In AR, I worked as an Education Facilitator along with a team of about 12 other education staff. I wasn’t working with livestock in developing countries, but explaining Heifer’s work and techniques to American youth and adults through a variety of activities. By simulating the conditions of a rural developing country, we hoped to get youth out of their comfort zone and thinking about hunger, poverty, agriculture, and Heifer’s work a little differently.
Enter the Global Village. Seven different countries are represented as home sites, secluded from the rest of the ranch. They range from upper-middle class Guatemala with mattresses, windows & outside running water to the barren refugee camp (modeled after UN constructions). Many groups spent a night in the Global Village and were sorted into various “families”. Their fate was determined by lottery number and a variety of ‘life cards’ presenting situations like pregnancies, injuries, and blindness. Families could chose to obtain “medical care” for those situations, but they didn’t know beforehand what they would need to give up in order to pay. Resources were distributed by level of privilege, and the number of students in each family was inverse to its wealth. Middle-class Guatemala receives only a few residents, while the slums & refugee camp had the most. Chaperones could choose to be a senile elder or 2-year-old, but they couldn’t make decisions or help with tasks. Otherwise, rules were minimal.
Sometimes it felt like we were fighting an uphill battle to get middle & high schoolers to take the experience seriously. This is not Survivor. This is not the Hunger Games. This is someone’s everyday reality.
When the experience worked, major life lessons turned up. One “Zambian” adult stole firewood from another camp without consulting his family first, and his group was upset. Going forward, no one trusted the Zambian family or was willing to trade with them in the Village. Could it be that the actions of one representative skewed the perception and treatment of the whole group? Surely this never happens in reality!
One of the most telling questions was “Did anyone try to conceal how many resources their group had?” Yes, came the reluctant answer. One group didn’t mention their knife and another made a point to hide firewood when others visited. There were only 20 participant, yet they were hiding supplies from their friends! Power dynamics sprung up shockingly fast.
Sometimes the wealthiest house (Guatemala) was perceived as being stingy during trades, or the refugees (given no resources and instructed not to use English) were mocked for how they tried to sign and gesture.
Groups that came a day early spent a morning with team-building activities and puzzles before their night in the Village. I was told Heifer uses similar activities in their international projects. What? Aren’t there more important things to worry about when you’re trying to end hunger than getting neighbors to cooperate and communicate? But over the summer those two turned out to be more important than I had supposed!
You see, there’s a huge difference between hunger relief and development work. Relief consists of meeting short-term needs now and is incredibly valuable in disasters, famines, and refugee camps. Groups like the Red Cross, World Food Programme, and USAID are relief organizations. Development work, on the other hand, is a long-term commitment to building a better community and stable food supply. It can’t be done alone—it requires changing mindsets to work together towards a common goal, understanding that results might not be immediate. Instead of providing emergency lifeboats in the storm, it’s about building a better ship in the first place.
