I’ve been at my fellowship placement in Lusaka for nearly five weeks, and there is a consistent theme that comes up in every meeting, assignment, and conversation we have: impact. My co-workers and I are constantly asking ourselves: What is our impact? How do we measure it? And, perhaps most importantly, how do we make it bigger?
I’ll admit, all of this talk about immediate and measurable results has caused me a bit of anxiety. I came to this fellowship with a general idea of what I want to accomplish and a lot of enthusiasm, but nervous about being an outsider and imposing ideas that might be out-of-touch or even silly. However, one definite plus of the constant “impact” conversation is that it has caused me to reflect about what I want do in the upcoming year, and more importantly how I intend to do it.
When people ask me why I choose to work in international development and global health in particular it never takes me more than two seconds to answer: Because I love it and it makes me happy- even though some days are tough. Recently, however, I’ve started to feel unsatisfied with my response. In general, my happiness is derived from being useful and making a positive impact, and in knowing that my choices are guided by an overarching need to fight structural violence (be it poverty, racism, sexism, etc). However, I also worry about the methods I, and more broadly the collective we who work in international development, use to accomplish our objectives. I feel incredibly fortunate to do the work that I do, but at same time occasionally uncomfortable in a position of privilege (as a Western advice-giver) that I don’t think I have yet earned. For instance , I often struggle with the fear that my perceived expertise may unintentionally silence local voices. However, it is thanks to this same discomfort that I have found better ways to engage with the communities around me, through regular exercises in active listening, quiet observation, and self-reflection.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’ll ever fully get over the unease I feel at being given de facto professional authority in countries that are not my own due to the my background and skin color, but, I have come up with three simple questions to keep myself motivated, inspired, and in-check that I intend to use throughout the year as a means of tracking my impact:
1). Whose agency is at stake in my day-to-day activities? To be more precise, to what extent are my efforts either enabling or stifling others’ ability to live up to their full potential?
2). Am I doing everything I can to make sure that my contributions are supportive of and don’t undermine local capacities? (I mean this as a deliberate process of constant self-reflection, because privilege has a funny way of sneaking up on me/us even when we think we are doing the right thing.)
3). If I were to leave, would my absence create a gap?(this question is tricky, because clearly no-one aspires to expendability, but at same time it’s silly to generate change that an organization can’t take ownership of and continue on their own when the whole point of what we do is sustainability.)
I am certain that as I spend more time in Zambia these thoughts, which at the present time are more like spontaneous ramblings, will evolve. However, I feel incredibly lucky to work in a field and be part of a program like GHC that force me to think about my role in public health in the context of challenging issues like structural violence. This process of self-reflection, instead of undermining my commitment to working in global health, has strengthened my resolve to do so in the least damaging and most sensitive way possible, an odd ambition perhaps, but one that has made me feel more comfortable and happy in my professional choices than I have in a long time.
