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About The Community Alliance Network CAN
Mission
To operate as a platform for international actors to stand in fellowship with rural community leaders towards the advancement of health education and access to legal protection in marginalized and underserved communities.
The mandate of CAN is built around our core belief that developmental work is best performed at the grassroots, community level. Our respect and admiration for leaders who are working to better their communities led us to adopt an organizational model centred around working alongside Community Based Organizations (CBOs), allowing us to make meaningful contributions that incorporate the features and wisdom of local communities.
CAN Viewpoint on International Developmental Work
The message contained in this speech is one we believe should be at the heart of anyone engaging in the work of international development.
http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html
In trying to raise awareness, we become story tellers; we become communicators.
The greatest disservice done by the development community to the resource poor peoples of the world, and in particularly of the African continent, is that it has fallen into the trap of telling one story: The story of poverty.
By accepting that single narrative as our mental image of the continent whenever we hear the word ‘Africa’, we flatten the hundreds of vibrant cultures and entrepreneurial peoples that should spring to mind into a single stereotype of a helpless, hopeless, suffering continent. In so doing, we would be complicit in eroding any chance of true empathy and solidarity between our audience and the people in the stories we tell. Worse, we overlook so many of the true solutions to dilemmas in Africa; solutions which are so very often African in origin.
That being said, the realities of children who are full of promise dying needlessly of preventable disease and disregard for maternal health, of abuse and disenfranchisement of women, of environmental disaster - these are all real stories. To disregard them in favour of stories of success and self sufficiency in the African continent, would be equally dehumanising to its people.
It is vital that we all find a balance of stories, both in our own minds and in our narratives to others that we might be agents not just of a humanitarian, but a humanising force. That is our challenge, and one we are proud to be part of. |
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