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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Waving not Drowning

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  • From: Russ Grayson <pacedge@magna.com.au>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Waving not Drowning
  • Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 17:08:05 +1000

On Monday, July 14, 2003, at 11:13 AM, Bob Howard wrote:
A friend of mine in college really really wanted to go work offering basic
health services in '3rd world' countries. As she looked more and more
into what NGOs and agencies and so on she might work with, she discovered
that in order to 'qualify' for actual hands-on work with almost all of
them, she had to be an M.D.!!!

Having worked as a nurse in a "third world" situation I can actually
appreciate why NGO'S would want an M.D. as opposed to a paramedic. The main
reason is that there are often local people on the ground with para medic
skills even in the most destitute of communities. Moreover these people have
essential local knowledge and even with minimal training are an essential part
of a health service.

This is really part of a bigger question regarding the sending of volunteers into developing country communities. As is suggested, there are often people with basic skills available in those countries. This, of course, is good. The downside for sympathetic people in developed countries is that they then find no avenue to enact their willingness to help.

As a Nepalese friend suggested, they could work in their own countries. But that doesn't happen to any great extent. Why? I think it is to do with perceptions, specifically the perception that people in developing countries are 'more needy' and because the supply of such services in developed countries has been professionalised. That is, you need a university degree or similar to do community development as a livelihood or in a structured way. There is always voluntary work with community-based organisations, of course, and I encourage such involvement. However, the impact they have is not always great because of limitations to funding and organisational capacity and because of lack of higher-level skills among voluteers.

Working in an NGO, we had quite a few people, many fresh from doing a PDC, who would knock on the office door and ask to be placed in a developing country. We could accommodate almost none of these because our policy was to train local people to assume control of the projects (this minimised the need for people from Australia) and because our need was for people with developed skills unavailable locally, such as community seed saving. Many PDC graduates had little training or experience other than the course.

Our other suggestion, of volunteering service in the office of an NGO, was seldom taken up because work in an office was not perceived as either valuable or of assisting directly. Yet, in our own office this is how people got to be given responsibility for projects and how they got to go overseas for limited periods to train people or for other tasks. It also provided knowledge of the NGO world, its constraints and opportunities, and valuable insight into relations with people and organisations in developing countries, with government and donors and it also provided valuable experience in administrative and decision-making skills that would prove useful in developing countries.

...Russ Grayson





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