Getting NGOs to Celebrate Failure, So They Can Learn From Others' Mistakes

Week after week មួយអាទិត្យហើយមួយអាទិត្យទៀត             Toilet bag ​ថង់លាមក

Fail បរាជ័យ                             is sort of like ហាក់បីដូចជា      Finite ដែលមានកំណត់

So that ដើម្បី                    Attended ចូលរួម               Recycle ​យកទៅច្នៃធ្វើអ្វីផ្សេងទៀត

Other like it ដទៃៗទៀតដូចនេះ                                   
Stuff We Don’t Want របស់ដែលយើងមិនចង់បាន      Social setting បរិយាកាសសង្គមកិច្ច

Profit-making យកចំណេញ as ក្នុងឋានៈជា                  Over time ក្នុងរយៈពេលយូរ

Weak after weak we bring you stories about projects to improve lives in the developing world. Projects like banking by mobile phone or low-cost lighting system or even a toilet bag that recycles itself into fertilizer. But for every success story, there are countless other projects that fail. These are the stories that people talk about at an even called FALLFaire. The creator of the even recently held their second FALLFaire. Members of the nonprofit community came together in Washington to talk about their projects, and why they failed.

FALLFaire is sort of like a celebration of failure. A price is even given to the “best” worst story. But why celebrate?  Katin Verclas is with a nonprofit group in New York called MobileActive. She was the one with the idea for FALLFaire. She says the event provides an opportunity for people to learn from the mistakes of the others. She says” Development is a field with finite resources, and so the less money we waste, the better. And part of that is learning from the thing that didn’t work, so that we don’t endlessly repeat them.” MobileActive held its first FALLFaire in New York earlier this year. More than seventy people attended the event. One of them, for example, was there to talk about his fail nonprofit organization MobileImpact.org. Bradford Frost had hoped to recycle used cell phone and provide them to people in Africa. Katrin Verclas explained some of the problems with this project, and other like it.

She says it did not work at all because of the numbers of very inexpensive handsets in the countries. She says they call that SWEDOW—Stuff We Don’t Want.

FALLFaire takes place in a lighthearted social setting, over food and drinks. Ms. Verclas says the creator of a project the one responsible for the declaring its failure. She says profit-making businesses talk more about failure than nonprofit organization do. She says we have a report to donors 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 success and never talk about our failure.” Katrin Verclas says she hopes FALLFair will change this problem over time. She says members of the nonprofit community have been surprisingly open to her idea.

VOA Learning English for VOA Special English 
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