Today a guest post of mine appeared on “Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like”. It’s something I wrote a while ago while still in Liberia and cursing the lack of bandwidth more than once per day. You can read the whole post about the importance of having internet access on SEAWL.
While taking the bus to work yesterday, I noticed the woman next to me reading this paper. And I just had to take a photo! As anyone who has working in the humanitarian sector knows, our love for acronyms is pretty ridiculous. In Haiti we even printed the most important ones on the back of t-shirts so that we could look them up more easily. The problem was – most of the changed so quickly that the t-shirt production couldn’t[...]
Knowing when to leave can be a difficult thing. Here are a few signs that might indicate it’s time for you to pack your bags and run for the nearest airport.
You’re an aid worker with 10+ years experience under your belt. You earn a pittance but it works for you because you are non-resident at home so you don’t pay tax, you are catered for on assignment so you don’t pay rent,and your mortgage is covered by the people renting your place because you are never there. Welcome to your future – these are your life options …
I like well made advocacy videos – and the one that British Red Cross released today definitely falls into this category. It features Konnie Huq, a well know and very sexy tv-presenter (well known in the UK). The question is: “Would you still want to kiss her, if she was HIV positive?” The reason this video was made is a survey that British Red Cross commissioned of 16-25-year-olds in the UK. The result: Even though 85 per cent know you cannot[...]
About a week ago, US comedian Sarah Silverman posted a video called “Sell the Vatican, Feed the world.” It has since been viewed almost 500,000 times and has been tweeted, commented and blogged about. I really like this video. I love satire and I think this video does a great job of raising awareness for world hunger. If you haven’t seen it, watch it before reading on. In case you don’t know Sarah Silverman, I should warn you: She is[...]
I’ve just been reading Ken Burbary’s blog and came across an excellent story from Scott Monty. I think it’s a beauty in itself and doesn’t need any additional commentary: “A friend sent me a PDF of an article from a business journal in which a company expressed reservations about this new technology over which everyone seemed to be abuzz. They decided that they would restrict employees’ use of it, because of the fear of corporate secrets getting out, of insider[...]
I just discovered that, the day after I posted “We are not funny – why nonprofits suck at being viral”, Mashable’s Josh Catone published “Top 10 YouTube Videos for Social Good”. This is a great list and I really recommend that you watch all of them for inspiration. While I don’t want to duplicate what he has already done, here are my top three – and my two cents for each of them: Because we are all connected I think this[...]
