This blog post was written by Megan Henderson, our Communications & Events Manager.
Savings Group in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Around this time each year the UK team reports back on what we are doing to operate as an anti-racist organisation. We are continuing our commitment to shift more power to our partners. We know this is an ongoing journey which will have many steps and take on new priorities each year, but we are also grateful for the additional progress we have made in the last year.
At the start of 2023 we held an away day session with our board members and staff. Specifically, we worked with consultant Bill Bruty and discussed what decolonising aid is and how it may affect the future of fundraising within Five Talents.
In 2020 our UK team started assessing the language we used and in 2021 completed a language audit. Last year we revisited the language audit for a fresh review - and decided to set objectives to review the audit annually as part of our normal policy reviewing procedures as we recognise that language and nuance can change over time. What is acceptable to us now may not be acceptable in the future.
As a team we watched the documentary Stop Filming Us. The documentary is made by Dutch filmmakers who visit Goma, DR Congo, and discuss the ongoing portrayal of Goma with locals. The documentary discusses the distrust local residents have with NGOs and filmmakers about their unfair portrayal and the stereotypes of war and poverty. The UK team had a helpful discussion about framing our own portrayal of programmes and how our partners could be even more involved in the messaging and imagery of Five Talents.
As a team we have recognised the importance of diversity in our events and panel discussions and we want to be even more focused on increasing the diversity of voices at our events, to ensure a greater range of views and perspectives are represented, to help inform and educate those of us who attend. Our events are an opportunity and a platform to showcase voices that are not always heard. For example, our Programme Advisor from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Irene Nyambura, spoke alongside other high profile panelists at an event in September last year.
In our programmes we are focussed on peer learning. During our programme workshops we emphasize partners learning from each other rather than looking to the UK team as “experts”.Savings Groups are led by and for communities, and are rooted in the premise that members have all the solutions themselves. The same goes for our partners; the UK is not the expert, our partners are.
As always, we continue to listen, read and learn. Building on our learning from 2023, we have set ourselves two priorities for 2024:
Following the away day on decolonising aid and fundraising, we will continue equipping and enabling partners to carry out their own fundraising locally. This includes exploring how we can provide some unrestricted funding to them all.
Following our discussion group on Stop Filming Us, we will continue to explore centring partner and member voices in story gathering.