The universe moves in mysterious ways. I have a story to share, and if you read on you'll see why I'm connecting it to a message shared on X by Dom Bei and Proof of Workforce (see pics below).
Twenty years ago, in late 2004, I was travelling from Nairobi to Kisumu for work. At the time, I worked with a global physicians NGO, and this was the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic that was decimating communities around the world, especially throughout the African continent. I was on my way to Kisumu for meetings about scale up of access to antiretroviral drugs in the region. These were still the early days of HIV drug access throughout most of the continent.
My small flight to Kisumu was a mixed bag of people but it was mostly foreign aid workers from different countries. I recall having a few different conversations with people and also overhearing some conversations. As we arrived in Kisumu and I made way to my hotel, passing through the city, there was a massive fire which engulfed a three-story building. Crowds watched on. There didn't appear to be any firefighters on site.
It turns out that the fire was ravaging a building containing Kisumu's largest pharmacy, book store, and several other small businesses. Life-saving drugs, books, and more, gone!
It turns out further that, at that time, there was only one fire truck in town and the small fire brigade that staffed it were required, by law, to be stationed at the airport for the incoming flight from Nairobi (the one I had just arrived on).
Imagine, a fire truck and brigade rendered helpless to tend to a local emergency because their priority was tending to a plane full of foreign aid workers. The cruel, infuriating irony!
This experience taught me a valuable lesson about foreign aid, root causes, and unintended consequences.
That experience is part of what pushed me away from larger global aid agencies (I had also worked for WHO) and toward projects that are fundamentally "by and for" the community. It instilled in me a healthy skepticism of large global aid projects and an insistence on interrogating projects to ensure that they don't entail unintended consequences which outweigh the good to which they aspire.
The very next year, in 2005, I began working with Community Health Centres in Canada and around the world, and this enabled me to live out the values of social impact "by and for" communities. That work carried me forward to 2023 when I decided to make my next professional transition, shifting toward projects focused on #Bitcoin #BTC as a tool for social impact globally.
I made this transition, in 2023, because I had become convinced that Bitcoin presents unprecedented, upstream opportunity to shift global balances of power, to empower communities, and to achieve social impact around the world. Participating in the first @AfroBitcoinOrg conference in Accra, in late 2022, helped me arrive at that conclusion.
My belief in Bitcoin as a powerful pathway to global transformation is a claim that still falls on many deaf ears when I engage colleagues, friends, and strangers who fall under the umbrellas of social justice and global development but who haven't yet studied Bitcoin.
Coming back to the message here on X from Dom and Proof of Workforce though. To see this message in the days leading up to the
conference, and amidst so many other inspiring #ABC24 related tweets, it hits home in a very personal way. It pulls me back to that experience in Kisumu 20 years ago. It re-assures me that not only are we are on the right track via Bitcoin, but that in some small, magical ways, we are also making amends for the past.
I will be making a donation to Proof of Workforce to be passed on to the Kenya Fire Brigades Association. I invite you to do the same. See their tweet below for details. Thanks, Dom! 🫡
I'm sad to not be in attendance this year at conference, but to all of you who are, I send my love and very best wishes. Thank you for everything you are doing to make this a better world, now and for future generations. 🌍
