Friday, November 30, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Monday, August 20, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Back to the Point
Hello again.
When I originally started this blog, the idea was to talk about (and put into practice) the ways in which public health NGOs can contribute to achieving social change and improved poverty/health/equity/happiness outcomes, particularly in Latin America. My adviser in college used to joke that I spent my college years searching, as in a kitchen, through cabinets and under rugs for the answer to this question that plagued me. The thing is, when I was in college I thought I had the answer, or at least, a really exciting way to go about working on finding the answer. Now I'm not so sure. In some respects I feel like I am only now arriving at a point in which I really have to take all these experiences of the last few years and actually sit down and learn something before I can move forward. Unfortunately, the way forward isn't as clear as it seemingly always has been for me.
I was certainly prepared to struggle with the fancy world of non-profit work. I had read plenty of critiques of those overly professionalized and self congratulatory conferences and the horrors of quarterly reporting and donor requirements (check out Laura Augustin's Sex at the Margins, or the Revolution Will Not Be Funded, to get more of an idea). I chose health because I thought it was the least political option. I suppose that sounds strange now, given our current national debates on health care and women's reproductive rights, but I thought no one could disapprove of clean water and sanitation systems, vaccines and drug treatments. Of course, it turns out that politics, pettiness, and bureaucracy lurk behind the corners of every profession. I am not always sure how humans could have created a world that works like this. People disavow anarchy for promoting "chaos" (Which of course it doesn't but I won't get into that. Now.), but I think our current world is already rife with chaos, badly planned, poorly managed, and our "democratic" systems just serve to cement the interests of the rich and powerful into place while everything else goes wild and mostly poorly. (This chaos of course also accounts for much of the beauty of our world, I suppose, but if we are gong to have bureaucratic structures can they at least work well?)
In any case, what I have found is that health is no different from any other sector, and now I am back to peering out into the world of actual work and wondering what else I might get involved in where I don't need an MD to be taken seriously. What I really wish is that the whole endeavor was more integrated, more holistic, and more thoughtful- something that fits with real lives as they are really lived, for both those "receiving services" and those working on the programs. Something independent of the donor and grant system. Something where people connect and work together and really change the whole situation. Something undefined.
I end up feeling torn between these visions of revolutionary social change (on however small a scale) and this other image of a home, a life, a comfortable day with a happy hour and a movie. Simultaneously, I want a job that lets me work a normal workday, something sane, something that allows you to have a family and a life in your own world, while I also want a job that is all consuming, part of the movement, a movement and a job that become my life, something outside of the ordinary, that makes a life. I already feel the easy sensations of hope and idealist zeal and excitement about the possible ebbing away into wondering where I will get dinner and if I will have enough days off to take a vacation. Even the organizing work I do in my personal life feels somehow disconnected from the broader fantasy and I don't know how to get it back.
The one thing that encourages me is that I like being challenged. I thrive on the unfamiliar. I love to move to a new place, be lost, struggle, find my way. I love a new situation, language, problem. I tried to think the other day of actual skills, really significant, special things that I was good at, and came up struggling. This is one. To go somewhere unknown and build anew. To organize things, for myself, for others. I just lack a current direction. Too driven to just move away to travel and chill. And again, I feel this new pull, the pull to root and to stay in my home here, which I love. How to balance those things into one life, then?
Everyone keeps telling me that I don't need to know now, that I will figure it out. It does seem that if I sit quietly for long enough, the ideas of where to go will come to me. Shadowy forms of them are already lurking, waiting to take shape into something practical (or practical enough). There is so much now to be a part of. Lately, my penchant is to find a way to move into this nexus of public health/development/disaster relief/preparedness as it relates to climate change. The preparedness aspect obviously seems a bit more uplifting. Prepare for the disaster, and hope my companions in arms can make a difference, in every social movement on the planet, in all our struggles, to make a better place.
Onwards.
Molly
PS- Check out these super interesting articles on how the US can make use of the public health programs implemented in developing countries to improve our own dysfunctional system!
