Cows shit. Ding – cowbell.
Sweet earthy smell
brings back memories of
East African days and nights
long gone.
To travel is to observe.
To learn, to share
to experience
this smell.
Rich earthy.
Strong yet fragile.
Hello birdie.
Observe. write. appreciate.
Linear?
Welcome to Maun.
Traveling to faraway places can be expansive – it can inspire magic and wonder and curiosity about the world. It can enable you to explore different ways of being and ways of seeing the world. But traveling is also impactful, and not always in a positive way. In a world where most students, particularly American students, study or travel abroad in some capacity, it is vital that they view themselves within the larger system that they are participating in.
I have been fortunate to travel extensively for adventure and for work (and sometimes both at once) throughout most of my adult life, oftentimes to places extremely different from the culture I was born into, in the United States, and the culture that helped me become “me”, in Switzerland and then later in South Africa.
I’ve participated in many different types of tourism, especially here in Africa – I’m writing this from a café in Cape Town, where I’m based for a few weeks prepping for an event I’m running in a few months. As of this writing, I’ve traveled to 28 countries (eek – two more to 30!) via study abroad programs, short “academic travels” with my university, adventure trips with friends, leading my own student trips, solo trips, work trips and everything in between. Throughout the years I’ve thought critically about my role as a privileged, white foreigner who often travels to places that are typically the opposite of that and wanted to share a bit of my perspective on this as it aligns closely with Windly’s travel philosophy.
The roots of my understanding of [what I’m going to call] the postcolonial dynamics of tourism, particularly educational tourism, or in my case a “research practicum” go back to a winter’s day in Southeastern Kenya in July 2013. It was my first time in Sub-Saharan Africa and I was beyond eager to experience the reality of public health work in East Africa firsthand.
I think I was perhaps uniquely positioned to gain such a perspective, as unlike most students on this trip, I was not pre-med and came from a university that prized itself on critical assessments of cross-cultural interactions (at least in the classroom).
Our main task was to support the ongoing research of the impacts of the closure of a non-profit health clinic run by an American philanthropist on Maasai community members in the IMbirikani Group Ranch (a province). I learned some really hard lessons about foreign development on this trip, and I’ll get into those in another post. But today I want to talk about the social dynamics of research and student programs at play, and how that shapes the model of tourism that Windly supports and designs.
In Kenya, each of us was paired with another student and Maasai translator before we were sent out to various parts of the region to interview community members. It was a crash course in intercultural competence – more than I could have ever learned in a classroom, but only possible to understand because of what I had learned in the classroom (thanks, FUS). I remember sitting in the middle of a boma (homestead) with a family, in the blistering sun, with a notepad and a set of questions we were supposed to ask via our translator. Mainly questions about the family’s health seeking behavior, but specifically about birth control methods and HIV/AIDS treatment and management – topics that are really private and gendered – and looking back on it, really not appropriate to ask a stranger, especially from a conservative culture.
I had a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. In the beginning I attributed that feeling to it being a new situation, a new culture, maybe from the drinking water (again, another story) – but nothing deeper. But after sitting down on the chair promptly provided to me by the extremely welcoming Maasai Mama and looking around at the expectant faces of the family surrounding me, I realized there was a deeper meaning to this gut reaction.
One Mama put a light blue beaded ring on my finger, asking me to come back and marry her son. Another pleaded with me to help her rebuild her crumbling hut as her son was disabled and couldn’t work. Another watched her son hit her daughter with a stick as the father laughed and joked about teaching the daughter her place from a young age. I didn’t know how to respond to these interactions and I definitely didn’t have the tools, skills, or experience to balance my empathy with the reality that there wasn’t much I could do (or even whether I should). But then the question arose – so why are you here?
Later that day another Mama pointedly asked me just that – why year after year Mzungus (white people) come into their community and interview them – and nothing changes. They don’t see improvements in services or representation from their government or from non-governmental entities. Year after year, the Mzungus come with their translators, hydro flasks, and moleskin notebooks, looking inquisitively and compassionately over their Ray Ban sunglasses and shaking red silt dirt out of their Chaco’s. And nothing changes.
That day struck me like a lightening bolt and remains engrained in me as a massive shift in terms of my understanding of the reality of development and most “edu-tourism”. It was the day I realized that compassion is not an excuse for imposing my worldview on someone else and that my knowledge or experience should never be prioritized over someone else’s reality or dignity.
We were there, in this woman’s daily reality for the benefit of our education. Teaching us how to interact with “others” and maybe learn some research skills. We were not there to help this woman (whether or not “help” is what was needed – that’s a conversation for another post). I realized the program was structured so I learned something based on another person’s struggles. And we didn’t intend to do anything about it.
From that moment on, especially as I began to design and lead student programs of my own in the future, I became keenly aware that linear interactions (when one person studies, looks at, or learns from another or a group of people) are, honestly bullshit. There is no such thing as a linear interaction (this was the underlying premise of the old-age explorers or anthropologists).
