PuraVida Post 12-Reflections on a Career (2023-03-22): No. 3 in an Occasional Series
In my last post, I talked about living and working with the Tawahka Indians in the rainforest of northeastern Honduras. Shortly after that life-altering experience, I worked as an intern at the Center for the Support of Native Lands in Washington, DC. I remember Mac Chapin, its director, telling me that I’ll never have another chance to do something like that as jobs, marriage, kids, etc. would soon make spending months in the field a virtual impossibility. He was right. But as life often does, closing one window inevitably opens others. After years of moving about, Joscelyn and I settled into Washington, DC, and within a few years, we had a couple of kids. Plans to travel and work overseas were thwarted as we became enamored of the DelMarVa, expanded our social circle, and settled into our careers and lives. Little did I know then that the Inter-American Foundation (IAF) would become a second home for the next three decades.
CTTC (Peru) My job(s) at the IAF (running a fellowship program, photographer/photo editor, translations manager, contracting specialist) didn’t prompt me to ponder the nature of the U.S. work culture (well, not until 2020) but it did force me to examine international development, its goals, and its “grassroots” corollary. On the IAF website, grassroots development is defined as “the process by which disadvantaged people organize themselves to improve the social, cultural and economic well-being of their families, communities and societies.” That the IAF does not impose projects but rather responds to proposals and supports solutions from applicants themselves is a crucial difference with other international development agencies. I came to view my, and the IAF’s, work as empowering. And perhaps a little subversive, too.
Guna Yala (Panama) Contrary to the traditional methodology of funding international development through host country governments and/or contractors, the IAF provides support to non-governmental organizations and other community groups through such tangible means as grants, conferences, workshops, seminars, and monitoring visits from the Washington-based IAF staff. Less visible, however, is the ongoing support to grantees from in-country IAF contracted staff, travel grants to visit and work with fellow grantees, and official publications featuring grantees’ stories and accomplishments. I realized early on that by funding, supporting, and endorsing the work of grantees, the IAF (and therefore the U.S. government) was putting its “full faith and credit” behind them. To put it bluntly, the IAF provides a pathway to economic and, ultimately, political power. Channeling U.S. taxpayer funds to create and strengthen a democratic civil society throughout Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is a worthwhile, and what many might view as subversive, goal. The record reflects numerous examples of individuals and organizations that have risen to influential and powerful positions in countries where the IAF works. Additionally, by featuring grantees in its publications, social media posts, and public events, the IAF (and by extension, the U.S. government) was saying, “you are important, your work is essential, and we believe in you because you know how to reach the solutions to your own problems.”
Amigas del Sol (Guatemala)
DION (Honduras)
Finca Triunfo Verde (Mexico) Though my faith in the IAF’s mission never faltered, various challenges continued to dog the agency throughout my tenure. A robust fellowship program that supported graduate students conducting field research in LAC, as well as training Latin American development professionals in graduate studies in the U.S. was whittled away in the late 1990s. The loss of hundreds, if not thousands, of future grassroots development academics and professionals, not to mention the knowledge generated, was an irretrievable loss for the IAF and international development community in general. Although, the IAF’s Fellowship Program was revived in 2007, it was shuttered again shortly before the pandemic. I briefly left the agency in 2000 to pursue a photography career, only to be asked to return a few months later to manage and close out dozens of still active Fellowship grants (though the program had been shut down.) That part-time position eventually became a full-time photo editor position with the IAF’s publications department and where I remained over the next 10+ years.
FECCEG (Guatemala)
CODECA (Guatemala) As I embark on “recareering” as a writer and photographer, I look back on those years as a photographic training ground. I was fortunate to work alongside colleagues whose skills in writing, editing, and photography informed and immeasurably improved (or so I hope) my own work. Publishing the Grassroots Development-Journal of the Inter-American Foundation (GDJ) and Annual Report were projects I greatly enjoyed, were tremendously rewarding (my photos published!), and provided a valuable depository of information for IAF’s beneficiaries, development practitioners, and academics working in international development.
As electronic media became increasingly prevalent over print in the mid-2010s, the agency decided to halt the publications’ hardcopy versions. For many beneficiaries, internet access was and remains fraught, thus making easy access to the IAF’s publications through the agency’s website difficult. IAF had previously produced its publications in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, and distributed them to all grantees, as well as subscribers and university libraries. However, once those print versions disappeared an important source of information for that broad audience suddenly vanished. And as I mentioned previously, validating grantees’ work in print added a documented permanence to their efforts.
I don’t mean this as a rant against modernization. Federal agencies, indeed all organizations, must weigh financial and political decisions carefully, and make prudent, though sometimes painful choices. Today (in 2023), IAF maintains a robust online presence through social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Social engagement, though, has replaced the in-depth articles, book reviews, and subject expertise role that the GDJ provided. The dilemma to sacrifice permanence and depth for visibility in a high-paced, electronic information commons comes with hard choices-for which there are no clear answers. Part of the mythos of the IAF was that being such a tiny agency (about 45 employees), we at times felt under siege. Though it consistently receives high marks from grantees, the agency still gets bogged down in government bureaucracy, staff burnout, and annual funding that is subject to the whims of a fickle Congress. The perennial question dogging the IAF, and international development organizations in general, remains, “You’ve been at this for decades and yet poverty still exists throughout Latin America. That’s not a very successful track record.” What the detractors of international development fail to understand (perhaps deliberately) is that economic, social, and political inequities will for the foreseeable future, continue to exist throughout the developing world (and sadly, the developed world, as well). The reality is that organizations like the IAF, Peace Corps, and the countless NGOs addressing those problems of inequity and inequality must, through the projects they support, continue to ensure civil society’s access to power.
The inescapable effects of the colonial past throughout Latin America and the Caribbean (and Africa, Asia, and North America) and the continuing exploitation of “poor” countries for raw, natural resources is a powerful justification for supporting economic and social development. And even putting aside these moral and ethical dimensions, technologically advanced countries have an economic interest in supporting countries still struggling to modernize infrastructure, health care, education, and democratic reforms.
Embera (Panama) As the IAF grappled with the Covid pandemic and our office emptied out, all of us going on full-time remote telework status, I admittedly relished the chance to work at home without the distractions of in-office work. Without a daily commute of 2+ hours, I was able to concentrate more fully on work tasks, structure my day more efficiently, and as a result, be more productive. As weeks turned into months and years, the culture of “work” in the U.S. emerged as a leading issue prompting countless discussions at the IAF, home, and in the media. But, as the in-office work window closed, another opened and the lure of retirement proved irresistible. More later…
Guna Yala (Panama)
DION (Honduras)
Amigas del Sol (Guatemala)
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