NGOs undermining the welfare state

While doing research for my literature review, I read about how NGOs can ultimately undermine the welfare state by providing services that should be provided for by the government. This was talked about in 115 and 105 a little bit, and I'm sure you are all familiar with this critique of NGO work. I wanted to see if anyone wanted to volunteer a critique of their own PE organization, or any NGO, in terms of its potential to undermine the welfare state.

First I will describe this argument in greater detail. One article I read was specifically related to educational NGOs, so I will use them as an example. The author of the article argued that educational NGOs, particularly in developing countries, should almost never provide formal education. The argument was this. Educational NGOs go to developing countries and find where the educational system is failing or inadequate. They then open schools or programs to replace the existing (or non-existent) government run educational system, using donor money. This donor money can be from a variety of sources, but it is generally not from the developing country itself. Once the NGO starts providing this formal education, the government can then disinvest in this area. Because the NGO is a private organization, the NGO has led to the privatization of education, and therefore undermined the welfare state. The author then argues that educational NGOs should only document failures of the educational system and report them to the government and to the World Bank, which has leverage over developing governments with its funding.

While this is certainly a specific example, I think it is important to consider how it applies to all of our organizations. For those of you working in the health sector, how do you think free clinics could be part of undermining the welfare state and encourage privatization? The county is ultimately responsible for the development and maintenance of community health centers as a last line of care for those who cannot pay. Does the construction of free clinics with donor money, or even national government money, ultimately free the the counties from a responsibility they should uphold?

The key piece I have not yet mentioned is sustainability. In much of the research I have done, there is extensive talk about how NGOs must be sustainable. Generally this means that NGOs must be self-sufficient, and not dependent on donor or government funding. Do you agree? Can an NGO be sustainable while still dependent on donor funding? Are there certain situations where this dependency allows NGOs to provide important services at a below market rate, such as BRAC does through microfinance plus, or conditional cash transfers? Are there situations where undermining the welfare state and privatizing a service is worth it? Who decides if its "worth it".
Sorry for all the questions, just some food for thought!

Cultural Sensitivity Check: Food Deserts

A few weeks ago, my supervisor at City Slickers facilitated a workshop that centered on the history of West Oakland and the events leading to the establishment of City Slickers as a community organization. The workshop covered the industrialization of West Oakland, the neglect of its communities, and the prevalent food disparities in this area that were not so intense in other parts of the city. Towards the end, someone asked if West Oakland would be considered a “food desert” (an area where it’s difficult to buy affordable or quality fresh food).  

After so many discussions and papers writing about how I saw City Slickers as an organization working within a food desert to improve accessibility, I was prepared to hear the “Yes” and an explanation that would hopefully be similar to what I had written before. I wasn’t expecting the answer she gave, but I liked it.

She said, “Technically, by all of the definitions of a ‘food desert,’ yes. West Oakland fits the description of a food desert, but we don’t call it that. We can’t call it a food desert because the community doesn’t see it as one.”

At first we were puzzled because she had been telling us for weeks that the community is perfectly aware about the injustices isolated to West Oakland, so how could they not see West Oakland as a community?

 She went on to explain that the community not only disliked the use of the term but were also strongly offended when their community was linked to it. To them, by including the word “desert,” the term implies that not only is there a lack of food in the area but that the community itself is hopeless and barren, that nothing good could ever grow in that space.

It made me think back on terms that those involved in poverty work typically use and the terms they try to avoid. There is a constant search and reevaluation for words that do not offend, that accurately depict, or that empower. After the class we had on cultural sensitivity, you would think that I would have been more careful or reflected more on the words I used to describe the community I was working in. It made me realize that despite the importance I put on cultural humility while working in West Oakland, I overlooked the problems with a word that had been central to my definition of my PE organization.

They see the use of this term as disempowering, and who can blame them? Calling their home a desert is completely misrepresentative of the colorful, passionate, and hopeful community that has time and time again come together to make changes in their community. Multiple organizations have blossomed from their community, including City Slickers, who have succeeded in garnering support, growing leaders, and improving the wellness of the neighborhoods. People are growing farms and gardens where factories once stood and working for greener and safe communities. The process of growing within West Oakland may be difficult but they have roots that couldn’t possibly survive if the community was truly a “desert.” 

