Workshop
“So You Want To ‘Save’ Africa?”
We just presented recently at the Student Leadership Conference. Thank you to all those who attended. It was a great workshop! If you really want to attend, but could not make it to this one, keep posted. We might be presenting on UBC campus again in next month.
Advocacy and aid campaigns bring armed conflict and human suffering, especially in Africa, to the attention of the general public, particularly youth. Common responses to the campaigns are the wish to ‘help’ or ‘make a difference.’
At this point the following questions arise:
How do these campaigns tell the stories of Africans?
What solutions are suggested and who suggests them?
Who are the campaigns intended to help and who actually benefits?
Our workshop, entitled “So you want to ’save’ Africa?”, examines these questions and builds critical awareness with respect to the design of the campaigns and common reactions to them.
The following points are some of the content covered:
- oversimplification
- the knee-jerk reaction
- celebrity activism
- assumption of voicelessness
Feedback
This workshop has been so successful that we have been running it for several years now. Before every presentation we update the content to more recent campaigns. Last year we held the very well attended “So You Want To ‘Save’ Uganda?” Workshop responding to the KONY 2012 campaign.
Material
If you are interested in holding the workshop at your location, feel free to download our PowerPoint Presentation and the Facilitator’s Guide. Contact us if you have further questions.