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/what-we-can-learn-from-third-world-health-care/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/magazine/what-can-mississippis-health-care-system-learn-from-iran.html
When I originally started this blog, the idea was to talk about (and put into practice) the ways in which public health NGOs can contribute to achieving social change and improved poverty/health/equity/happiness outcomes, particularly in Latin America. My adviser in college used to joke that I spent my college years searching, as in a kitchen, through cabinets and under rugs for the answer to this question that plagued me. The thing is, when I was in college I thought I had the answer, or at least, a really exciting way to go about working on finding the answer. Now I'm not so sure. In some respects I feel like I am only now arriving at a point in which I really have to take all these experiences of the last few years and actually sit down and learn something before I can move forward. Unfortunately, the way forward isn't as clear as it seemingly always has been for me.
I was certainly prepared to struggle with the fancy world of non-profit work. I had read plenty of critiques of those overly professionalized and self congratulatory conferences and the horrors of quarterly reporting and donor requirements (check out Laura Augustin's Sex at the Margins, or the Revolution Will Not Be Funded, to get more of an idea). I chose health because I thought it was the least political option. I suppose that sounds strange now, given our current national debates on health care and women's reproductive rights, but I thought no one could disapprove of clean water and sanitation systems, vaccines and drug treatments. Of course, it turns out that politics, pettiness, and bureaucracy lurk behind the corners of every profession. I am not always sure how humans could have created a world that works like this. People disavow anarchy for promoting "chaos" (Which of course it doesn't but I won't get into that. Now.), but I think our current world is already rife with chaos, badly planned, poorly managed, and our "democratic" systems just serve to cement the interests of the rich and powerful into place while everything else goes wild and mostly poorly. (This chaos of course also accounts for much of the beauty of our world, I suppose, but if we are gong to have bureaucratic structures can they at least work well?)
In any case, what I have found is that health is no different from any other sector, and now I am back to peering out into the world of actual work and wondering what else I might get involved in where I don't need an MD to be taken seriously. What I really wish is that the whole endeavor was more integrated, more holistic, and more thoughtful- something that fits with real lives as they are really lived, for both those "receiving services" and those working on the programs. Something independent of the donor and grant system. Something where people connect and work together and really change the whole situation. Something undefined.
I end up feeling torn between these visions of revolutionary social change (on however small a scale) and this other image of a home, a life, a comfortable day with a happy hour and a movie. Simultaneously, I want a job that lets me work a normal workday, something sane, something that allows you to have a family and a life in your own world, while I also want a job that is all consuming, part of the movement, a movement and a job that become my life, something outside of the ordinary, that makes a life. I already feel the easy sensations of hope and idealist zeal and excitement about the possible ebbing away into wondering where I will get dinner and if I will have enough days off to take a vacation. Even the organizing work I do in my personal life feels somehow disconnected from the broader fantasy and I don't know how to get it back.
The one thing that encourages me is that I like being challenged. I thrive on the unfamiliar. I love to move to a new place, be lost, struggle, find my way. I love a new situation, language, problem. I tried to think the other day of actual skills, really significant, special things that I was good at, and came up struggling. This is one. To go somewhere unknown and build anew. To organize things, for myself, for others. I just lack a current direction. Too driven to just move away to travel and chill. And again, I feel this new pull, the pull to root and to stay in my home here, which I love. How to balance those things into one life, then?
Everyone keeps telling me that I don't need to know now, that I will figure it out. It does seem that if I sit quietly for long enough, the ideas of where to go will come to me. Shadowy forms of them are already lurking, waiting to take shape into something practical (or practical enough). There is so much now to be a part of. Lately, my penchant is to find a way to move into this nexus of public health/development/disaster relief/preparedness as it relates to climate change. The preparedness aspect obviously seems a bit more uplifting. Prepare for the disaster, and hope my companions in arms can make a difference, in every social movement on the planet, in all our struggles, to make a better place.
Onwards.
Molly
PS- Check out these super interesting articles on how the US can make use of the public health programs implemented in developing countries to improve our own dysfunctional system!
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/what-we-can-learn-from-third-world-health-care/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/magazine/what-can-mississippis-health-care-system-learn-from-iran.html
Maps
I thought this was neat:
Places I've been:
Powered by 29travels
Places I would like to go (some of them anyhow, because really, I would like to go to all the places there are.)
Powered by 29travels
I guess that still looks like most places. In my mind, I narrow it down to itineraries and cities!
I was actually looking up this kind of map for work, and will eventually write about something of substance again. I thought it would be good to at least get a start.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Goodbye to my littlest Kevy G. With so much love.
Louie Harmstrong from Louie Harmstrong on Vimeo.
More songs and photos to come, as I find them...
