Coming soon – We Don’t Do Charity is a hard-hitting new documentary about the Humanitarian Aid Industry.
People are queuing up to point out that the global aid and development system is flawed and tainted with neo-colonial attitudes, sex scandals, racism, corruption and waste. But what is the alternative? Is it time to shift power away from the Global North and back to local people and communities who are capable of mapping out their own futures?
With stories from some of the very poorest areas across Africa and India, this film follows dynamic local communities, organisations and civil societies that are working successfully on shoestring budgets to solve problems of hunger, climate change, violence and illness.
Together with leading campaigners for change from both within and outside of the aid sector, the documentary elevates and amplifies voices from Uganda, Ghana, India, Kenya and Somalia to show that real, sustainable change is possible by ditching the traditional ‘here comes the cavalry/White Saviour’ attitude and replacing it with a more equitable, trusting and effective system of partnership and respect.
The Aid and Development industry cannot continue to be a self-policing, western-controlled sector. It needs to change and we want our audience to feel they can participate in that change.
Talking to the founders of Indian NGO Goonj, Anshu and Meenakshi Gupta, they share why partnership, dignity and co-investing are key. And that idea is gathering traction across the globe. We hear similar stories in Ghana, Kenya, Somalia, and Uganda.
We discover how human dignity can be eroded by International agencies, and that there are better ways of providing aid. We discovered that aid agencies have been heavily criticised for some time now; the problem is known but no-one is implementing solutions. Is it because turkeys won’t vote for Christmas? There are many aid and development workers from the Global North whose careers and comfortable neo-colonial existences will be wrecked if change happens.
In this documentary, we go in search of stories and examples of how small, nimble, local organisations across the world are, just like Goonj, changing aid and development to bring dignity and self-determination to communities that previously had no agency, no voice and little future.
