WC Impact Areas: Empowerment-Creative Radicals

One of the main reasons why I decided to volunteer for World Camp in Malawi in 2009 was because I was impressed by the way in which this organization presented itself: carefully trying to introduce a critical debate among disadvantaged rural Malawian students. WC’s humble, interactive, and confronting approach towards empowerment stayed with me. But, it was not until months after I left Malawi that I started to recognize similarities between WC’s work and the ideas of the Brazilian educationalist Paulo Freire. It’s exactly this similarity that encouraged me to get involved again with WC. This summer I will return to Malawi as a Program Coordinator.

Kids at school. Photo Credit: Katy Lackey

I was first introduced to Freire’s thoughts during my graduate studies. Here I learned that discussions surrounding development processes have generally shifted from social evolutionism and modernization theory towards an increasing emphasis on the inclusion of intended beneficiaries in these processes. Yet, after my experiences working for several NGOs in South Africa, Botswana, and Cameroon I have seen that hopeful notions of participatory development are too often overshadowed by the existence of problematic power inequalities at all levels of society, which makes it questionable to what degree claims of participation are truly empowering.

The existence of these power inequalities – between international donors and NGOs, men and women, teachers and students, etc – makes many people argue that aid to Africa is a Band-Aid, not a long term solution. Yet, by returning to Freirian ideas I believe that there are paths towards more transformative change. Paulo Freire argued that one must educate people in such a way that they are in the position to continuously reflect and act upon their social situation. Eventually, people could then work hand in hand with those who show genuine solidarity and are willing to critically encounter the world (so-called “creative radicals”) in order to recognize and transform existing power inequalities. 

Interns Gretchen Visser and Reiner Terwindt present
teacher certificates during community awareness presentations.

During my time in Malawi I learned that students often knew quite a lot about HIV/AIDS and deforestation but they did not always recognize the power that they had to change their social reality. Over the years, WC has worked with these students to further increase their knowledge about the issues that surround them through critical thinking and interactive teaching methods. This way, WC has been able to start a process of carefully increasing beneficiaries’ power to face their struggle. By doing so I believe that WC sets an example for many others trying to support disadvantaged groups. One should not want to fight their struggle for them, but rather be willing to find creative solutions that increase the capabilities of disadvantaged groups to participate in their own fight against existing problems. 

I’m really excited to be part of stimulating such critical debates in Malawian classrooms again and by doing so encouraging Malawian students to make themselves stronger!