Louie Harmstrong from Louie Harmstrong on Vimeo.
More songs and photos to come, as I find them...
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
2012
It's been so long since my last post, I don't know what to mention and what to let slide away into the lands of unwritten trivialities. Hmm.
Well, it's a new year, and I have a new job! I work for PATH now, a global health NGO (recently ranked 6th in the world!) based in Seattle (yup, my parents are happy, though I'm still in DC), on an MCHIP project, which is USAID funded. For me, that's a lot to mull over right there. New NGO, new mechanisms for global health, new world of fancy DC non-profit-ness to maneuver through. USAID, in particular, is quite the massive politically charged body to join forces with. Nothing is cut and dried, of course, so I don't have any all knowing judgements to pass down about these things. Yet. But so far the projects and the people working on them have been quite inspiring and exciting. We focus on maternal and child health, and my bosses in particular focus on anemia, nutrition, and newborn health. They work all over the world in very exciting places to which I would like to be taken. So far I have succeeded in being taken to the Dominican Republic for a conference on Kangaroo Mother Care (as cute as it sounds, and effective!) and a site visit to a hospital.
I realized recently that, despite all my revolutionary talk and self professed self awareness/open mindedness, I may have been holding something against Africa. Primarily because I had (have?) never understood it. In my mind it was mostly this vast land with lions and really, really poor dying people who would look at me with (justifiably?) accusing faces. My excuse for not going was that it was too desperate there, and because of that people couldn't be revolutionary, couldn't organize to make their own lives better, thus I could only offer them charity/pity, thus I wasn't interested. That whole excuse comes apart pretty fast. After all, Africa has been home to an amazing amount of inspiring revolutionaries, including this years trio of female Nobel Prize winners. And Africa is just so diverse, it strikes me as amazing that I thought I could generalize the whole continent without really thinking about it. Of course, I know this whole image is generated by the interaction I have had with media portrayals of Africa. Which is another reason that this charity based representation of international aid is a disservice to its recipients. How can a continent of strong, powerful, active, diverse people be condensed into one TV commercial for donating shoes? To be honest, I've started googling images related to each of Africa's countries. Mozambique looks gorgeous.
Surely my own ignorance/whatever negative -ism one could label this whole process as extends beyond the continent of Africa. Which begets the question- how do we know a place we have never been? How do we understand a culture or life we have never been a part of? Is it possible? I suppose if we get into this is-it-possible territory you could argue that it is never possible to truly understand someone else's experience in this world. But in some cases not understanding plays out as a disservice, or even an injustice, especially when the folks in power (or running the NGOs) are the ones not understanding. But how do we impact such a personal process? To me, experience has been the only solution. Be it meeting people, going to a country itself, living in it, even just looking at pictures of it. We can't know every place and every life. But then we don't act with agency over every aspect of the globe. It seems to me we owe it to be thoughtful about the things we do, here and as we work abroad. In fact, there was a super interesting article up recently on micro-agressions between races here, brought to my attention by the always informative broadsnark.
In any case, maternal and child health seems like a pretty awesome lens for action, though it doesn't always feel like activism. Activism, while we are on the subject, has received a massive infusion of enthusiasm from the Occupy movement (plus a few new radical vocabulary words for the media), and the scene in DC has now turned decidedly local. Which is super exciting! Folks are working more than ever on collaboration and supporting each other in all our various fights to make the neighborhood/city/nation/world into a better place worth living in. Let's talk neighborhood for a minute. Mt Pleasant, my old home (and still bordering my new one), is organizing to start up neighborhood assemblies. I first heard this term when I first read Horizontalism, preparing to go off to Argentina and learn from the real revolutionaries since we couldn't possibly build that kind of thing up here... and look! Here I am, sitting on someone's floor watching a volunteer translator collective hand out gear to the non bilingual, waiting to hear from fifty diverse voices on all the amazing things they do in my neighborhood and talking about how collaborating will make it all even better. How long has it been since I allowed myself to take mutual aid and consider it seriously? If I've been feeling old and un-punk, this has been lifting my spirits. Positive Force is also revitalizing, as we tackle the tyranny of structurelessness and other issues for radical organizing to put on awesome punk benefits and connect our community to the greater Columbia Heights community. As we change the world, slowly. Our last show was a youth benefit, and the littlest punk ones put a grin on my face that I couldn't shake all night.
