weighing my options

With September fast approaching, I’ve been thinking more and more about where I hope to be in September 2009 – grad school. I would like to do my Masters, but I’m not yet decided on the subject. I would like to continue to be involved in gender equity work, perhaps focused on an area like sexual and reproductive rights, and gender-based violence. I enjoy development work, but there is a frustrating attitude amongst too many in this field, a kind of savior complex where people feel like it is their duty to “rescue” others rather than helping them to make their own, fully informed decisions and to find their own successes. A lot of people act as if development wouldn’t occur if their organization wasn’t there to spur it on, which is simply untrue. A good development organization should be there to facilitate – act as a mediator, an advocate, and a teacher when need be. A good organization won’t tell people what to think or what to do, but will help make their target population aware of the resources available to them, and help them gain the skills needed to use those resources and to achieve their goals without having to depend on anyone else. I don’t see as much honest collaboration and mutual respect as I’d like. I see a lot of organizations with money attempting to do something that someone at the grassroots level could do a lot better, if only they had the funding (anti-female genital mutilation campaigns are a great example of this, since it’s such a sensitive issue that it’s almost impossible for outsiders to tackle it directly and effectively – yet there are so many women who have great ideas about how to address it in their own communities, but don’t have the resources to do so). There is also a lot of mismanagement of funds, questionable ethics, and programs which are either never implemented, or are completely unsustainable, or are so culturally inappropriate that they’re doomed to failure from the very beginning.

I have been considering social work as a possible alternative, but I’m not sure that I won’t encounter the same problems in that profession. A few other programs which appeal to me are a combination of anthropology and development – perhaps deeper cultural understanding and respect would help temper some of the problematic aspects of development. Certainly some of the people whose work in Kenya I respect the most are anthropologists, so that may be a good option for me. There are also some great gender and development programs (though unfortunately not in Canada). While I’m tired of seeing development initiatives that cripple the very people they are intended to help, maybe it’s better to go into a field about which I’m somewhat skeptical –being aware of those issues would be useful in overcoming them.

I may end up applying for a variety of programs and see where I get accepted. I’ve been looking at schools in Canada, the US and the UK. While Canada would definitely be the cheaper and easier option, the programs elsewhere seem much more specialized, and there is so much more variety out there. I’ll start working on my applications now, but at least I still have a few more months to think about it.