Today, I would argue that we (as a global society) have somewhat of a better understanding that cross cultural interactions aren’t linear, but we have a frightfully limited understanding of what sort of interactions are healthy for both sides. I think this is largely because the design of these programs is typically still post-colonial and “top-down”, with very limited influence from the local communities.
I wrote the poem above sitting on a camp chair on the Chobe river in Maun, Botswana after a ten-hour drive from the South African border waiting for a group of 24 students to arrive. I was thinking about the best ways to help students navigate the feelings of being in a place so foreign… if it’s their first time to Southern Africa, they’ll probably be a bit afraid, very curious, and compassionate for the poverty they see. Inevitably they usually end up in the “but they’re so happy with so little!” mentality – which is better and worse in different ways that are so complicated.
I always tried to design courses (especially those with cultural engagement) with interactions with locals who ran their own organizations. If we had to do a township tour, as was often requested in South Africa, I would organize a tour focused on the entrepreneurial and creative projects that came out of a historic township like Langa in Cape Town. I would try to make sure we supported local restaurants and not fast food chains like Wimpy or McDonalds. And we’d talk about why that choice was made. I would have somewhat uncomfortable conversations with students who wanted to take photos with women in their traditional clothes – why do you want that photo? Did you actually engage with this woman and have a conversation with her? Sure, she’s fine with it – but does that make it right?
My favorite question to ask was “if social media didn’t exist, would you still take the photo, walk with the lion, etc.?”
On this trip, when we went into the Okavango Delta, we supported a community cooperative that runs Mokoro (canoe) excursions. When we went into the Chobe Enclave, we spent a night with Wildlife ACT, an amazing organization that runs wildlife research and management programs that are outside of the park management’s capacity.
I always tried to embrace complexity and to bring about a systems approach to experiences. But it makes you feel like a bad cop sometimes.
Don’t get me wrong, this model of edu-tourism is still post-colonial. It still involves you (or me) coming into a foreign place to learn something from people who don’t necessarily have any interest in teaching you something. It involves a short-term engagement for your learning. Some new models incorporate voluntourism, which in a lot of ways is actually worse, as completely unskilled tourists pay to do things that locals could be hired to do, or if they are skilled they stay for a short time before leaving to go home, thinking fondly of their time volunteering but leaving the locals with a half finished project. It involves a particularly linear flow of money.
This blog post isn’t meant to be a doomsday post telling you to stay home. On the contrary, actually. I wanted to highlight some of the considerations and complexities that are vital in making good decisions while traveling. I truly believe that the benefits of true cross-cultural engagement are enormous and traveling is one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring ways to experience life on this planet.
But I also invite you to think critically about the trip you’re signing up for, the tour operator you book with, the photo you want to take. Take initiative to travel responsibly and respectfully – spend time getting to know people, support local businesses, and above all, learn from the culture you are visiting. This is the model of travel that will break down walls and barriers and create a just and equitable world for everyone. This is the travel model of the future.
By Ellie Leaning
What's in a name? Meet Windly
Windly n: (an ally through the wind)
As an environmental and humanitarian advocate and practitioner, I am constantly faced with the dichotomy of the incredible needs in the world and the sobering lessons learned from development, humanitarian, and environmental efforts gone wrong.
From acute and chronic food insecurity, to forced migration at historic levels, to the sixth mass extinction of species, and a climate crisis- the issues facing our world and the people in it are extreme, complicated, and scary. They also involve people’s lives, dignity, and the survival of our planet as we know it. In other words, not much at stake, right? Hah.
On the other hand I’m acutely aware of where development has gone wrong: where well meaning philanthropists and development practitioners have imposed their ideas of what “development” should look like. From industrial employment regardless of costs to human dignity or health, to Western health practices that aren’t culturally appropriate to the host community, to protecting endangered species that local communities economies and diets depend on – the examples are endless and pervasive.
The era of traditional colonialism is more-or-less over, but postcolonialism is alive and well. What does this mean? Essentially, colonialism involved an imperial imposition of foreign rule typically over a nation state (think, British Commonwealth, German West Africa now Namibia, Rhodesia, the United States, etc.). While many (not all) countries re-gained their independence in the late 1900s, quieter forms of colonialism behind closed doors remained. Postcolonialism can take many forms, including foreign direct investment controlling which projects get built or which programs get prioritized (Chinese investment in African countries), funding for international public health programs but only when the drugs are approved by the FDA (creating business for U.S. pharmaceuticals), food that is grown in the U.S. and shipped on vessels bearing U.S. flags used as international food aid overriding local capacity for local growers to grow and sell their own food, and much more. It also exists in the shadows of cultural norms and of power, racial, gender dynamics – even down to Western forms of legal systems, beauty standards, or perceptions of wealth and health.
As someone who is action oriented, generally optimistic, and aware that solutions to the deeply rooted environmental and humanitarian issues exist, how do I balance my desire to “do good” with a keen awareness of the intricacies of foreign impact? As a white upper/middle class American woman, what is my role in this space? I don’t think the answer is to just throw our hands up and shop at farmers markets, eat local, and turn the news off. I wish it were, but that’s too easy. But overall, I believe that impact > intent. Bottom line. It doesn’t matter if you meant to “do no harm”, if you did.
