THE REDUCTIVE SEDUCTION OF OTHER PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS

"The 'reductive seduction' is not malicious, but it can be reckless.

The rise of the social entrepreneurship field in the last few decades has sent countless young people packing across continents… A lot of those grads are doing powerful work.

But a lot of them, let’s be real, are not. They’re making big mistakes — both operationally and culturally — in countries they aren’t familiar with. They’re solving problems for people, rather than with, replicating many of the mistakes that the world’s largest development agencies make on a much smaller scale. They drop technology without having a training or maintenance plan in place, or try to shift cultural norms without culturally appropriate educational materials or trusted messengers. Or they’re spending the majority of their days speaking about the work on the conference circuit, rather than actually doing it."

Read the full piece on The Development Set by Courtney martin here.