Nobody inside the organization will give my ideas much time. And the various journals publishing on the humanitarian front prefer researched articles, complete with facts and other annoyances. There doesn’t seem to be a home for opinion, both unadulterated and dressed up as some sort of fact, especially if it runs contrary to the mainstream currents of aid discourse. So I’ve been meaning to put some ideas out there for quite some time.
DISCLAIMER(S). I’ve been working with MSF since 1999 and am now the director of MSF’s UK office, so there might be an expectation that the ideas contained in this blog are somehow related to the positions of the organization. Please don’t get me in trouble by making such an assumption. These are my ideas, not MSF’s. Well-nourished by my experience in MSF and well-constrained by the amount of time I am able to spend reading anything interesting (i.e., not my inbox), not to mention the difficulty of mounting one of those 23-mission-aid worker blogs when I sit behind a desk and only occasionally manage to escape to the field, where I deliver my George Bush “Mission Accomplished” impression and then return home.
CREDENTIALS. As you’ve guessed, I’m not one of those 23-mission aid nomads, having been stuck in MSF offices for the better part of the last nine years. I have managed to catch malaria, worms, and at least 10 bouts of amoebic dysentery (mostly, though, in my youth as a Peace Corps volunteer in Burkina Faso). I’ve eaten lots of icky stuff that was not served in the Dutch office’s canteen. I’ve stepped foot twice in Darfur and have been yelled at by Sudanese officials. Several aid industry big wigs once agreed with a point I made at a conference. I shook hands with Pastor Ntoumi deep in the jungle of Pool Province. That sums it up. Prior to aid work my life included bartending in NYC, civil rights litigation in New Orleans, and a lot of frisbee throwing and backgammon in New Haven. I am now based in London, occasionally dabble in writing fiction, and have a wonderful daughter.
Thanks for reading.
Marc DuBois
17 comments
‘Nobody inside the organisation will give me ideas much time’?! Shame on you Marc, your ideas take up loads of my time!!
by polly on January 26, 2011 at 12:46. #
I’ve just added your site to my “Aid Blogs I Check Daily” list. Just letting you know. Hope that’s okay with you.
by J. on April 25, 2011 at 01:54. #
Thanks J. Much appreciated.
by marc on April 26, 2011 at 14:21. #
I’m totally hooked. Great work, Marc!
by Tim on April 27, 2011 at 19:08. #
Marc,
You are ABSOLUTELY a genius! Keep up the good work. Absolutely.
I will make your blog a must read from now on.
by Steve on April 27, 2011 at 20:05. #
A fresh of breath air……..(you know what I mean). An antidote to the sanctimonious stuff we have to come out with in aid work and also a forward step on the steep path to understanding the ‘other’. Good work.
by Ropy on May 11, 2011 at 11:58. #
Added you to my list of “places I like to visit, people I like to read”. Thanks for the updates on where to get a haircut (or not). Always great to hear what you have to say, and the fiction is good. Keep writing!
by Nina on August 27, 2011 at 01:45. #
Very interesting take aid. More interesting is that “third world” leaders have learnt well from their colonisers and not just on the PR front. But the danger of this game is that communities that mobilised to overthrow the colonisers still have as a reference point the power of solidarity to influence change. [From the eternal optimist].
by Sharon on September 5, 2011 at 20:13. #
I am glad that there is a voice like yours. On my travels I met many young people who said they were volunteers
or aid workers or working for making poverty disappear But after spending some time with them their real personalities come out. They are racist and hateful people. Just bored in their own country and wants drugs and more drugs . It is all big joke and scam .I am discussed with these people and whomever is sending them to other countries. Volunteer for what? So humiliating Why a south american would need a german teenager for volunteering? .Dont they know how to live in their own environment ?.It is scam and it is free holiday for cold hearth-ed bullies.
by Elvan on September 8, 2011 at 05:37. #
Thanks for the comment Elvan. It’s easy to become cynical, but there are plenty of good people working in the aid world. That makes it even harder to understand why aid so often seems neo-colonial in nature or attitude. I don’t have answers, but that’s the point of trying to launch the discussion.
