It's easy to agree with the admonition that we not allow advertising to distort the development agenda, and important to agree, but there's another side to that coin.
One of the pieces of conventional community development wisdom--almost sacred writ by now--is that development agents and agencies ought to listen to what the community wants, and respond, rather than bringing in answers and agendas. Yes indeed. But consider: Consider a community off the electric grid, using kerosene lamps for light, and blackening ceilings and lungs in the process. And spending hours searching for incresingly scarce wood for cooking fires. Assume further that the villagers do not know that are simple solar powered white LED units that can provde home light for less than they are paying for kerosene, and when the light is paid for for no regular expense. And there are simple solar cookers made of cardboard and aluminum foil that can minimmize or eliminate the hunt for wood as fuel. The situation, then, is this: Since the villagers do not know of these possibilities they will not list them when they are asked to name their needs. Is the development agency acting improperly when it looks to make the community leaders aware of these possibilities? Doing so, of course, can be called an attempt by the outsider to change the community's agenda. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of J Cravens Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 11:44 PM To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group Subject: Re: [DDN] Educating the philanthropic community Taran Rampersad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>the point is that a lot of the technology we're discussing >should be encouraged by critical things - not by things that >artificially creating a need and building unrealistic explanations - I wanted to say "hurrah" for this excellent point. I know that we could probably debate until the end of time what technology is the "right" technology for any given situation, but I do think that it's a much better-informed debate that can lead to more sustainable, more-audience-appropriate tech, than leaving the "discussion" to those with better advertising. About half a dozen times, I've been approached by a senior manager who got bedazzled by a sales pitch and he's now decided that the organization, or those it serves, really need WhamBam software, or BlingBling Inc. hardware. And I've had to put together powerpoint presentations and cost benefit tables and narratives and interpretive dances to counter the argument of the salesmen, whose undone months of methodical, critically-thought-out strategic planning. Sometimes I'm successful, but often, I'm stuck, or the people we were serving get stuck, with WhamBam software and BlingBling Inc. hardware. All because a non-tech person got bedazzled by advertising. One of the digital divides that needs to be bridged is helping people -- anywhere -- make informed choices about hardware and software, and being able to articulate and identify their own needs. but that's a rather huge goal in and of itself... -- <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Jayne Cravens Bonn, Germany Services for Mission-Based Orgs www.coyotecommunications.com Open University Development Studies www.coyotecommunications.com/development Contact me www.coyotecommunications.com/contact.html <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
