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 […]

An interview with Ashish Thakkar

When invited to review Ashish Thakkar’s book, The Lion Awakes, I was also asked to do a Q&A with him about some of the topics that he explores in the book. Thank you to Ashish for taking the time to answer my questions so fully! How do you view the importance of aid versus trade (or […]

Review: ‘The Lion Awakes’, by Ashish Thakkar

Africa is home to six of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Collective GDP has now reached $2 trillion, up from $587 billion in 2000. 400,000 new companies were registered in 2014 and by 2040 Africa will have a larger workforce than China. These statistics, impressive as they are, only tell a small part of […]

Do you speak African?

Check out this video by Al Jazeera English, presented by Mehdi Hasan, about some of the myths surrounding the continent of Africa.

The Rusty and Golden Radiator Awards are in

Each year the Norwegian based organisation Students’ and Academics’ International Assistance Fund (SAIH) highlight the very best and worst of charity aid videos to try and change the way the aid industry approaches development and how poverty is represented. They look for those that are misrepresenting the people they claim to help, stereotype and possibly hinder […]

Copa90’s Global Talent Search

This post first appeared on the KickStart Ghana blog. Are you passionate about football? Think you have what it takes to represent Africa in telling football stories to the world? Then this competition is for you. Copa90 are looking for six football fanatics, one from each continent, to tell football stories from around the globe. […]

African people don’t want your stinky T-shirts

African people don’t want your stinky T-shirts and other mythbusters by Eliza Anyangwe.

Guest post: Touched by the pain of the Ebola epidemic

At LSE I have the pleasure of working with people from all over the world, including the countries in West Africa affected by the Ebola epidemic. One of these people is Syerramia Willoughby. She edits the fantastic Africa at LSE blog, a constant source of reading material for me and many others. In recent weeks and months […]

Band Aid: Stop the stereotypes

I don’t need to explain why Band Aid 30 can have a detrimental affect on the wider communities of Sub-Sarahan Africa, it’s been done so eloquently by Fuse ODG, Ben Keene, Cecilia Lynch on Africa is a Country and Bim Adewumni. The evidence on the damage that stereotyping and ignorance can have is also highlighted in […]

I love Ghana because…

One of my favourite projects in the summer was, with a lot of help from Coco, meeting people and asking what is was about Ghana that they loved so much. Patriotism certainly isn’t a dirty word in Ghana and the flag can be seen proudly flying everywhere you travel with the national anthem is sung […]

What’s it like to be a woman in Ghana?

Originally posted on Steph in Ghana: Tales from a Development Volunteer:
Now, when I say ‘Ghanaian woman’, what do you think of? For the next three posts, I’d like to introduce you to some women I’ve met here. Firstly, Mirabelle: Who are you, what do you do and how do you know Stephanie? It’s 2014. I’m Mirabelle…

Church at St Cecilia’s

On Sunday the whole KickStart Ghana Summer School team were invited to meet the community of the church that is connected to the school. We were all really honoured to be invited (even if 7am was a little early…) and were asked to introduce ourselves to the 300 people at the service. The Father also […]