Selling Poverty…

Well, this is a very weird combination of words if taken out of context but I have heard it a lot lately among relief and development organizations/ngo dialogues. It has been hard for quite a bit of development org in Albania to get donor funds because poverty here doesn’t sell anymore as compared to poverty in Africa or India. When donors come they don’t really see poverty immediately (except in the Roma and Egyptian communities). Today I also heard a weird thing that marketing departments in order to attract donor funds would ask for pictures of kids walking in the midst of snow which shows that they are cold. Fake, in the areas where it doesn’t snow in Albania, but that sells to donors.

So, said it shortly it’s quite hard to get funds for projects in areas where there is no evident extreme poverty but instead there other types of poverty that threat children wellbeing and future such as children labor or begging.