France: A second life for aid workers

<!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:536902279 -2147483648 8 0 511 0;} @font-face {font-family:”Comic Sans MS”; panose-1:3 15 7 2 3 3 2 2 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:script; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:””; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:”Comic Sans MS”; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} @page Section1 {size:595.3pt 841.9pt; margin:70.85pt 2.0cm 2.0cm 2.0cm; mso-header-margin:35.45pt; mso-footer-margin:35.45pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –> The army of aid workers is too varied to be able to trace a single profile. Behind the label of this exotic sounding (but not very recognized) job there are many hidden reasons. There are those who leave on an aid mission abroad to escape their tight laced accounting jobs, those who take off to live out a dream, those that are driven by the ambition “to do something good” and those who are motivated by a conscious altruistic selfishness.

This migration often follows the rhythm of the world’s ills. Hunger, diseases, wars, hurricanes, earthquakes, humanitarian emergencies. Countries that are, geographically and culturally, remote. Countries that are difficult and violent and sensitive, discouraged and happy. It is hard not to talk about the experiences lived there to those who stayed at home. Even if to only shorten a distance that seems unbridgeable. “We created Solidaires du monde (world development workers), a portal of ethical bloggers, in order to answer this very need, the need to communicate”, explains Clement Trumeau, who works for Hopscotch, a Parisian communication agency specialised in interactive media.

Financed by Afd, the French  development agency, this global blog platform, the first in the world to be dedicated entirely to good causes, is aimed at “those who work on the field, those who wish to work on the field or those who simply want to find out more about the world of development”. In just two weeks of life the website has already received posts from 30 bloggers, fieldworkers on missions across the whole world, from Mali to Thailand, from Argentina to Afghanistan and Nigeria. “We have been operational for a few days and for the time being French is the most common language”, addsTrumeau, “although nothing stops anyone from writing or making comments on in other languages”.

Soli.tv was established a year ago in Lyons with the support of the European Commission in order to gather the greatest number of experiences from the field and to give them visibility in the media. Annick Barrand, one of the co-founders, describes it as “the first online television network entirely dedicated to international solidarity and sustainable development”. Soli.tv has also carved out a space on Second Life. Dadzy is the name of the avatar that represents the web in the well-known three dimensional universe.