Viddler

Warning: do not watch this after you've just eaten a bacon sarnie! Guaranteed to make you feel slightly queasy.

Wow that's telling it like it is - great send up of an attitude that is far to common -ie "they" need our crap rather than the great new stuff we all want.. When a photocopier broke down at work and the supplier couldn't fix it as it was to old to be repairable two different people suggested sending it to Africa !

Unbelievable. Slightly different context, but this also reminds me of a news story from back in July which covered the shipping of 1,400 tonnes of toxic waste from the UK to Brazil. Admittedly this wasn't in the name of sustainability, but it's proof that some people still believe the rightful place for their crap (literal or not) is developing countries: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8165840.stm

This pisstake of the Western imagination of Africa is stupendous. Honestly, I think it's revolting that we see Africa as our dumping ground for offloading goods we no longer want because somehow they must be genetically engineered to want less than us. This video unashamedly ridicules that all out - both thumbs up!

This is very funny but also has a serious side to its sting. Keep watching the Missionary Hut tales to hear more unbelievably horrible ideas that are being paraded as breakthroughs for our peers in the developing world. Some of these are real, some not, but its difficult to tell the difference these days as the new missionaries would have us believe poor people would like to stay poor and close to nature. What toilet!

Satire at its best! I cannot imagine anyone can withstand the strong urge to shake their heads in incomprehension at this approach of ‘help’. However, the fact that this segment has actually been done, points to the sad part of this matter. WORLDwrite’s spoofs are exaggerated but they are based on truth. In fact, they are made to ridicule reality to bring to light the ugliness that lies beneath. Poo for the poor. Our waste is their wealth. Wow. Now isn’t that incredibly condescending? Our shit is Africa’s beacon of hope? Oh please. This concept makes a few rather narrow minded British people feel better about themselves, and a lot of Africans quite literally see what the West thinks of them.

The West really has to rethink its approaches. And its motives. Do you want to show off hypocritical benevolence and hold on to false good deeds? If you do, well, go ahead and give your poo. Do you really want to help? Because, after all, we are all the same - no matter where we are born. Then stop having this degrading attitude and give the Africans something they can really use for development, like machines that to the efficiency of agricultural production.

What a funny film, taking the piss out of a very serious matter. It's a great way to make people more aware of the 'crap' ideas the West has for Africa and other Third World countries.

For some reason i am not surprised by the saving poo for the poor scheme.

Njhagan, I should have listened to your advice.

The flawed psychology that permits the Western imagination to assume a benefit to Africa from European waste products via its missionary 'benevolence' is neatly made here. I'd also point out the irony inherent in sending items such as discarded electronic equipment there, given the way that the raw materials that form an essential component of this equipment are appropriated from that very continent (e.g. the mining of cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo to produce tantalum, an ore that is vital to the production of mobile phones).