Photo Essay

Continuing on the discussion we had in class, here's a link to a really interesting photo essay on older generations around the world:

http://photos.oregonlive.com/photo-essay/2013/10/older_generations_across_the_g.html

Indigenous Groups and Development

For one of my other classes, I am writing a paper on the Karuk tribe in Northern California.  The second largest tribe in California, they are currently facing the reality of no longer having access to their ancestral lands in the ways that they traditionally have.  To name just a few of these issues, there has been tree removal and the building of a road on lands they consider sacred, that has prevented them from completing their traditional spiritual practices, mining in their river that has decimated the salmon populations that they have traditionally depended on for food, and they are prevented from practicing their traditional land management practice of prescribed burns, which has harmed the health of the acorn plants they depend on and put them at risk for a large and uncontrollable wildfire that could threaten their community and homes.  It is the result of this interference with their traditional practices and systems that have caused them poverty, lack of resources, health effects, danger, and other problems.
It is well known that Native Americans in our country are currently facing tremendous economic and social problems, directly stemming from the history of persecution and marginalization of their people by colonists in our country.  This situation is also true for indigenous groups around the world.  A common theme that I have come across through my studies and readings regarding these issues is how most of these problems stem from the breakdown of the traditional system and connection that indigenous groups have built with their land.  I was recently reading about the Indigenous Nationhood Movement, a movement for  "Indigenous nationhood, resurgence, and decolonization."  In a recent article published on their website, Jeff Corntassel, a Cherokee associate professor at the University of Victoria, describes this situation by stating, "Whether disguised as states, corporations, non-governmental organizations etc., colonial powers treat the planet as a tradeable commodity to be militarized and exploited. In the quest for unlimited growth via new versions of the Doctrine of Discovery, each state/corporate extraction project attempts to disconnect Indigenous people from their collective and individual roles and responsibilities to land, culture, and community."  http://nationsrising.org/we-belong-to-each-other-resurgent-indigenous-nations/
 This association that Corntassel makes between NGOs and states and corporations, describing them asll as destructive forces of colonialism, led me to consider aid work and its organizations' roles in working with indigenous groups.  Much of aid work is focused on development and economic growth, but it is important to scrutinize whether or not these efforts actually work in reverse by breaking the traditional systems that indigenous people have with each other and with the land, therefore impoverishing them further .  This also relates to our discussion on participation, by reinforcing the idea that consultation and involvement by indigenous groups should be necessary when doing any kind of work in areas that they have traditionally inhabited.  I have not heard of many poverty or development organizations that aim to help restore indigenous practices or systems, but this would be interesting to look into and an interesting idea to contemplate. A main theme of my Agroecology class this semester has also been on how indigenous farming systems are in general much more productive and sustainable, in environmental, economic, and social ways.  It is when this system was thrown out of balance that we began to see the environmental degradation and the poverty originating from modern agriculture practices.  All of these factors emphasize the idea that in development and aid work, respecting the views, practices, and rights of indigenous groups is essential, and that indigenous systems may very well be worth conserving rather than the constant focus on growth, development, and modernization.

Balancing Scales

            The New York Times published an article this week discussing Bill de Basio’s power as new mayor to eliminate inequality in New York City. Setting the stage by mentioning the new luxurious residential tower overlooking Central Park in which one unit sold for 90 billion dollars, the author dissects his aversion to the fact that such units are being purchased by affluent foreigners living abroad. With further analysis, he realizes that cities find such investments worth the cost of perpetuating inequality. Bill de Basio gave a speech during elections promising to mitigate New Yorks “Tale of Two Cities,” but his campaign was more ideological than realistic. In fact his proposed tax reform calls upon half-millionaires to pay just half a percent more in taxes, for the city to put toward education. A large reason that mayors tend not to provide extensive assistance to the less fortunate is that such policy would then attract additional poor to move into the city. Economist Edward Glaeser criticizes that de Blassio’s policy is going to further divide the rich and poor, pushing out the middle class.

            This article I found strikingly relevant to my interest in homelessness, as often policies, such as tax reformation and education subsidization, are cogent on a national scale, but have converse effect at a local level. This idea reminded me of a point my Social Welfare professors often cite, which is that the City of Berkeley is popularly criticized for neglecting and/or producing its abundance of homelessness, when in actuality Berkeley attracts homeless individuals from across the nation. Because Berkeley offers so many free provisions, caseworkers as far as the east coast recommend clients to seek better futures in Berkeley. Thus, mayors governing at the local scale are in a bind when it comes to actually enacting such ideologies as mitigating inequality. This predicament makes me wonder how much more complicated poverty alleviation is and will be in the constantly more globalized world when residents flow not only between cities, but also between nations seeking the best benefits for the lowest cost.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/magazine/why-mayors-cant-combat-income-inequality.html?_r=0

The Stories We Walk By- An example of how to apply the concepts of "The danger of a single story" and visual documenting

Have you seen this blog yet? http://thestorieswewalkby.com/

The Stories We Walk By is a blog that shares a photographic narrative of the homeless of Berkeley in order to investigate and share more about the homeless living in Berkeley that we have become accustomed to passing on the way to class. This blog is interesting to be because if meshes together some of the themes that we have been talking about in class, ranging from “The Danger of a Single Story” to the week that we spent discussing visual representation of the poor. Ultimately, I want to talk more about how these discussions relate to the aim of the blog, whose authors describe as the following: “It is our hope that we can gradually transform ‘the strangers we walk by’ into ‘the stories we walk by’ and stop to listen to.” This blog is an effective example of how to complicate the way we think about poverty and what should be done about issues surrounding homelessness in Berkeley. 

