A Different View of Development

Dean’s service award recipient and anthropology major Sarah Lynne Anderson is strengthening communities in Swaziland

Sarah Lynne Anderson

Sarah Lynne Anderson, an anthropology major and international human rights minor, is putting her beliefs into action. She and like-minded friends are launching a nonprofit organization to build community schools for orphans and increase health education in Swaziland.

Swaziland, an independent state surrounded by South Africa and Mozambique, is a poor country with a host of Third World challenges. Drought and water access are a constant problem, and two-fifths of its adult population has HIV/AIDS – the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world.

When Anderson spent a month there this past summer helping children with education and women with health precautions, she confirmed her suspicions: Making a difference in underdeveloped societies requires something beyond throwing money at their problems.

"This is not about ‘development’ – it’s about creating and sustaining a healthy community. But a lot of people there don’t see things that way.”

“When you’re there holding babies and building schools,” she says, “it’s clear how helping a culture like this is not about ‘development’ – it’s about creating and sustaining a healthy community. But a lot of people there don’t see things that way. In the West we tend to emphasize money, growth, and trade as what these societies need, especially in South Africa with its history of apartheid.

“We took a side trip to Mozambique and looked at an orphanage that we were hoping to learn from. But right away we knew this place wasn’t a good idea. The orphanage had a very Western, archaic way of thinking: The place was walled off from the outside world. So they’re rearing kids who will not only get used to Western luxuries; they’ll be cut off from their culture and community.”

Travel and anthropology studies open new world

Anderson, an Orlando, Fla., native, has gone on service trips with her church youth group for several years. It was on these trips to Mexico, Romania, and Ukraine that she started to think about better ways to help. Combined with her service trips, Anderson’s anthropology studies at Webster caused her to notice flaws in Western development programs.

“Really, studying anthropology helped me see a new way of looking at development,” she says. “To look for the varied ways humans in undeveloped areas have created healthy communities instead of valuing progress for progress' sake. I just realized that to help people, we need to see things from different perspectives. We need to understand people’s motivations and do things not with the intent to make them more like us, but to help them build and integrate into a healthy community.

“We try to fix things in other cultures when we don’t understand them. We go in with good intentions but end up alienating everyone and taking two steps back. I want to change that. I want to be a part of that change."

Scenes from impoverished areas of Africa solidified Anderson’s convictions.

Anderson holds one of the students she worked with at the school in Swaziland.

“I see people literally living on a garbage dump in the capital of Mozambique and I think, ‘This kind of degradation of humanity, this is the outcome of our theory of development.’”

The nonprofit’s name, “Kingdom Noise,” ties to the philosophy of “giving voice to the voiceless,” Anderson says.

Members of Anderson’s church group initially arranged a project to help a Swazi school there. They connected with a group of Swazi women who are already working on health and parenting education but could use guidance and networking. As Anderson and her friends helped the women and worked in the bare-resourced school, they saw the potential and desire for a stronger community.

They launched the non-profit to help the school through microfinancing to direct funds straight to the public school, where it will be used by natives and volunteers with a shared interest in building a stronger, healthier community.

“We’re working on training great teachers there who can work with these children,” she says. “These are orphans and impoverished children, but we have 250 kids coming to the school. They just show up. They walk for miles because they want to be there. One woman we met had basically created an orphanage in her home because she wanted to change things in her community. She just needed help handling it all.”

Anderson is confident they can continue to get volunteers on board.

“I think the important thing is just getting people over there so they see what’s out there,” she says. “Part of what the non-profit will do is prepare Americans here to go over there and make a difference with the school and community.”

In recognition of her efforts, Anderson received Webster’s Dean’s Award for Service in fall 2007.

She was surprised and humbled to hear about the honor, as she says her group is only helping facilitate what the Swazi community is already doing.

“What is cool about the project is that people in the community started it,” she says. “When Kingdom Noise got there it was already happening, and what’s cool is the Swazis are the ones keeping it going all year.”

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