When we give international aid do we impose our values and cultures on others to their benefit or detriment? What charities are truly beneficial in the help they offer? How can we know? We are fortunate to have someone experienced and studied in this arena lead our January dialogue:
Zendina Mostert
Born and raised in Canada, Zendina started exploring cultural and development issues by taking a break from traditional university and traveling alone through Africa and parts of Asia. She served a humanitarian mission for the LDS church in Ecuador, returning to school to finish a Bachelors in Anthropology and Masters of Sociology while conducting research with the Women’s Research Institute; collecting both qualitative and quantitative data on the impact of development programs in 78 villages of rural Mali.
She has worked with child welfare services in Salt Lake City, Utah advocating for children’s and parent’s needs in the courts and in the welfare system. As a Country Director in Ethiopia, she facilitated capacity building of health care workers, basic sanitation, literacy, microcredit, and education programs in rural villages in the Oromo region. During that time, she also developed a program which provided children and youth with needed surgeries, including cleft lip/palate repair.
More recently, Zendina has been serving on non-profit boards specializing in maternal healthcare, consulting as a cultural liaison for projects, facilitating funding possibilities for programs abroad and teaching Sociology at Salt Lake Community College.
Over the past twenty years Zendina has worked through the system of giving (and taking), as a volunteer, a hitchhiker, a humanitarian missionary, an ethnographer, a traveler, a research associate, a country director, a board member, and a funder.
Please join us. Feel free to invite others. Explore the materials below.
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