Testimonial by Kirthi Jayakumar about "Decolonizing Development"

This testimonial is written by Kirthi Jayakumar, Founder of the Gender Security Project and a participant in the August 2023 session of Decolonizing Development with Farah Mahesri of FNM Advising.

"The system isn't broken, it is doing exactly what it is meant to do."

Farah Mahesri's profound statement at the start of the course woke me up to a stunning realization. Through six sessions that followed, the course left me with tremendously powerful realizations and a powerful starting point to reflect on my positionality in every avenue I engage in, from personal to political - as a citizen of a former colony engaging with a neocolonial, capitalist, patriarchal world, and as an upper caste, upper middle class, cis het woman. 

The course came to me at a pivotal point in my journey, where engagements with the development sector had left me at the receiving end of racism, and only the master's tools - which won't dismantle the master's house.

The course also made me see how I show up in different places, how despite my intentions, my positionalities produce impacts that only introspection can help me process and comprehend. It helped me see the value of recognizing the kyriarchy, and to recognize that these journeys cannot happen in a linear fashion. It helped me identify the inherent spectrums of violence that are couched in the language we use: aid, development, and "add race and stir."

I highly recommend this course for everyone - regardless of the sector one works in - because we are deeply entrenched in a colonial world and are constantly interacting with colonial patterns of practice and engagement. 

~ Kirthi Jayakumar