Inspiring people

One thing I loved about living here in Kazakhstan was the opportunity to go and visit organisations which were doing something positive about social and economic problems in their country. Spending a year studying and thinking about poverty has, at times, left me somewhat hopeless. If a country has no natural resources, nothing to trade and no investment, what hope for development? Now those questions still remain and when I look at a country like Tajikistan, where growth rates are declining and this winter saw people dying of cold and hunger, I wonder how the suffering of these people will be eased...(take a quick look at this link- a short slideshow about Tajikistan's winter crisis 2007/08: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/asia_pac_tajikistan0s_winter_struggle/html/7.stm)

But this week I have been in another town in Southern Kazakhstan, visiting some friends and the work they do here. They introduced me to some really inspiring people who are passionate about relieving the suffering of others. I found myself sitting around a table with local people who give me hope: one man works with the homeless bringing practical help and more, another hangs out with young drug addicts showing them the care they often lack, a lady tries to brighten the lives of disabled children with parties and trips, another wants to make sure people receive the social security benefits that they are due. The discussion was lively from the start, the passion clear. 'Sometimes I go to a house of a disabled person and they tell me they want to end it all,' one lady said, 'so I go to the shop and buy some cake and we sit and cry together for a bit and then we drink tea and eat the cake. Sometimes it's enough to just know someone cares.' Another man with dirt stained hands told us, 'I was one of those drug addicts and people wouldn't talk to me but these people did and now my whole life has changed'. Later a man from the Disabled Association of the city told me 'I invited able-bodied people to a camp with my disabled children so they could see that we are not like their stereotypes and by the end of the camp they certainly saw us differently rather than seeing us as different.'

In the West, there is a lot of cynicism. In academia, the critical eye is highly prized. After a year of Western academic study of the complexity of development it all seemed very complicated. Colonialism, neo-colonialism, World Bank hegemony, NGO co-option by the State, everything riddled with data problems...Now it's not that these things don't matter or that I suddenly think that academia is useless. But sitting with these inspiring people who don't receive massive grants from the UN, who often live on very little themselves, who were speaking with such passion about those in difficult situations and taking action, they have something very simple in common:
Love for their neighbour.