by marc on September 13, 2011 at 17:38. #
Marc,
I’m hoping you will remember me, you and I knew each other in Burkina Faso back in the day. As I recall, you were in the training group before me, together with the group that Lee Schaber was in. You and I met in Seattle after we returned too, I remember the visit well. On a lark I googled your name and see that you have done quite well in your post BF life. I work as a wheat breeder, still trying to increase global food production (one bushel at a time), and was as positively affected by my PC-BF experience as you seem to have been. Drop me a line if you get a chance, you can find me at: http://wheat.colostate.edu/CSUWheatBreeding/haley.html.
Best regards,
Scott Haley
RPCV Burkina Faso 1983-85
by Scott Haley on December 29, 2011 at 03:15. #
[...] On his personal blog, Marc DuBois of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors without Borders) writes about the impact of the hyper-viral Kony 2012 campaign on the work of long-established humanitarian efforts in [...]
by Medical aid worker on Kony 2012: "The aid industry has just been Biebered." | HEY LAURENT VOANH IS HERE on March 9, 2012 at 18:00. #
Hi Marc,
I appreciate the approach you are taking to blogging about aid/development. Is there an email I can reach you on? I would love to have you write a guest post for whydev.org. What do you think? You have my email.
Cheers,
by Brendan Rigby on September 14, 2012 at 11:36. #
I am now totally obsessed with your blogs. I used to live in Venezuela and I used to volunteer inside of the dumps in Caracas, the capital. There are always many kinds of volunteers, some of us, did it for humanitarian purposes, other for money and some others for reputation and kudos. I still volunteer on my travels if I can. Now I live in New Haven, CT.
by Yilva Martinez Kalmanson on November 6, 2012 at 18:35. #
Hi there,
Please excuse me barging in on your blog. I am trawling for kindred spirits with a similar objective to mine, which is to provide handcarts to those who most need them.
Many people in many lands, live in drudgery and poverty, spending many hours each day walking long distances, searching for essential things like water, firewood and food, to carry home using their heads, hands and backs, because they have no wheeled transport for carrying their loads.
I am sure the lives of these people would be greatly improved if they had handcarts.
Handcarts increase mobility, and save precious time and energy. Their benefits include -
Better able to carry heavy loads, further and faster, with less effort.
Improved health, with less mental stress and physical strain.
Greater freedom for women and girls.
Better attendance of schools and medical clinics.
Spending less time away from home.
Greater security for children, livestock and property.
Earning money hiring out carts, and taking produce to market.
Setting up mobile stalls for selling food and garden produce.
Social and welfare improvements.
More buildings and shelters.
As time goes by, the benefits of using handcarts expand exponentially, turning basic subsistence into dynamic development for individuals, families, communities and nations alike.
I realise that designing, making and distributing good quality handcarts to those who need them most, will be a prolonged, difficult and costly task, but I believe it can be done on a global basis, if dedicated caring individuals and relief organisations join forces to develop and action viable, agreeable and sustainable solutions to a problem that has compounded the effects of drudgery and poverty for far too long.
What you think?
I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on this matter, and any handcart associated intelligence .
Do you think that the concept is valid?
Would you support or participate in it?
Do you know of any individual or organisation currently involved with providing handcarts?
Would you like further details of the concept?
Do you have any questions, that I haven’t thought of?
Please show or forward this message to anyone you think may be interested in the concept of providing handcarts on a humanitarian basis.
Many thanks
Ed Austin
KoruKarts(at)gmail(dot)com.
by Ed Austin on November 16, 2012 at 08:28. #
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by Paige on April 10, 2013 at 05:21. #
[...] of success. Governments strive to meet them. They have created will. However, Marc Dubois, the Humanicontrarian, takes a very different view of the institution as source of will. He argues, in fact, that the [...]
by A brief meditation on isomorphic mimicry Tomorrow Global on April 24, 2013 at 06:25. #