Student Network Aids the Third World

With little money, a tiny, basement office space and a handful of interested students, a Harvard freshman and his older brother started a University-based organization in the fall of 1983 which was aimed at promoting awareness of Third World development issues.

Just four years after Kamal and Nazir Ahmad created the Overseas Development Network (ODN), the group has chapters at 40 colleges and more than 600 student volunteers. ODN has raised over $300,000 to sponsor, among other things, internship programs in Appalachia, India and Bangladesh.

Grassroots projects in Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Colombia, India, the Dominican Republic, Kenya, Nicaragua and Sri Lanka are among the many funded by ODN's various chapters. An ODN branch at Yale University sponsored a cooperative bakery in Tangwena, Zimbabwe and one at the University of Utah helped finance construction of a well in a small Bolivian town. During the past three years, ODN has sponsored a total of 15 such programs.

ODN efforts at educating students about Third World problems include lectures and film series and a computer database that catalogues information about development groups around the world.

Scores of students from across the nation are expected to come to Harvard in April for a three day ODN-sponsored conference entitled "The Dilemmas of Development." Guest speakers will include S. Shahid Husain, vice-president for operation policy at the World Bank, Stephen Lewis, Canadian representative to the United Nations, and John Hammock, executive director of OXFAM-America.

To raise funds as well as stimulate national awareness, 69 bikers participated in the "Bike Aid: Pedaling for Progress '86," organized by ODN. Through their efforts, the students, who stopped to do community work at cities across America, raised $100,000.

Last summer ODN sent 20 undergraduates from various colleges to America's impoverished Appalachia region where they worked for public service groups. Backed by $50,000 from the Ford Foundation, ODN paired students with grassroots groups in the central Appalachian states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. The summer internship program was aimed at getting students out of offices and into the field, according to Shubham Chaudhuri '87-'88, a member of the organization.

In September five students flew to Bangladesh, where they are spending six months visiting development groups around the capital city of Dacca. The program, which includes four Harvard undergraduates, is supported by ODN. And this past month, six more students left for Tamil Nadu, a province in southern India, to help with local projects organized by two Indian development agencies.

"Our hope was that as Americans became involved, they would not only learn more about the Third World, they would learn more about themselves and the U.S.," says Kamal Ahmad '87-'88, a native of Bangladesh. "If Americans try to look at faraway countries and then turn around to look at themselves, they will see a lot more."

Most of the Harvard students involved in ODN have traveled to the Third World or are interested pursuing careers in development. "They have a genuine desire to help other people," says C. Peter Timmer, the John D. Black professor of Business and Government and a member of ODN's Board of Directors. "Most want to learn about other countries and about the problems of poverty."

No More One-Man Show

During its first year, ODN was largely the domain of a few. The Network expanded through personal contacts made by the Ahmad brothers at such campuses as Brown, Berkeley, Mt. Holyoke, and Wellesley. A development conference at the John F. Kennedy School of Government in April, 1984, attracted students from across the nation, many of whom then went home and founded their own chapters of ODN. By the end of the spring of 1984, ODN had 15 campus branches.

Although the initial growth of the organization was largely a result of Kamal Ahmad's work, Timmer says he feels that ODN has transcended the efforts of a single person and will continue to grow after its founder graduates. "ODN used to be made up only of Kamal's friends at different universities," says Timmer. "I think now we have institutionalized the process and ODN is much stronger."

Harvard and Stanford Universities maintain ODN's two regional offices, running the group's national and international internship programs and coordinating the various local chapters fundraising objectives. The Harvard regional office is located in the Van Serg building and is staffed by three full-time workers. National ODN meetings are generally held at Harvard, where four members of its Board of Directors reside--Professors Robert M. Coles, Donald F. Hornig and Timmer as well as Radcliffe President Matina S. Horner.

Harvard also has a local ODN chapter--the Harvard-Radcliffe International Development Forum (HRIDF)--with 15 student volunteers. Each of ODN's campus branches sponsor a grassroots community project in various parts of the developing world. The HRIDF is providing funds for a project in Bangladesh with money it raised in a dining hall fast.

Emphasizing Self-Help

All the projects emphasize self-help, according to Chaudhuri. He says ODN's philosophy is to minimize the developers' role and encourage communities to carry out projects autonomously. The ODN chapter merely provides the money. "Hopefully they'll be able to reinvest the money and the project will become self-generating," says Lucy Perkins, a member of ODN's full-time staff.

ODN's goals of fostering autonomy in Third World communities and creating awareness at home are both highly political issues. Yet ODN strives to maintain a politically neutral position.

"To take a political stance would be divisive," says Timmer. "It would also limit the Third World programs we could participate in."

ODN is able to remain apolitical, members say, because it defines education as its main objective. "We don't want to become the U.N. or the Agency for International Development," says Shawn Shelton, a student from George Washington University and coordinator of Bike Aid '87. "We see our projects as partnerships between American colleges and communities abroad." This political neutrality and emphasis on education helps ODN appeal to students with a wide range of political views, Shelton says.

Despite attempts at downplaying the political side of its role, ODN has encountered some indigenous resistance to the idea of foreign students participating in local development work.

"Most agencies were initially reluctant about taking foreigners," says Chaudhuri, who recently returned from India, where he was establishing contact with grassroots groups. Many Indian relief agencies believe that development should come only from within, he says.

By explaining the goals of ODN, Chaudhuri says he was able to convince the development programs of the importance of American student internships. Ten agencies have agreed to take two interns apiece for next fall.

Chaudhuri says ODN is aware of the limited help which American students can provide and it seeks to emphasize the value of the experience as a way of raising consciousness in America about world poverty. "ODN's immediate aim is to expose students to poverty abroad."