Today I am feeling optimistic. So much so that I am going to have to make myself sign off. Thanks to those who read this far.
xo
m
Well, it's a new year, and I have a new job! I work for PATH now, a global health NGO (recently ranked 6th in the world!) based in Seattle (yup, my parents are happy, though I'm still in DC), on an MCHIP project, which is USAID funded. For me, that's a lot to mull over right there. New NGO, new mechanisms for global health, new world of fancy DC non-profit-ness to maneuver through. USAID, in particular, is quite the massive politically charged body to join forces with. Nothing is cut and dried, of course, so I don't have any all knowing judgements to pass down about these things. Yet. But so far the projects and the people working on them have been quite inspiring and exciting. We focus on maternal and child health, and my bosses in particular focus on anemia, nutrition, and newborn health. They work all over the world in very exciting places to which I would like to be taken. So far I have succeeded in being taken to the Dominican Republic for a conference on Kangaroo Mother Care (as cute as it sounds, and effective!) and a site visit to a hospital.
I realized recently that, despite all my revolutionary talk and self professed self awareness/open mindedness, I may have been holding something against Africa. Primarily because I had (have?) never understood it. In my mind it was mostly this vast land with lions and really, really poor dying people who would look at me with (justifiably?) accusing faces. My excuse for not going was that it was too desperate there, and because of that people couldn't be revolutionary, couldn't organize to make their own lives better, thus I could only offer them charity/pity, thus I wasn't interested. That whole excuse comes apart pretty fast. After all, Africa has been home to an amazing amount of inspiring revolutionaries, including this years trio of female Nobel Prize winners. And Africa is just so diverse, it strikes me as amazing that I thought I could generalize the whole continent without really thinking about it. Of course, I know this whole image is generated by the interaction I have had with media portrayals of Africa. Which is another reason that this charity based representation of international aid is a disservice to its recipients. How can a continent of strong, powerful, active, diverse people be condensed into one TV commercial for donating shoes? To be honest, I've started googling images related to each of Africa's countries. Mozambique looks gorgeous.
Surely my own ignorance/whatever negative -ism one could label this whole process as extends beyond the continent of Africa. Which begets the question- how do we know a place we have never been? How do we understand a culture or life we have never been a part of? Is it possible? I suppose if we get into this is-it-possible territory you could argue that it is never possible to truly understand someone else's experience in this world. But in some cases not understanding plays out as a disservice, or even an injustice, especially when the folks in power (or running the NGOs) are the ones not understanding. But how do we impact such a personal process? To me, experience has been the only solution. Be it meeting people, going to a country itself, living in it, even just looking at pictures of it. We can't know every place and every life. But then we don't act with agency over every aspect of the globe. It seems to me we owe it to be thoughtful about the things we do, here and as we work abroad. In fact, there was a super interesting article up recently on micro-agressions between races here, brought to my attention by the always informative broadsnark.
In any case, maternal and child health seems like a pretty awesome lens for action, though it doesn't always feel like activism. Activism, while we are on the subject, has received a massive infusion of enthusiasm from the Occupy movement (plus a few new radical vocabulary words for the media), and the scene in DC has now turned decidedly local. Which is super exciting! Folks are working more than ever on collaboration and supporting each other in all our various fights to make the neighborhood/city/nation/world into a better place worth living in. Let's talk neighborhood for a minute. Mt Pleasant, my old home (and still bordering my new one), is organizing to start up neighborhood assemblies. I first heard this term when I first read Horizontalism, preparing to go off to Argentina and learn from the real revolutionaries since we couldn't possibly build that kind of thing up here... and look! Here I am, sitting on someone's floor watching a volunteer translator collective hand out gear to the non bilingual, waiting to hear from fifty diverse voices on all the amazing things they do in my neighborhood and talking about how collaborating will make it all even better. How long has it been since I allowed myself to take mutual aid and consider it seriously? If I've been feeling old and un-punk, this has been lifting my spirits. Positive Force is also revitalizing, as we tackle the tyranny of structurelessness and other issues for radical organizing to put on awesome punk benefits and connect our community to the greater Columbia Heights community. As we change the world, slowly. Our last show was a youth benefit, and the littlest punk ones put a grin on my face that I couldn't shake all night.
Today I am feeling optimistic. So much so that I am going to have to make myself sign off. Thanks to those who read this far.
xo
m
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