Aid-Based Vs. Community-Based Interventions

     After watching "Kony 2012" and "Pray the Devil Back to Hell" and reading all the acticles and critiques on the community interventions, I've gained a new outlook on aid-based and community based approaches to solving problems.  Aid-Based interventions are along the lines of charity work and basically giving things away to others because we think they need them and they are of no use to us.  Community-Based interventions are developed when members of a community come together in a quest for change for their own community and their own people.  Community-based interventions typically strive for long term change while aid-based is only short term help.  After watching the youtube video "A Day Without Dignity," I was shocked at how damaging charity based approaches can sometimes be.  For example U.S. food aid to developing countries in Africa can and does hurt the  local vendors and farmers in the community.  What the U.S. should do if they want to help is purchase food from the same community it is beign distributed to.  This way people who cannot afford to buy food can have something to eat as well as sustaining the local economy.  Another shocking scene was the abundance of shoes in these African communities.  We have grown up in a society that teaches us to give what we don't need or use anymore to people less fortunate, and so that's what most of us do.  We just give away our old shoes, clothes, and toys to charity and think nothing of it after that.  Well when everyone does that we have an over abundance of charity items in these developing countries like we saw in the African communities with the shoes.  So now vendors in these communities cannot sell their stock of shoes, clothes, and toys because all the members of the communtiy are getting them for free from charities, and while that is all good and holy it's not really helping these people work towards a long term solution towards economic independence.  So what should we do then? Well my answer to that is to first make sure that the communities you are trying to help actually wants your help.  Second, if these communities do want our help then we should teach not just give and give.  Lastly, if we are going to offer aid to these communities then we should probably get educated on the community and figure out what it is they really need.  While the charity based approaches provide short term solutions and can actually cause more harm to the community than good, community-based interventions seem to have a much better outcome.  Community based interventions work because its members of a community fighting towards what they KNOW they need.  

     "Kony 2012" is seemingly more of an aid-based approach while "Pray the Devil Back to Hell" is a community based approach.  "Kony 2012" as we now know is a quick 30 minute film portraying the horrors done to the people of Northern Uganda by the leader of the LRA rebel group known as Joseph Kony.  Joseph Kony and his army of rebels steal children, make them kill their parents and turn the boys into soldiers and the girls into sex slaves.  The video focuses on Uganda and a boy named Jacob who was apart of this army at one point.  The video ends with asking the world to participate in ending Kony's reign by purchasing a kit and on April 20th pasting every city with Kony's face ultimately making him famous.  I guess if we make him famous in our cities then... he will be captured...?  Not quite sure I understand that portion of the video but with the help of the music it does do a good job of getting you amped and making a statement momentarily.  The creator of this concept is American and did actually pursuade the American government a few years ago to send 100 U.S. military advisors to Africa to help the government in Uganda catch Kony.  After watching the criticisms on the video I have a very different outlook on the mission on "Kony 2012".  First off, why is the video so focused on Uganda when the LRA hasn't even been terrorizing that area for years?  It also seems as though some people from Uganda do not trust the American intentions especially since no one asked for our help!  The American government even said that they would probably not make any attempts or efforts to help stop Joseph Kony because there is no political or economical gain to entice  America to do so.  So why then did the U.S. all of a sudden change their mind to try to help?  It would be nice to think that the U.S. is doing it without a hidden agenda, but many critiques think oil is the source of America's initiatives.  Critics also don't like the fact that the video has an underlying theme of a white american hero saving poor African children.  In the end though will this type of aid work? Probably not and even if it does it only gets rid of Joseph Kony.  It doesn't give a solution to war lords taking over African communities.  Who is to say once Kony is out of the way another warlord won't take his place?  The women of the "Pray the Devil Back to Hell" video had a much different approach and one that actually worked on a long term basis.      

     The people of Liberia were being terrorized much like the people of Uganda.  A man named Charles Taylor terrorized the people of Liberia into making him their President.  He has a private army known as the Anti-Terrorist Unit.  He takes young boys from their homes, kills their parents, and turns them into one of his soldiers.  His army and other warlords partake in senseless killing and war.  They terrorized families and women through rape, murder, and fear.  After many years of this violence the women of Liberia had enough and decided to do something about it since their men have done nothing but harm.  For the first time Muslim and Christian women banded together as one and created the Christian Women's Peace Initiative.  

"Can the bullet pick and choose? Does it know Christian from Muslim?"

     By 2003, war lords controlled much of the countryside causing people to escape to Morovia forming crowded camps.  The women of the Peace Initiative decided to protest dressed in white and sit at the fish market day after day for weeks on end.  Taylor drove by every day and ignored them but that did not deter the women.  Finally Taylor decided to meet with the women.  The peace initiative choose their leader, Leymeh, who delivered their message and demands to Taylor to end the violence.  After meeting with Taylor, the women went to Sierre Leone to talk with the rebels and get them to agree to go to the peace talks.  Taylor was soon indicted by the Sierre Leone War Crimes Tribunal and said he needed to remove himself from his position of President.  The rebels went into hysterics and said if Taylor was arressted they would kill everyone.  Yet again, the women of Liberia risked their lives and stood up to the rebels and continued their mission.  The women staged a sit in where the war lords were negotiating at a conference.  The war lords heard the women and exiled Taylor to Nigeria, sent peace keeping troops to Liberia, transitioned government to elect democratic leaders.  Even though the women reached their goal they made sure to stay involved and let their government know that they were watching them and if things went back to the way they were then the women would do what they did all over again.  The women would not back down.  In 2003, there was a mandated disarmant of rebel child soldiers.  Liberia also elected the very first women president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.  These women of the Liberian community created a way to make a statement and end the war, and most importantly they have paved a way to a permanent solution.  The women won't let this type of war crime happen again to their community because they KNOW how to stop it through perserverence, determination, and advocacy.  This is a perfect example of how and why community based intervention works better than aid based approaches.  In my opinion, these are women to be admired.  They advocated for change for their own community and succeeded probably beyond their expectations.  

    These campaigns and different interventions towards community change have and will influence my own social work practice.  These concepts have raised my awareness to provide assisstance to others when it is wanted and that an activists do not know what's best for the community they are helping.  I have also learned to get educated and knowledgable about the population I would be providing aid and services too.  I feel as though these articles and videos I have read and watched are extremely powerful and I've learned alot from them.