Save the Children #FirstWorldProblems

After leaving our discussion spurred on by the readings on visual documentation I become interested if there has been any shifts in the documentation of Ethiopia and poverty, as well as whether it has coincided with any actual economic or policy changes within the country. Growing up in southern California, many people were less than knowledgable about Ethiopia in any capacity, with the exception of the Feed the Children commercials that launched at the onset of the drought and famine of 1983-1985. I believe a majority of our class is not old enough to remember this actual timeframe in history, however many of the commercials launched in response to this natural disaster were heavily in rotation for a number of years after an extent of the disaster had been contained and in still play to this day to some extent.

Just for background development, in the case some people did not run into such commercials growing up I decided to try to search one of the archaic commercials. Personally, I still remember the extremely underweight children almost too frail to move being paraded on late night television all too well, as well as their distended bellies that are still the bud of many jokes once people do find out I am from there.

 I stumbled across across a few videos reminiscent of the many videos I had seen. All of the following videos in my opinion manipulate images to a great degree. In fact, one of the images that was included in one of the videos was the Kevin Carter's iconic images from his trip to Northern Sudan depicting the vulture preying over a famine stricken Sudanese toddler from the village of Ayod, Sudan.

In efforts to capture the perfect image whether it is for the purpose to represent the raw moment or to serve as call to action for the viewing public there is to an extent a degree of staging that occurs, which ultimately also equates manipulating the subject. In this instance the subject is the marginalized, the have-nots, the hungry, the sickly, and youth this leads to the question whether this equates to exploitation. When this images are captured we need to also weight out what we are able to live with in terms of at what cost does the image warrant the exploitation. Is the after affect or the desired call to attention worth it?

Another interesting aspect of the videos posted below is the lack of a call to action. We mentioned this in class earlier. The stirring up of all these emotions and sense of accomplishment felt by some for just engaging with the images and feeling like a better person for seeing the depths of poverty that exist. Yes, many of us need to be more grateful for what we have and it does become quiet simpler when you see the less fortunate shoved in your face on your big screen television. However, displaying such images whether they are staged, manipulated, and utter examples of exploitation are even WORSE to me when there is no option or suggestion to viewers to help fix the problem they are feeling sorry for and emotional over.  When we joke about things like #FirstWorldProblems I think we become cognizant of a problem, which is the goal, but are missing the latter half of the goal: the change we are hoping for.

Not too surprisingly, the images today asking for donations for Ethiopia are quite similar. The only representation of poverty that I felt was a stray away from these all too paralleling videos was a film shaped to feel like a documentary. The title, Zewdi The Street Kid, in my opinion does much more justice to the target group(marginalized street children in Ethiopia). http://vimeo.com/27882235

Advice from my Grandma

For spring break, I went home to spend some time with my family.  In particular, I have been spending more time with my grandma, who has lived more than fifty years of her life in Vietnam before she fled with millions of other Vietnamese people.  Over the years, she has gone back to Vietnam twice.

Throughout the week, I have been getting some advice about my upcoming trip to Vietnam.  Be cautious when eating street food because you might get sick (strangely, my family sold street food too!).  Be sure to bring all your medicine because Vietnam probably will not have all the prescriptions I need.  Do not bring too much money with you in case that it gets stolen.  Make sure you travel with people you can trust.

But, here are some other things that she said: If see you see people having a hard time selling food on the street, give them a few dollars; it will really help them.  You should bring some American candy and chocolates with you, and give it to people.  They don’t have this kind of quality candy there and will be happy to receive some.  Are there any clothes that you don’t wear now that you can give to them?

All these things made me really think of the kind of privilege that I will have when I travel to Vietnam for my practice experience.  This conversation sounded a lot of like conversations that we have add in GPP 105.   My grandma was essentially telling me that when I go to Vietnam, I will be looked at as a person of privilege.  An American.  An outsider. 

And that’s okay.

I know that the advice that I got came from a place of love.  Be smart.  But, at the same time, do what you can.

Over her time in America, my grandma would send whatever she can every year (her social security) to her family and friends still in Vietnam.  She has definitely sent some of my old clothes, and every time she comes back from her trip to Vietnam, her suitcase is basically empty.  She has given it all to the people there.

And no, what she does will probably not resolve the problem of poverty in Vietnam.  There is always critique of giving people what they need creating dependency.  And maybe it is wrong to think of Vietnam as a place of need (because they should be accountable for their own welfare), but that does not mean that giving people something warm to wear is not helpful at the present time.

I admire the heart that my grandma has.  Honestly, I cannot imagine myself giving up all that I have to people I do not know.  But, I definitely hope that during this practice experience, I will learn to be a little more selfless and do the best that I can.

Going off on a little tangent, I would like to share a video from the World Bank on poverty in Vietnam: