Kemi Kalikawe, a well-known fashion designer in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania is a star on the rise. Her bold cuts, playful designs and exquisite fabric led to undeniable success for this new fashion star.
I had the opportunity to meet Kalikawe at one of her fashion shows a little over a month ago when I was working in Tanzania on my off-term. We became fast friends, and I was lucky enough to get a tour of her gorgeous design studio. Kalikawe uniquely combines traditional Tanzanian fabrics with contemporary cuts, resulting in a stunningly powerful effect. "I draw inspiration from the world around me," she said.
We began to talk about my own interests, and our topic branched from the Tanzanian fashion industry to the international fashion community to the international aid community. Although she is quite an activist within Dar es Salaam, Kalikawe is an outspoken critic of Western aid involvement in Africa. She believes that much of the international aid community is unsustainable and demeaning in such a way that hurts Africa's economy and the African people in the long run. She thinks that aid organizations focus on short-term goals, ignoring that quick-fix solutions can have incredibly nasty effects.
"I really believe the time has come for fashionable aid giving' to go out of style," Kalikawe said. "Unless it is sustainable, productive and encourages self-reliance, there is no place for this patronizing and inefficient foreign involvement in my country."
Admittedly, I embarked upon my experiences abroad in Tanzania in order to hopefully make a difference in the world. While these experiences have enabled me to expand my universe of obligation, look outside my own world and learn an incredible amount about the unique land, people and histories about which I had known very little, I have no idea how effective my work was in the long term. In the instances when the projects in which I was participating weren't sustainable and didn't encourage self-reliance, I am almost positive that I not only contributed very little but that I also might have created unintentional negative consequences.
While many different international aid organizations approach various situations wanting to make a difference and change for the better, they fail to consider the long-term effects of practices that end up hurting more than helping. For example, take TOMS shoes, a shoe company that pledges to donate a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair of shoes purchased. Although I was once a huge supporter of TOMS shoes, the company unfortunately happens to be a great example of unsustainable activism gone awry. Instead of buying shoes and materials from local businesses, TOMS ships in shoes to various countries around the world. TOMS doesn't address the overarching issue of poverty and ineffectively addresses its symptoms by donating shoes. Instead, a change could be made to the business model where the local economy is actually supported by creating jobs in the area to make shoes out of local materials. Jobs, not donated shoes, change economic status. TOMS' negligence with regard to the needs of the local economy is quite detrimental, just like world food programs that ship food in from the West instead of buying food locally.
This unsustainable approach to aid, while not indicative of activism work everywhere, is widespread enough that it needs to be addressed. People may have their hearts in the right place, but that doesn't mean they are being helpful.
Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian economist and author of "Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working," argues that limitless amounts of development assistance from irresponsible aid organizations encourage corruption and dependency, all the while perpetuating mass poverty. I can't help but agree with many of the points she makes in her book. However, while I think that immediately halting foreign aid will create a human rights crisis of epic proportions, serious adjustments need to be made to the agendas of non-governmental organizations everywhere.
With unsustainable aid programs keeping poverty systemic, it is no wonder continued cries for aid are sounded worldwide. We have encouraged reliance, inefficiency and patronizing storylines throughout the world, all the while ignoring the agency of human beings to make sustainable changes in their own communities.
Kalikawe said it best when she told me, "We aren't helpless Africans. We aren't your black children. We are your fellow people and it is time for the international aid community to treat us as such." I only hope now that people will begin to heed her words.
