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My understanding of North/South Solidarity is an organization from the Global North (blue), using its resources to work alongside people/organizations in the Global South (red). The idea being that the organization from the North can use its privilege to amplify the issues being faced by countries in the South, without co-opting their movement or assuming "west knows best." Simply put, it would mean listening to what people in the South are telling you about an issue, believing them, then standing with them as they work towards a solution.

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In an ideal world, what I mentioned above would be how North/South solidarity always turned out. Unfortunately, I think many NGOs from the North fall into the white saviour model of charity work. This meaning that under the guise of "doing good,"  white organizations will place themselves in communities in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, to centre themselves as the hero who is saving people who are living in poverty. This has become an all too well known story, especially with the rise of voluntourism. Allowing white folks to stroke their egos by spending a week in a poor community, building a school or a well or a hospital, without ever stopping to ask why these things don't exist there in the first place. Like the article mentions, this preformative solidarity only serves to uphold the systems of white supremacy and wrongly infantilizes countries in the South as needing "saving" by those in the North.

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I chose to analyze WUSC because I have first hand experience working with them internationally. My degree in International Development required me to complete a year long work placement, and WUSC was the organization we had to find these through. I worked in Sri Lanka as a Gender Advisor in one of the WUSC offices. My mandate was to increase female participation in the rapidly growing tourism sector. I thought I would use this section to reflect on my own experience working with them and analyze how I think they operate in both the charity and solidarity frameworks.

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WUSC is a Canadian non-profit that works primarily on programs that target youth education and empowerment in over 15 countries around the world. They have extensive partnerships with Canadian post secondary institutions and receive a lot of their funding through corporate and government channels. They offer both paid and volunteer international opportunities.

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From my experience, WUSC appeared to do a good job of seeking out existing programs and organizations in global South countries for their partnerships. Because of this, many of their programs are focused on addressing the root causes of different social issues, rather than throwing money at band-aid solutions. They also primarily employ locals for both their main office positions and partner organizations, with the exception of short-term student volunteers, such as myself. Additionally, WUSC facilitates the opportunity for all the different partner organizations to come together and collaborate on different issues, which is an important part of solidarity work. And if you are part of their network, you become connected to other partners in the global South, giving local organizations the opportunity to connect with people doing similar work.

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While WUSC definitely has some ways that it stands in solidarity with countries in the global South, it still operates first and foremost as a charity. Even though their volunteer positions are longer than the typical 2 weeks, they still check all the criteria of voluntourism. In order to qualify for both the volunteer and paid contract positions, you are asked to raise $2,500. I never learned exactly what my $2,500 was used for, but I have a feeling it wasn't given directly to their partner organizations in the South.

Additionally, because they have such a wide range of corporate and government funders, a lot of their programs focus only on quantitative data. In other words, quantity over quality. In my experience, my organization seemed to be pushing towards hitting a certain number of attendees at each workshop so they could report a job well done, and WUSC could report these high numbers to their funders. But there never seemed to be any follow up of whether the participants found the workshop useful or if they even wanted it in the first place. Even though WUSC partners with existing organizations and supports them with their work, they have a way of inserting their own agenda into their partner's programming.

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My understanding of South/South Solidarity is about trusting that countries in the global South know what is best for them. It is about demystifying the idea that the global North holds all the right solutions for the global South, because in reality they are to blame for many of the issues countries in the South are fighting against. It is about an impartial organization or institution facilitating the space for countries in the global South to collaborate and share ideas.

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I can't help but look at this photo above, and feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. It was taken in 2013 on a class trip to Nicaragua, which was a much anticipated component of my high school's international development certificate. Looking back on this trip now I can see it was textbook voluntourism, complete with photo-ops at schools and journal entries about how good we have it back in Canada. I wish that this trip wasn't the reason that I chose to pursue International Development after high school, but unfortunately it played a large part. I was convinced that this was the best way for me to travel the world, while also feeling like I was doing something worthwhile. And although I figured out pretty soon into my degree how misguided these types of trips are, this feeling of discomfort still followed me as I was trying to find international work after graduation. I realized that in my search for work in the global South, I was centring myself in a really harmful way. I didn't want to go to a country and be part of an Canadian NGO that assumed they knew what was best for the people living there. I didn't want to get a job I was unqualified for simply because I was white and held a degree from a Canadian university. This is not to say that there isn't Canadian NGOs and people that don't do good work in the global South, but I just felt like I wasn't ready to be a part of that.

All of this is to say, this is how I found myself in the community work program. I feel like this program has taught me so much about what it means to be in solidarity with communities. I finally feel like I am learning the right way to "make a difference," and it does NOT involve a 2 week stint in Nicaragua. It actually involves checking yourself at every turn to make sure you're doing this work for the right reasons. It involves evaluating systems of power, including your own, and finding ways to shift the imbalances you find. It involves listening to what communities need, believing them, and standing with them, not for them. I am grateful to move forward in this field with these new understandings, and I know I will continue to expand my learning as my journey continues.