So I’m taking this pretty awesome course on Coursera right now called How to Change the World. What’s that? Never heard of Coursera? Well your life is about to be changed! (Kudos to you guys who know about it).
Coursera is an online learning platform which allows you to take awesome courses online in your own time, for free. Basically, colleges and organizations create courses on everything from rocket science to programming languages to how to be a great leader. Colleges get publicity, you get to learn, and you can get a special signature track certificate if you pay. It’s pretty amazing. I took a course on Python programming by Rice university,and it was one of the best learning experiences of my life! Every course does take quite a time commitment however, so make sure you have enough time in your schedule to squeeze in some learning.
Here is an essay I wrote for last weeks topic in How to Change the World. The topic was poverty and development, and there were some pretty interesting lectures and readings. I’d love to hear if you guys have had any experiences with MOOC’s (Massive Open Online Courses) and/or changing the world 🙂 feel free to comment below!
Question:
Imagine that you have been put in charge of allocating a considerable amount of resources to address extreme poverty in one region of the world. Describe the three most important questions you would want to ask to determine how to use these materials most effectively.
The divide between those in poverty and those who have wealth has been growing at an alarming rate. The richest 10% of adults have 85% of the world’s wealth, while the bottom half of the world account for barely 1% of global wealth. In my opinion, the reason why inequality is so significant is because of the selfishness of human nature- basically the urge to survive. Everyone wants to be on top of the world. However, although that might have worked when we were cavemen, it certainly doesn’t know. Anyways, that’s the subject of another post altogether.
If I were given the opportunity to allocate a considerable amount to address extreme poverty in a region, the first question I would ask is: what factors have contributed to this poverty? Is it the lack of fertile soils in order to create a sustainable agriculture system? Is it the remote location of the area? Is there widespread disease that continuously makes the workforce sick?
Although this question may seem sort of like cheating, as there are many underlying questions, it could be argued that any question will have multiple factors that contribute to the result. My second question would be: what measures could be taken to improve the health and quality of life of the residents of this region? For instance, in many sub-Saharan African countries, malaria is a widely spread disease. Most foreigners who travel to Africa get malaria medication, but it is expensive and is not feasible for every person who lives there to take medication every day. Therefore, most people go on with their daily lives until they get sick. It is estimated that 1 million people die of malaria every year. A measure that is being taken to prevent malaria contraction is insecticide treated nets that repels Mosquitos that could carry malaria. Research shows that malaria contraction reduces by 90% when three quarters of a population consistently uses the nets. This question helps makes sure that the resources aren’t being allocated redundantly.
My last question would be to ask the population of this region what they think they need most. One would need to take care to ask it in such a way that is not pitying. Unlike much of the rest of the world it seems, I believe that people in extreme poverty are no different from everyone else, except in the sense that their day to day worries are different to those of a citizen of a first world country. The media portrays many third world countries as horrific places, where children are too malnourished to move and parents too weak to raise them. Sometimes this is true, but I think the main point shouldn’t be, ” oh look at these poor people, we should give money to this organization because they know best” it should be, “given our shared humanity, what can we do to help you?” Everyone has an opinion on what needs to be fixed, and I think that before anyone makes decisions on where to allocate the money, we should hear from the people we are intending to help.
Sources:
http://www.netsforlifeafrica.org/malaria/fighting-malaria-in-africa
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_inequality
Just a Tumbleweed 