Popular Ghanaian rapper Fuse ODG recently wrote an impassioned response to the third/fourth/fifth Charity Band Aid single released at Christmas (I forget which iteration we’re on now), as upon receiving a transcript of the lyrics his fears of the Africa they paint were compounded, “a resource-rich continent with unbridled potential… [portrayed] as diseased, infested and poverty-stricken”.
It’s an all too common depiction, and having recently read an anonymously written article on The Guardian’s Voluntary Sector Newtork (ow.ly/JiYgs) I cannot help but question the integrity of the charity narratives we’re being sold, as I’m sure many in the industry can relate to.
“We select the story of someone who has turned her life around in six months rather than the person who has gone from permanently using drugs to just getting high at weekends – and that in itself has taken two years – despite helping both examples.” – Anon, Guardian
I challenge this notion profusely. Compassion fatigue is in part a response to an overwhelming series of images and for our charity content writer to feel coerced into proffering this type of story just to hit this year’s income targets, is truly mortifying. I recently had an inspirational meeting with the founder of YCare, a charity focused on giving young people across the world a meaningful second chance in life. He told a story about a man, who after having spent months with one of YCare’s social workers, had managed to cut down his drinking to 15 cans a day from 20, simply by holding an empty jar in his hand as opposed to a can. What I take from that tale is sustainable progress. A level of understanding and empathy that a social worker cultivated with that man over gruelling months of progress. Its not an over-night revelation necessarily, but you can’t erode the fact that it’s life-changing. Why isn’t that good enough?
The anonymous Guardian blogger goes on to say, devastatingly understandingly, “I actually ‘felt better’ working for pharma and other ‘nasty’ industries who at least don’t pretend to be virtuous and just get on with pioneering development quietly”.
It doesn’t have to, and shouldn’t be this way. Yes charities are in functional regard a real business managing a challenging P&L. But I suggest that the very art of publishing heart-in-mouth, achingly manipulated smash and grab headlines and handpicking only the most agonising imagery has purported our hastened journey to desensitisation. We are denied a tangible conclusion, a centering of context, an understanding and understandable narrative. Shock and awe is stressful. It induces a mini parasympathetic fight or flight response, which I would suggest causes just as many to fly as they do to fight.
Think of the stories of your childhood. Literary theory traditionally supports beginning-middle-end linear narratives, first documented by Aristotle within the Unity of Action; even the short-story form generally comprises context setting, a climax of sorts, which then either remains partially resolved or open for interpretation. Authors have of course manipulated and experimented with sequentially ordering these parts, but each is needed. We are accustomed to this. Narratives are the tapestry into which our own stories are woven; whether they are those on TV, our conversations or our career paths. each of these narratives are ones we can follow, learn from, observe outcomes and reset decisions. We shouldn’t be denied this within the most importatnt stories of all; compelling doesn’t need to mean contrived.
“Keeping people and maintaining donations requires a deeper relationship and a deeper understanding. But that so often conflicts with in-year targets set by leaders, managers and trustees.” Anon, Guardian
“Though shock tactics and negative images may raise money in the short term, the long-term damage will take far longer to heal” (Fuse ODG, ‘Why I had to Turn Down Band Aid’)
Short-term pain but long term gain need to cease to be at loggerheads in the Third Sector. This needs to be the safe place for stories, those real narratives, and it is the grit and empathetic capacity of these truthful narratives that I fervently believe are the ones worth telling. We’re not selling one-liners in Hollywood to secure a movie deal. We’re in this for lives we change, the baby steps of emotional progress, we’re the hand-holders not the one-nighters. Charity is for the long haul. Crises are provide prime examples of our speedy reactions and ability to aid whenever needed -but if we left as soon as the food was distributed and the shelter was up, there’d be nothing of sustainable longevity and vision of a brighter, ever-so-slightly improved future. We need to move as a collective towards a different discourse.
So give me the truth. The WHOLE truth, and nothing but the truth. Be it short and snappy or lengthy; I certainly have time for your tales, even if your line manager doesn’t.
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