Mark Snelling
Mark Snelling is a freelance writer based in London. Since he launched his journalism career in Hong Kong in the early 1990s, he has worked both as a foreign correspondent and an Information Delegate for various components of the Red Cross Movement, covering humanitarian emergencies across Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. He now combines journalism with work on psychological trauma and has begun training as a psychotherapist at the Westminster Pastoral Foundation in London.
Aid scandal in the Sahel, but what's new?
Time, once again, to look at why foreign aid isn't working. This week, it's the turn of the Sahel, the arid, drought-prone belt of countries skirting the southern edge of the Sahara from Senegal in the west to Eritrea in the east. ...
Organic food shopping while millions go hungry
Reverse culture shock can be one of the hardest adjustments for any journalist or aid worker. It's one thing acclimatising to the very immediate demands and deadlines of an assignment in a strange and often hostile environment. It's quite another then having to readjust to the alleged normality of a comfortable life in the West when you get back. To put it bluntly, it can really do your head in. ...
ICRC's hands tied in Myanmar
The latest row between the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the government of Myanmar is a sharp reminder of the very real limits the organisation faces in attempting to work with rogue regimes. The ICRC took the rare step last week of publicly denouncing Myanmar's military junta for serious and repeated abuses of both civilians and political prisoners. ...
Distant voices, displaced lives
Pick up almost any news feature or aid agency release on disaster, conflict or development, and the story will most likely begin with a snapshot description of a supposedly real person caught up in the crisis. Backed up with a couple of pithy quotes, it can be a useful way of introducing a wider analysis of the social and political issues. It is, or so the theory often goes, a way of humanising the individuals involved, thus bringing the story alive and giving the readers an opportunity to relate to the issues on a more personal level. ...
"Jihad on Horseback": documenting Darfur
We often don't realise quite how much our view of humanitarian crises is shaped by western journalists and the aid agencies that feed them information. Even worthy causes such as the suffering in Darfur become embroiled in stereotypes of victimhood and the iconography of celebrity endorsement. As Hugo Slim points out in his lastest AlertNet blog, international non-governmental organisations are "intercultural gatekeepers" between the West and the wider world of the poor and disenfranchised. ...
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