VOICES FROM INSIDE THE SYSTEM
‘I Spent Much of My Career Listening to White Folks Complain About Africa and Africans’
Working in international aid, Stephanie Kimou was often the only African on staff at white-led institutions
Voices From Inside the System is a GEN series where we interview people who have had firsthand experience in industries with especially fraught histories of systemic racism and inequity. We asked our subjects to think deeply about the role they played and the work they did. We asked them why they stayed or why they left, how they might be complicit, and if they thought they — or anyone — could fundamentally change the system.
Stephanie Kimou, 33, lives in Baltimore, where she teaches international affairs at Georgetown University and runs Pop Works Africa, a consulting firm that seeks to decolonize aid work by shifting power and resources to communities receiving aid. While 80% of aid workers are people of color — nationals of countries affected by natural disasters and war — the nonprofits employing them are still largely led by white people, who are paid four times more than local staff. Kimou spoke with journalist Raksha Vasudevan about how the aid system often fails the Black and Brown people it claims to help.
