This blog post was written by Megan Henderson, our Senior Communications & Events Officer.
Literacy lesson in Karamoja, Uganda.
Over the last year our UK staff has spent a lot of time reading, researching and learning. As a staff team we feel it is imperative to address all forms of injustice, including racial injustice, and we’ve been exploring how to decolonise our minds and our practices. We’ve discussed building the new normal, addressing unconscious bias and shifting power. Our journey started with a workshop with our Board to discuss questions raised by Charity So White.
Following our workshop we developed twenty actions from increasing Board diversity to decolonising our language. After several months we have finally completed a language audit. We took time to review the language commonly used across all our platforms from monthly e-newsletters to the grant applications we write.
Words have power. For example, talking about ‘the developing world’ positions it as inferior to the ‘developed’ world. Talking about ‘local partners’ suggests they are somehow less important. Writing about ‘the poor’ risks objectifying people. Calling our members ‘beneficiaries’ makes us the saviours, them, the helpless recipients of what we give. Is ‘capacity building’ really the right term? Or ‘needs assessment’? And why is ‘due diligence’ not seen as mutual? It is only usually done by the funder to the spender of funds, as if the spender has no right to know more about the organisation raising funds on its behalf and through its stories and work
We believe some simple changes in the language we use to describe Five Talents, our partners, trainers and the members of Savings Groups can help identify and redress these implicit value judgements. But we’ve found it is not always as easy as replacing one word with another; much depends on context and culture, and often the best language may change over time too.
Two main action points came from our audit:
We will aim to be as specific as possible when discussing programmes and partners. Each Savings Group member, programme, country and culture is unique and should be recognised - not lumped together.
We will aim to look at how our words define power, for example, Five Talents does not own Savings Groups - the community does. We are not giving a voice to communities which have been marginalised; they have always had a voice but they are not always listened to.
Our current language audit is here. We know there may be some terminology missing and recognise this will never be a finished product. We will continue to review our language as the nuance of particular words evolves and keep a copy online with our other policies.
We are now reviewing our website and media materials to edit and update the language that is already being used. We hope, as a Five Talents supporter, you will remind us when we fall short, and consider the language you use daily too.