How I lost my respect doing community-led work

Jonathan Kifunda, Executive Director of Thubutu Africa Initiatives

I came into the development sector as a very passionate person. That passion drove my career from the “entry-level” to various senior roles. I rose to eventually manage one of the international organizations (INGO) as its Country Director. In this role, I was responsible for all country operations. The role came with many privileges and a lot of status. It gave me access to high-level meetings not only in Tanzania where I am based, but also at the international level. From this, I got a lot of respect, status and access to a luxurious life. If you had asked anyone about me, they probably would have been told I was also an employer, with a large staff to support me and a big budget to spend. I was not too concerned with the availability of money; I was concerned with how to spend it.

I lived this kind of life for a long time until I started questioning myself about the reality and contradictions of it. Whether it was the life I wanted to pursue and how long it would be sustainable. I was unsure if I would continue living like this for the rest of my life. It was not realistic but also within the community that I come from, it was not a reflection of who I felt I was. Internally, I was aware of what was happening in the community and the challenges they had, with my life, I felt like I was standing far from the community and far from the reality of my people. My status in international aid had distanced me from the community. I was standing very high, but my community was standing “very low” and I didn’t feel good. I was also internally disturbed by the programmes I was doing. Some programmes were not always clear and not sustainable if the funder ever pulled out. This made me unhappy with what I was professionally doing.

At this time, I started to reflect on the idea that we needed to create a community willing and confident to bring about and lead its development with very little external support – if they needed support at all. A community confident to solve its problem without always waiting for other people. I was sharing these challenges with my circle of friends. We talked about how we could make African communities and societies stand on their own. Having read different books, I could see how aid had conditioned us into dependence. So, my friends and I created an organization to change the mind-set of people, to start thinking about tackling social challenges ourselves and not doing it because other people were coming to tell us how to do it.

This is an excerpt of a blog written by Jonathan Kifunda, Executive Director of Thubutu Africa Initiatives in Tanzania. To read the piece in its entirety, head to the #ShiftThePower Treehouse.