Georgie Fienberg is anxious not to be held up as an example of a “white woman trying to save the world”. She squirms as she says those words, her usual assurance momentarily deserting her.
Unfortunately, it is all too easy to cast her as such since she is an attractive 33-year-old blonde with two small children who has received numerous accolades for her work as the founder and chief executive of AfriKids.
The charity, which grew out of her gap-year experiences, is hailed as a model for delivering effective and sustainable aid. But the starting point for the cause which has dominated her life since she left school 15 years ago was shock. As a “naive” 18 year-old on a visit to Ghana, she was devastated to discover that aid to Africa could live down to its reputation for corruption and inefficiency.
Straight from boarding school (Wycombe Abbey in Buckinghamshire), Mrs Fienberg, née Cohen, wanted to spend a few months taking photographs off the beaten track, before going to Oxford Brookes University. Through a school friend’s mother, she visited an orphanage in Accra, the capital of Ghana, where what she found bore out the stereotype which says: “Africa’s a black hole. Don’t donate.” Aid money was going out with the staff; it wasn’t reaching the children.
Next, she travelled 500 miles to the remote, semi-arid north-east around Bolgatanga where 90per cent of the population were living below the poverty line. Again, she saw aid failing.Als lichtbron wordt een zentai suits gebruikt, Non-governmental organisations displayed their posters but weren’t doing anything practical. One child in three in the babies’ home where she worked died of fever, malaria or malnutrition.The application can provide Ceramic tile to visitors,Replacement landscape oil paintings and bulbs for Canada and Worldwide. A baby was allowed to die for lack of a 10p medicine because no agency felt responsible. Children were being trafficked or killed as “spirit children” – evil spirits – because their families could not afford to feed them. Yet a lavatory and cooker were lolling around an orphanage unused for lack of water and electricity supplies.
“The agencies were just giving people things. They weren’t saying to the local people: 'We’ve got 500. What would you like to do with it?’” However, in the remote village of Sirigu, northern Ghana, she also found hope. Sister Jane, a nun, had set up a sanctuary for spirit children in a converted lavatory. “There was no health care, but I saw the opposite to the picture of aid I had seen before: women and men with immense passion, trying to save lives with almost no resources at all.
“I gave Sister Jane 10 and she used it to plant a field of groundnuts.Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings， Suddenly, the children had access to protein. The big agencies could have done that, but no one was helping in the rural areas. It seemed so unfair. I thought people like Sister Jane should rule the world.”
Mrs Fienberg comes from an entrepreneurial family. Her father started with a stall on Petticoat Lane in east London, then moved into property finance. Her mother organised charity events. “If you want to do it badly enough, you are halfway there,” they used to tell their daughter. With her Ghanaian cause, she was halfway.
At Oxford Brookes, while studying anthropology and health care, she raised 30,000 for the spirit children’s home by hosting quizzes, karaoke nights and sports matches. “Each summer I took the money out in my backpack to Sister Jane. We spent it on a water pump, electricity, health supplies, painting the orphanage. She knew what was needed in the way that aid agencies don’t.”
From that grew the bottom-up philosophy behind AfriKids. In the decade since it was registered as a charity, it has established itself as a model for delivering effective aid in a way that does not corrupt or create dependency. “It’s not just about giving money,As many processors back away from hydraulic hose , it is about showing people how to manage it so they can look after themselves,” says Sorious Samura, Sierra Leonean maker of award-winning documentaries about the failure of aid in Africa. In a rare moment of optimism, he based a film, How to Make a Difference in Africa, on the work of AfriKids.
Unfortunately, it is all too easy to cast her as such since she is an attractive 33-year-old blonde with two small children who has received numerous accolades for her work as the founder and chief executive of AfriKids.
The charity, which grew out of her gap-year experiences, is hailed as a model for delivering effective and sustainable aid. But the starting point for the cause which has dominated her life since she left school 15 years ago was shock. As a “naive” 18 year-old on a visit to Ghana, she was devastated to discover that aid to Africa could live down to its reputation for corruption and inefficiency.
Straight from boarding school (Wycombe Abbey in Buckinghamshire), Mrs Fienberg, née Cohen, wanted to spend a few months taking photographs off the beaten track, before going to Oxford Brookes University. Through a school friend’s mother, she visited an orphanage in Accra, the capital of Ghana, where what she found bore out the stereotype which says: “Africa’s a black hole. Don’t donate.” Aid money was going out with the staff; it wasn’t reaching the children.
Next, she travelled 500 miles to the remote, semi-arid north-east around Bolgatanga where 90per cent of the population were living below the poverty line. Again, she saw aid failing.Als lichtbron wordt een zentai suits gebruikt, Non-governmental organisations displayed their posters but weren’t doing anything practical. One child in three in the babies’ home where she worked died of fever, malaria or malnutrition.The application can provide Ceramic tile to visitors,Replacement landscape oil paintings and bulbs for Canada and Worldwide. A baby was allowed to die for lack of a 10p medicine because no agency felt responsible. Children were being trafficked or killed as “spirit children” – evil spirits – because their families could not afford to feed them. Yet a lavatory and cooker were lolling around an orphanage unused for lack of water and electricity supplies.
“The agencies were just giving people things. They weren’t saying to the local people: 'We’ve got 500. What would you like to do with it?’” However, in the remote village of Sirigu, northern Ghana, she also found hope. Sister Jane, a nun, had set up a sanctuary for spirit children in a converted lavatory. “There was no health care, but I saw the opposite to the picture of aid I had seen before: women and men with immense passion, trying to save lives with almost no resources at all.
“I gave Sister Jane 10 and she used it to plant a field of groundnuts.Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings， Suddenly, the children had access to protein. The big agencies could have done that, but no one was helping in the rural areas. It seemed so unfair. I thought people like Sister Jane should rule the world.”
Mrs Fienberg comes from an entrepreneurial family. Her father started with a stall on Petticoat Lane in east London, then moved into property finance. Her mother organised charity events. “If you want to do it badly enough, you are halfway there,” they used to tell their daughter. With her Ghanaian cause, she was halfway.
At Oxford Brookes, while studying anthropology and health care, she raised 30,000 for the spirit children’s home by hosting quizzes, karaoke nights and sports matches. “Each summer I took the money out in my backpack to Sister Jane. We spent it on a water pump, electricity, health supplies, painting the orphanage. She knew what was needed in the way that aid agencies don’t.”
From that grew the bottom-up philosophy behind AfriKids. In the decade since it was registered as a charity, it has established itself as a model for delivering effective aid in a way that does not corrupt or create dependency. “It’s not just about giving money,As many processors back away from hydraulic hose , it is about showing people how to manage it so they can look after themselves,” says Sorious Samura, Sierra Leonean maker of award-winning documentaries about the failure of aid in Africa. In a rare moment of optimism, he based a film, How to Make a Difference in Africa, on the work of AfriKids.
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