Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, CEO Oxfam GB in an interview with me for Healing Solidarity 2019 conference Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, CEO Oxfam GB in a conversation with me for the 2019 Healing Solidarity conferenceIf you are reading this you might feel that you are one of the Good ones. If you are reading this you might feel that you are one of the 'good ones'. And there's no judgement for having … [Read more...] about On being ‘good people’
What capacities might we, as white people in international development, need to build in ourselves in order to commit to anti-racist practice?
A letter which is especially to people raced as white -like me - about the capacities I think we need to think about building in ourselves, to enable us to play a part in building anti-racist practice in our sector. A few years ago I wrote this piece about the role of privileged white people in International Development and challenged us to think about all the ways in which we … [Read more...] about What capacities might we, as white people in international development, need to build in ourselves in order to commit to anti-racist practice?
How can we transform toxic culture in the International Development sector?
What’s going on in the ‘international development’ sector when charities are found to have toxic cultures? And organisations which claim to be working to end poverty get embroiled in scandals about sexual abuse? Beyond the obvious need to address specific individuals and instances of abuse, what, as leaders, can we do to limit toxic cultures in our organisations more widely? In a 2010 … [Read more...] about How can we transform toxic culture in the International Development sector?
What do I mean by Wellbeing? And why do I connect it to Impact and Collective Care?
I'll be honest and share with you that in the beginning, I didn't make all of these connections. I started thinking I wanted to help women replenish themselves. For almost seven years up until 2011 was the Director of an International Non-Governmental Organisation (INGO) and I got burned out doing all the things. I didn't know how to take care of myself, and eventually left my job to take … [Read more...] about What do I mean by Wellbeing? And why do I connect it to Impact and Collective Care?
Resisting the commoditisation of self-care & building our capacity for collective care
I see some of what is happening, in particular online, around ‘self-care’ as a commodification and the development of a kind of ‘self-care’ industry that sells us stuff so that we can meet a need that the ‘do-it-all’ culture around us is creating. To me this is a capitalistic notion of self-care in which we buy something to fill a gap. In this model looking after ourselves is yet another thing we … [Read more...] about Resisting the commoditisation of self-care & building our capacity for collective care