Several charities run child sponsorship programs where donors are able to support children living in poverty around the world. The programs encourage donations with the promise of regular updates and even a letter from the children. The messaging tells us that sponsoring a child in the Global South is a positive way to make a real difference in their lives.

However, what those ads often don’t mention are the greater injustices and inequities impacting children, and the role the Global North has frequently played in producing them. They can also perpetuate damaging and inaccurate stereotypes about people from developing countries.

Today, in The Conversation Canada, Kathleen Nolan from the University of Regina explains why we need to move beyond child sponsorship and create new ways of helping children in poverty. As Nolan says, “Agencies do not encourage sponsors to examine their role in global injustice nor do they attempt to reverse or undo the structural conditions that have produced it.”

Also today:

Regards,

Ibrahim Daair

Culture + Society Editor
Charities often promote the benefits of child sponsorship. However, the practice perpetuates damaging patterns of thinking. (Shutterstock)

Why it’s time to end child sponsorship

Kathleen Nolan, University of Regina

Child sponsorship is often billed as a significant way of improving children’s lives. However, sponsorship is based on narratives that fail to address the role of rich countries in global poverty.
A protester walks along the sidewalk in front of the Parliament buildings in February 2022 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

No, invoking the Emergencies Act isn’t the same as using the notwithstanding clause

Geoff Callaghan, University of Windsor

There’s no equivalence between invoking the Emergencies Act and the pre-emptive invocation of the notwithstanding clause, which guts Canadian democracy and nullifies the Charter.
When University of Manitoba Faculty Association went on strike and hit the picket lines in 2016, the association raised issues about having a greater say over ever-increasing workloads, appropriate use of metrics in evaluation and job security. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods

University and school strikes across Canada are about workers’ rights — and protecting education as a public good

Nancy Marie Ross, Dalhousie University; Raluca Bejan, Dalhousie University; Steph Zubriski, Dalhousie University

Education strikes by university and public school workers are political fights about diminished respect for education as a public good and workers’ rights in an economy that perpetuates inequality.
Since its beginnings in 2006, Twitter has grown into one of the most important social networks in the world. (Shutterstock)

What Elon Musk’s destruction of Twitter tells us about the future of social media

Blayne Haggart, Brock University

Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter reveals what we like and need from social media.
University research has a legacy of doing harm to Indigenous communities. However, a new collaborative project is showing how research can be done in a better and inclusive way. (Shutterstock)

Collaborative Indigenous Research is a way to repair the legacy of harmful research practices

Eve Tuck, University of Toronto

Harmful research practices have done serious damage to Indigenous communities and created distrust. The Collaborative Indigenous Research Digital Garden is one way to repair that damage.
The historic Main Street in Newmarket, Ont. Main Street businesses are a crucial part of Canadian culture and the economy. (Shutterstock)

Saving Main Street: Local businesses need community support to stay afloat

Sarah Tranum, OCAD University

Rising business costs and shifts in the market accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic are posing challenges for small retailers along Main Street business areas.

La Conversation Canada
De nombreux travaux académiques mêlant recherche en comptabilité et linguistique montrent que les documents comptables sont peu lisibles, voire même illisibles. (Shutterstock)

Rapports annuels des entreprises : écrire pour ne pas être lu

Julien Le Maux, HEC Montréal

Les rapports annuels des entreprises sont illisibles et trop volumineux. Leur utilité est donc limitée.

Arts

Environment + Energy

Politics