The most recent post is about a jewelry seller named Joe that works on Telegraph Avenue. In the picture that the bloggers take of him, is portrayed as an active person—jewelry tools are flung about the colorful cloth that he sits on. Gems and necklaces that he has arranged fall between him and the viewer of the picture. We could consider this picture as an appropriate and ethical picture as we talked about in class in the past weeks. There is no implication that the viewer must be doing something to save Joe from his condition. He clearly has business skills, so it is clear that they viewer could meet Joe on equal footing and purchase some of his work if they wanted to. Moreover, Joe’s suffering as a homeless person is not staged, in fact he looks as though he is in the middle of working on something and this photograph happened to be snapped.

Similar to this picture, what I particularly think is useful about this blog is that it makes each story of each homeless Berkeley adult go beyond a single story. There is a tendency to think of people that live in People’s Park or the groups of guys hanging out on Telegraph Avenue as all the same. Absorbed in thoughts about class or feeling overwhelmed about how to react to the homeless, we tend not to distinguish between one homeless person and the next. In fact, this is how we may think of any of the thousands of people on the Berkeley campus that we see but do not know. We fall into the cycle of seeing Berkeley as an anonymous collection of stereotyped individuals that we simply don’t have enough time to see as anything more than this.

However, this blog brings to life certain facts that allow us to better understand who Joe is and why he is doing what he is. Something that struck me was that Joe feels that he cannot get a “normal” job because he has 5 felony counts on his record. This helps complicate the stereotype that some may hold towards homeless adults for not working. What does it say about our criminal justice system if there is no way for the accused to fully become rehabilitated in society because we have ostracized them? Joe is also educated. He has degrees in both psychology and business. This shows, as we learned in class, that captions and narratives are needed to fully contextualize pictures. From the way that Joe dresses, we may not have considered that he is better educated than most students still in the process of earning their undergraduate degrees. He also has a perspective towards life that rivals many: “Be easy. Be easy, man. Shit ain’t that serious... . Everybody’s worried about everything, but what they should be worried about is other people. People can be too self-centered.”

What would you have thought about Joe if you had just seen him on the street and not known more about him? Does this matter? What is this blog doing for those that read it, and what do you think about it? I encourage you to look through this blog and consider the images and stories of the homeless that they have interviewed. Do you agree with the mission of this blog? Do you think that it is an ethical forum? 

"Finances Are Uncertain"

I wanted to talk about an article published by the Contra Costa Times discussing a new La Clínica location that opened in Oakley. The article is titled, "Oakley's low-cost clinic doing booming business, yet finances are uncertain."

I was initially confused about La Clínica, because my understanding was that La Clínica was a free clinic, very much like Berkeley's free clinic or St. Anthony's. I thought this because, when you read their mission or website, it states that they provide no cost or low cost services to the low-income and uninsured communities. However it was after I began working there, that I realized the clinic does charge a fee for most of their services. It's "no-cost" for those who are insured, usually through Medi-Cal or Partnership, and for those not insured, it's "low-cost". The way the clinic provides health services to those low-income or uninsured communities, is that their appointment and procedure prices are much lower than any other clinic. For example, a primary care office visit is $25, and La Clínica has only raised their prices by max $10 in the last ten years (according to an employee I talked to), and that makes it more accessible for people on a budget.

I thought this article does a good job of discussing the challenges of running La Clínica. First, because most of their patients are spanish speaking, it's difficult to recruit providers and nurse practitioners who are bilingual. Also, La Clínica does not offer competitive salaries, therefore finding qualified workers is even more difficult when they are competing with clinics who can afford a better salary and increased benefits. Lastly, it's difficult to balance the finances between patients that don't have insurance and those that do. Even if patients are insured through Medi-Cal, they move from being eligible to not being eligible quite often, so even insurance doesn't always secure a payment to La Clínica.

The article closes by stating that the Oakley La Clínica center is doing fine now, however it's very likely that they will be in deficit "right around the corner". I don't know specifically about the finances of the North Vallejo site I work with, but I am surprised to see that there is a large number and variety of staff members. I think this is a good topic to try and talk to the staff about, and ask if their work was ever affected or if the problems with the Oakley site are common throughout the 30+ La Clínica sites. The article link is below

http://www.laclinica.org/presscoverage/2013pc/news1305_01_ContraCostaTimes.pdf