The two sides of Ed Sheeran’s development work

“White saviour”, “poverty porn”, “reinforcing negative stereotypes” have been some of the phrases thrown at Ed Sheeran in recent weeks after he ‘won’ the 2017 Rusty Radiator award handed out by Radi-Aid. This annual award, along with the Golden Radiator, highlights the very worst and best fundraising videos in international development. The judges criticise videos […]

I’m off

That’s right, I’m out of here. I’m taking 8 months off work and I’m going to see parts of the world I’ve never been to before, armed with my camera, pen and pad (ok, iPad). This decision has been a long time coming and to be honest I’m pretty nervous. I don’t know many 33 […]

Guest post: Living in Africa; what’s it really like?

Rosie Coleman explains what she’s learnt from her travels and living in different part of Africa over the past year. Check out her previous blog on how travelling helped her with her career. I’ve now lived in Rwanda’s capital Kigali for 5 weeks and I’ve been working and travelling in Africa for nearly a year. […]

Guest post: How travelling helped me reflect on my career and decide what to do next

Rosie Coleman explains why she took time off to travel and how it helped her career. Make sure you check out the video about her first three weeks in southern Africa too. I’d never taken a gap year. My travels had been holidays rather than extended periods spent overseas. After graduating from LSE in 2013, […]

Cambodia’s Fake Orphanages: The Dark Side of Voluntourism

This new documentary gives another insight in to the dangers of orphanage volunteering, focusing on Cambodia. The number of orphans in the country has reduced in recent years but the numbers of orphanages, particularly in tourist areas, has shot up. These are often funded by well-meaning international volunteers and have created a commodity of spending time […]

Guest post: My three months in Kumasi: what Ghana can teach the UK about innovation and entrepreneurship

Rosie Coleman has just returned from her work in Ghana as a Business Associate with Challenges Worldwide. Please do get in touch with her directly if you’d like to discuss future business opportunities either in the UK or overseas. I’d like to thank Rosie for allowing me to share her post and you can read […]

How to volunteer sensitively and be aware of power dynamics

Last week I spoke at the excellent ‘A refugee like me‘ conference run by the Wonder Foundation at The Baytree Centre. The two day conference, attended by young people from many countries including the UK, Sweden and Slovenia, was all about opening up discussions about refugees in the UK and practical advice about how to volunteer for […]