VOA慢速英语2010年-Development Report - Getting NGOs to C

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

Week after week, we bring you stories about projects to improve lives in the developing world. Projects like banking¹ by mobile phone or low-cost lighting² systems or even a toilet bag that recycles itself into fertilizer.

But for every success story, there are countless³ other projects that fail. These are the stories that people talk about at an event called FAILFaire.

The creators of the event recently held their second FAILFaire. Members of the nonprofit community came together in Washington to talk about their projects, and why they failed.

FAILFaire is sort of like a celebration of failure. A prize is even given to the "best" worst story. But why celebrate?

Katrin Verclas is with a nonprofit group in New York called MobileActive. She was the one with the idea for FAILFaire. She says the event provides an opportunity for people to learn from the mistakes of others.

Katrin Verclas: "Development is a field with finite resources, and so the less money we waste, the better. And part of that is learning from the things that didn't work, so that we don't endlessly repeat them."

Boy at earthquake survivors⁴ camp in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

MobileActive held its first FAILFaire in New York earlier this year. More than seventy people attended the event.

One of them, for example, was there to talk about his failed nonprofit organization MobileImpact.org. Bradford Frost had hoped to recycle used cell phones and provide them to people in Africa.

Katrin Verclas explained some of the problems with this project, and others like it.

Katrin Verclas: "It didn't work at all, given the prevalence of cheap, very inexpensive handsets in the countries. We often refer to that as SWEDOW -- Stuff We Don't Want. You know, the old stuff that we have that we think we can hand down to developing countries, and that's not a very sustainable or in many ways smart approach."

FAILFaire takes place in a lighthearted social setting, over food and drinks.

Ms. Verclas says the creator of a project is the one responsible for declaring it a failure. She says profit-making businesses talk more about failure than nonprofit organizations do.

Katrin Verclas: "We have to report to donors⁵ and donors do not like to look bad, and so we don't like to look bad as nonprofits. And so we have a tendency to highlight our successes and never talk about our failures."

Katrin Verclas says she hopes FAILFaire will change this problem over time. She says members of the nonprofit community have been surprisingly open to her idea.

Join us again next week for more about FAILFaire and who won the award for best worst story.

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. Transcripts⁶ and MP3s of our reports are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember
 

1 banking   

n.银行业，银行学，金融业

参考例句：

• John is launching his son on a career in banking.约翰打算让儿子在银行界谋一个新职位。
• He possesses an extensive knowledge of banking.他具有广博的银行业务知识。

2 lighting   

n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光

参考例句：

• The gas lamp gradually lost ground to electric lighting.煤气灯逐渐为电灯所代替。
• The lighting in that restaurant is soft and romantic.那个餐馆照明柔和而且浪漫。

3 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

4 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

5 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句