“Be the Change: Save a Life” was one of the most humane and unusual shows on ABC, launched as a yearlong project to focus attention on the diseases and health conditions that disproportionately afflict the world’s poorest people.
ABC News is slated to invest more than $4.5 million in the series, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving a $1.5 million grant that will help fund overseas travel and foreign production costs.
In light of the economic recession, this television show puts an emphasis on the change that we as Americans can have financially and on policy in under-developed countries; and although it may seem minimal, the applied lessons of international volunteerism allows for impact.
From my experience covering philanthropy,it all begins with volunteers, they are the cosmic web of the galaxy that holds the universe together.
The daunting question many foreign countries have is how to organize labor and get supplies. The villagers have no power tools and the pressure of transporting goods can be a challenge. In one segment, a clinic nestled in the mountains of Lesotho, South Africa followed a special Foundation pony courier as he delivered lifesaving drugs and test results to mothers and pregnant women living with HIV in the isolated villages surrounding the clinic.
In another segment a Peace Corps volunteer was interviewed, which made me think of their existence. In March the Peace Corps will turn fifty years old. People assume that it came out of a grand idea, but its beginning may have had more to do with emotions associated with village politics. A brainchild of the late President Kennedy, the idea tapped into the feeling that the United States needed more grass-roots efforts to fight against communism. The anniversary is bittersweet; despite new funding, which has allowed for an increase in volunteers, the agency sends fewer than sixty percent as many people abroad as it did in 1966.
So what happened? Over time, the Peace Corps came to embody an empty campaign promise. Everybody had heard of it, impressions were vaguely positive, but there wasn’t a real awareness of what volunteers did and how there activities were funded. It became sort of like a charity, where duplicity is a key goal, with workers repeating the same thing in many different areas, but does anyone stick around to see the long-term results.
Volunteerism is a personal act, a Peace Corps volunteer is asked to give a twenty-seven month commitment, no doubt they become ambivalent about traditional developmental work that get in the way of reaching their ambitions. They are most likely to cheerlead smaller projects, where logistical issues are resolved and they can see their efforts come into fruition, as demonstrated on the show.
Still, I like the idea of the Peace Corp sentiment- expressing humility and respect. And I like the idea of the subversive element, because it tends to be quiet and dignified. Let’s hope that the Peace Corps can continue to inspire volunteers to social service and that they in turn can play the same role one they return home, politically and in their communities.
Tags: peace corp