On Sunday, September 6, at 7 p.m., students, faculty, and community members gathered in ATS for the debut screening of Poverty, Inc., a 2014 feature-length documentary film directed by Michael Matheson Miller. The event was the first in a weeklong series of screenings and discussions hosted by the Department of International  Business and Management Majors Committee.

According to Marie-Noelle Nwokolo ’16, a committee member who helped organize Sunday’s screening and the documentary-related events to follow, “the film opens up a discussion of possible solutions (to problems that arise in less developed countries as a result of foreign aid).”

Poverty, Inc. sheds light on the harmful effects of developed countries’ paternalistic attitude toward less developed countries by examining the long-term effects of charity on the economies of recipient countries and the lives of small business owners and workers. According to the film’s website, the filmmakers conducted over 200 interviews in 20 countries to “unearth an uncomfortable side of charity we can no longer ignore.”

Nwokolo first saw the film at the 2015 Harvard Business School ABC conference and felt compelled to share it with the Dickinson community.

“I chose to bring the documentary to campus because I felt that it presented a very interesting perspective in terms of how we view people in developing countries and the poor on a larger scale,” Nwokolo said. “I strongly believe that there needs to be a change in assumption about such groups from being a distant object that we are trying to help to, as the documentary puts it, the subject/protagonist of their own economic development story.”

The INBM committee hosted three film screenings throughout the week and will conclude the series with a lunchtime discussion on Thursday, Sept. 10 at noon in the Stern Great Room.

At Thursday’s student-led panel discussion, Nwokolo and Fratantuono will raise the question of how to give charitably without invoking negative consequences. They will also ask attendees how ideas from the documentary could be relevant to the Carlisle and Dickinson College community.

When introducing the film at Sunday’s screening, Nwokolo stressed the relevance of this documentary for students in many different disciplines, including International Studies, Business, Sociology, English and more. She said that INBM Professor Michael Fratantuono, Assistant Professor of French Linda Brindeau and Dean Shalom Staub helped the INBM committee bring Poverty, Inc. to Dickinson.

“We are going to be the future leaders and owners of major corporations,” Nwokolo said in an interview on Monday. “My reason for wanting to share [this film] is basically to get people to start being more critical and conscious about how they approach giving to the needy on a long-term basis.”