I’m Here to Save You: A Selection from Jacqueline Novogratz’s The Blue Sweater (2009)

“In my twenties, I went to Africa to try and save the continent, only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving. Indeed, when I was there, I saw some of the worst that good intentions, traditional charity, and aid can produce: failed programs that left people in the same or worse conditions. . . .

I recognized a woman I’d met in Nairobi—let me call her Aisha—who had barely had time for me at the conference once she’d learned I’d inhabit the prized office at the African Development Bank (ADB). As I look back, I can only imagine what had been going through her head when I first approached her, shivering with excitement to ‘help’ her country through my privileged job, when all I seemed to offer was unbridled, naive enthusiasm.

At the time, I didn’t think the ADB office was a big deal. I’d told myself that I’d turned down a much bigger opportunity at Chase. What I didn’t understand was how important the office was to the West African women. Given that the ADB was making a bet on women in Africa, no doubt it would have made sense to have an African lead the office, especially from the perspective of these women. . . .

The women walked into the office dressed even more elaborately than usual in their long multichromatic robes crowned with towering turbans. They seemed to span half the wall as I stood alone in front of them, all skin and bones, a woman disappearing, arms crossed protectively over my chest. I wore a blue cotton skirt and a short-sleeved white blouse and looked more schoolgirl than banker. I told them I was leaving, fumbling through half words in a tinny voice: ‘What I don’t understand is why you’ve been treating me so horribly—worse than I would treat a dog.’

‘We don’t hate you,’ Aisha responded. ‘We actually like that you’re a nice girl with much to offer. What we hate is what you represent. The North comes to the South and sends a young white woman without asking us what we want, without seeing if we already have the skills we need. And this from an organization that says it wants to promote solidarity. We’ve seen this too many times before. Africa will never change if it’s always like this.’

I agreed that the organization should have negotiated with the African women first in order to be effective. At the same time, I insisted, there was no excuse for the way I’d been treated in Abidjan. I’d come with the best of intentions and was ready to listen and to work hard. None of the women had explained their positions to me. They seemed to see the world as an unbridgeable divide between North and South, and we had never broken the logjam.

As I spoke, I could feel something shifting inside me. An African friend once told me that to be successful on her continent, I should learn to be a bird on the outside and a tiger within. Finally, I could feel the stirrings of the cat. I was leaving behind the little girl who wanted to please, recognizing that if I were to be effective, I would have to stand on my own two feet and be myself. I was finished with being pushed around just for being young, white, and American, just as these women, so regal and dressed in glorious colors that only a blind person could miss, were sick of being invisible because they were black Africans.”—Jacqueline Novogratz, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World (2009)