So, how do we balance the desire to be part of solutions with the keen awareness that a lot of times what seems like a solution is actually a massively distorted effort that overrides local systems, creating systems of dependency that insult people’s dignity?
Meet “Windly”.
Windly’s name is the combination of two words: Wind + Ally. The idea is that you (you, me, all of us) can support solutions to environmental and humanitarian organizations that are run by grassroots organizations around the world. As an ally through the wind your engagement in the Windly platform will leverage support to these organizations that are too busy actually doing the work in localities around the world to leverage support in terms of accessing funding or raising awareness.
Windly verifies these organizations based on a set of 10 criteria and provides information about them, along with information and news about the issues they are working on in a way that makes it easy to understand, stay-up-to-date, and engage in solutions.
The bottom line: solutions to environmental and humanitarian issues exist, but they’re often in the hearts and hands of people around the world who are too busy working on these issues to raise funds or awareness for them (or there are structural barriers to them raising funds/awareness).
Windly is here to connect you to solutions and empower you to get excited and motivated to participate in making the world a better place. The best part? It’s really fun.
How to choose an ecotourism company to support
I’m one of those firm believers that travel is one of the main ways to bridge differences, promote shared humanity, and support solutions. Unfortunately there’s a lot of “green washing”, or companies pretending to be more “green” than they actually are because they see it as a business opportunity. So, I decided to create a quick checklist of factors to consider when deciding to engage in an ecotourism activity. This is by no means a complete list, or an exact science. When in doubt, I default to #s 9 and 10.
- Is the activity respectful of local customs?
So, there are two main types of ecotourism – cultural and environmental, and sometimes these lines are blurred. Overall, respect is paramount. If the activity doesn’t present local people’s customs in a respectful, empowering, positive, and educational light - walk away. I find it useful to do some research on the local culture, language (thank you FUS for that one), and customs before arriving so I have an easier time distinguishing things that might not fit.
- Are people or animals ‘on display’ or are you truly visiting them in their normal environment (or, conversely, if you are visiting them in their normal environment, is it a scenario that is respectful and empowering)?
This one is usually pretty easy to spot, but sometimes can be deceptive when companies try to spin their reasons for keeping lion cubs (check out Blood Lions before you consider participating in any direct contact activities with cats, particularly lions – and remember the parallels to other animals). Are people dressing in traditional clothing they wouldn’t otherwise wear just to show you? This can be a bit of a fine line as sometimes people are understandably proud of their cultural heritage and want to show it off, but in my opinion – if it’s just for me then it’s more of a show and less of a local custom that I could be exposed to.
- Does the activity support effective management of natural resources or wild spaces?
There are some seriously cool organizations with unique ecotourism models that help promote effective management of wild spaces or research that otherwise would go unfunded. Usually, these organizations are quick and loud about promoting this as it’s an awesome model that should be promoted. A great example of this is Wildlife ACT – we highly recommend them!
- Do the funds for participating in the activity go back to the community or back to the management of the natural resource?
Organizations who use a revolving funding model generally promote this to their clientele. Sometimes, a certain percentage will go back to the community or the reserve management or whatever the entity may be. This is an easy question staff should be able to answer if it’s not promoted publically.
- Is the activity or company run by a private entity that just hires locals, is it run by a collective, or is it run by locals?
This might require some digging, but similarly to #3, typically if an ecotourism company is locally or collectively owned, they will promote that. I often find that the harder I have to look for things like ownership, the more reason I have to stay away. A good example are the Mokoro excursions in the Okavango Delta.
- Is the program or activity certified by an external entity?
Check out the organization’s website or storefront – do they advertise their certifications or registrations with external entities? This sort of external validation, as long as it’s a third party validation, is useful.
- Did you Google reviews and research the industry before deciding to participate?
Do some homework! You’re probably researching the companies before participating anyway so take a bit more time and check out the reviews and feedback from people who have participated in the activities before.
- Is there a way you could learn about the topic in a less exploitive manner?
Are there alternatives that are less ‘showy’? If so, there’s probably a reason for that and worth a second look at whether you want to participate.
- Would you do it if you couldn’t post a photo on Instagram or Facebook?
This is one of absolute favorites and is so simple, yet telling – particularly for activities that clearly fit on the “avoid” side of the moral compass for me – i.e. most activities with children, direct contact with animals, etc. When considering activities with people, I highly recommend following the @NoWhiteSaviors account on social media.
- Does it feel right?
This is the simplest, yet the most important. Think critically and trust your gut. If you’ve read this far you’re likely already interested in doing the “right” thing – it’s just a matter of doing the work and overall I find that when I’m in doubt, I don’t engage.
The best part? In my travels I’ve found that ecotourism reputability is typically increasing and there are so many opportunities to participate in innovative and exciting activities that help local communities, enable you to make lifelong friendships, and contribute to lasting solutions.