July 15, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
An international aid group has taken the unusual step of apologizing for a botched effort to distribute clothing in Africa.
Enough, a group that seeks to assist the victims of genocide, was criticized for giving New York Knicks basketball jerseys to children living in refugee camps in eastern Chad and the way it described the event on its blog.
Alanna Shaikh, a veteran aid worker and blog writer, called the clothing effort an “idiotic, dehumanizing, tacky stunt” because Enough did not bring jerseys for everyone and because the organization said the kids “devoured” the gifts, a phrase she said makes the recipients sound like animals.
In response to Ms. Shaikh, Enough, which is a project of the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank, apologized in a blog article this week.
“The T-shirt distribution was not well thought out, and I should have better consulted with area relief experts before undertaking something such as this,” writes Stella Kenyi, who coordinated the clothing effort for Enough.
She says she may have made poor word choices in her description of the event but rejected the idea that she sees the refugees as animals. She writes that her own family fled Sudan almost 16 years ago during the civil war, making her acutely aware of the “direct and lasting cost of war.”
For her part, Ms. Shaikh says the apology impressed her. “It was like a case study in how to take criticism with grace,” she writes.
