Shilpa Alva had a wonderful discussion with Kate Bird about our work on her podcast, “The Power Shift: Decolonising Development.”
In this episode (“Building trust and flexible partnerships driven by local actors”), Shilpa had the opportunity to dive into Surge’s approach to global work and why it matters.
Throughout Surge’s projects and programs around the world, the priority is always for efforts and initiatives to be driven by the local community.
We seek out community organizations that are already exceptionally run by knowledgeable and experienced local leaders, as they understand their people and the surrounding business landscape, political environment, and societal traditions.
Our team is there to collaborate, facilitate, and support, looking to them to decide what kind of water solutions would best serve their community, where they should go to best help its populace, what kinds of tech we should bring in, and so on.
At a higher level, Surge is able to be their voice in fundraising conversations and resource regeneration, due to our larger fundraising base. We’re also able to share best practices we’ve learned in our efforts elsewhere, though it’s always up to each community to decide whether or not they’d like to implement them.
These kinds of partnerships can all too easily operate with power structures that do not place the local community’s interests and wisdom as their guiding light, and we need to actively work to decolonize those aspects of global partnerships.
Listen to the conversation on Apple Podcasts.
