My name is Paul Brooks, the Executive Director of Project HOPE UK, a well-respected UK-based NGO that is passionate about the long-term health prospects for children in developing countries.
Although, over the 17 years since we were founded, we have run successful health programmes in dozens of countries across four continents, in recent years, whilst honouring the commitments we have in other places, we have chosen to concentrate our resources on one of the world's biggest health challenges - the health of orphans and other vulnerable children in sub-Saharan Africa, where the United Nations estimates there to be 53 million orphaned children, and millions more, rendered extremely vulnerable due to their proximity to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Evidence from the communities in which we work suggests that statistically, children who are orphaned through AIDS have a tragically short life expectancy and are unlikely ever to contribute more to their society through taxes and productivity than they will take from it in social benefits and health care.
Traditional Western-led NGO initiatives, whilst achieving some short term benefits for the target communities, are rarely truly sustainable; charities and governments claim that they are, but the evidence is that most major programmes, unless supported by locally-generated funds, will collapse after the initial international grant has ended, typically after between two and four years. Furthermore, the old adage, "he who pays the piper calls the tune", means that, however it is dressed up, real authority, responsibility and control remains in the hands of the Western NGO or its funders, militating against the "empowerment" of the local community that oozes from the press-releases and annual reports of the organisations promoting the activities.
Something has to change! Firstly, there simply is not enough money in the system to provide the levels of care that 53 million orphans (plus the other vulnerable children) will need to overturn their poor prognosis and become healthy, productive adults. Secondly, because the old-style approaches of the West simply perpetuate a disempowering new-style colonialism, working against Africa's courageous attempts to take responsibility and emerge from oppression and poverty.
The Thoughtful Path is an initiative that unashamedly seeks to develop the sort of dynamic, international, culturally sensitive partnerships that will re-write the rule book and inspire genuinely sustainable solutions that will offer a real future for the children of Africa and beyond.
This blog is intended to offer comment and insights into some of the struggles involved in working with communities to effect transformational change, leading to marked and measured improvements in the long-term health and well-being of orphans and other vulnerable children, and inspiring others to think again about entrenched, ineffective operational structures that can perpetuate poverty of the mind and spirit, as well as the body.
This will not be a platform for charity "spin", but of honest, warts-and-all reflection on the path to a better future for the children of the world - the Thoughtful Path. I will share honestly and openly, a very personal view of the joys and frustrations of swimming against the tide, and hope that through it all, we can discover how we can, in the words of St Paul, "look not only to (our) own interests, but also (and especially) to the needs of others.
