A useful and relevant gift

I’m aware that we’ve blogged about ‘acne cream and pre-shave scrub’ and seem to have lots of examples displaying paternalistic attitudes towards Africa, like sending inappropriate gifts – that seem to be ‘exporting the empire’ – in ways that don’t empower the recipient communities. Yet I know that lots of people want to help appropriately and effectively, and so far our blog posts may have only added to the confusion, leading to more cries of ‘but what can we do’? I know that talk of lifestyle changes and campaigning for changes to the structures and relationships between Africa and ‘the West’ often only partly satisfy those wanting to compassionately respond – and so I wanted to mention something that you might have that can be a useful gift…. a mobile phone….

In Zambia, as elsewhere in Africa, the mobile revolution has taken place. With access to cheap mobile phone networks the landline hurdle has been jumped, and the masses are reaping the ‘benefits’ of instant communication. The mobile phone can offer many benefits: setting up a ‘public mobile phone’ in a community can generate an income; emergency medical advice can be given to rural hospitals; money can even be transferred to family members in remote places. So if you have a mobile phone (that has a removable sim card) doing nothing, it might just be a relevant and useful gift to someone here (contact us for the best way to send it).