For those with a sophisticated view of development issues, there's plenty to dislike about this project. Affluent kid from Canada raises a bit of money and goes poverty-touring in Bangladesh. Makes a video diary about it. Incorporates a voting system. Focuses on service delivery rather than capacity building and empowerment. Comes across as a little sanctimonious.
Then again, you don't have to have a sophisticated view of development issues to want to make a difference. And the latest episode of his occasionally excruciating epic has had (at the time of writing) 47,827 views on YouTube.
Read that again. Then go and have a look at the site.
Even if you disregard the content, this is Web 2.0 with all the bells and whistles. A nice bit of tab navigation takes you to Flickr, to YouTube (where all the action is) and to Facebook - where our man has a group 1,118 strong.
Pretty impressive for one 27 year-old bloke with a camcorder, a laptop and the ability to weave some simple social networking platforms together. I wonder what kind of budget most charities would assign to create that kind of noise in the Blogosphere?
So hats off to Save the Children who (in Bangladesh at least) seem to know a good idea when they see one and have shown off their work. Hats off to the people who have given - despite the fact that the donation page opens with the line 'Please Don't Feel Obliged to Donate'. And hats off to Shawn and his mate for making it happen.
Now who wants to do something better?
James
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1 comment:
Hey James, thanks for writing about my little project.
I've been very fortunate to have a good set of friends and a brother who are all eager to give me a swift kick in the ass anytime I come off a little sanctimonious.
It seems like the wording of my donations page really passed their and my filter. "Don't feel obliged to donate" was something I thought I should point out because my project started off as something where I would only spend my own dime. It changed after an overwhelmingly large amount of people requested to get involved. It was a tough choice because I didn't want people to think donating to me was an alternative to donating to charities (I'm not a charity - just a private citizen).
I've since re-written that page which hopefully comes off a little less holier-than-thou and more about the reasons why I was hesitant to accept donations.
- Shawn
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