Love this, but please post the tax ID for the 501(c)(3) prominently on your website!
My wife and I setup a DAF (Donor Advised Fund) so we can make quick donations when we see causes like this that we want to support. Unfortunately "Tanzania Education Project" is not found when searching via ours hosted at Schwab so we can't make a donation unless we have the tax ID and I can't find it on the website either.
I will when I get home tonight. Thanks for mentioning that. That was an oversight on my part. The EIN is 87-3919577. If you look it up you might see "Ibumila Fund" which is what I called it before I renamed it to Tanzania Education Project.
I highly recommend donating some amount of your time, expertise, or money to good causes, regardless of your financial situation. Even the smallest amounts compound to amazing results—especially over long stretches over time.
When I was a student I made (very!) modest contributions to clean water projects, microfinance organizations, and the reports I now read as a mature adult are so gratifying.
I also try to keep a "charity" type project in my queue - volunteering my tech skills to help fix/build things for NGOs so fun to look back on.
I'd also like to point people towards the Giving What We Can pledge to donate some percentage of their income to charity.
While this is of course closely related to EA, which many people here are (both deservedly and undeservedly) not big fans of, it doesn't require you to choose some specific charities or agree with their moral framework. Consistently donating money to whatever cause you personally value would make the world a much better place compared to not donating anything.
I really recommend people consider doing it regardless of their views on EA or the charities they recommend. I'm not a big fan of the modern EA community myself, but I agree that the money that barely make a difference in my life could be life changing for others.
Where do you find NGOs/projects that you can volunteer your tech skills to help? This sort of thing is something I've been interested in for a while but haven't been able to find a good place to start looking considering I havent previously done tech oriented charity work
Ukraine volunteer here:
- Find local charities where you can meet people face to face, and do your own due diligence, this is because:
- The best/most tech-starved charities are the ones where they're continously in the trenches of the charities activities (so they won't even be on tech skill matching charity job boards) — and are generally poorly represented online
since i didn't see it mentioned anywhere here yet (and i know it's been around forever i've been using it for about 10 years) kiva.org is a really good one for micro loans/lending.
I highly recommend not to. The potential for whole operation being a scam because you have no way to verify anything is pretty high.
Now add there reality of generative AI and very easy way to make deep fakes and essentially every charity is certified scam.
You may see it as cynical or unfair but that's unfortunate reality of time we currently live in.
hot take :/ Would you really have trouble trusting the OP?
Maybe you just don't want to donate resources in general, because otherwise surely there exists some channel you could witness with your own eyes and donate to with confidence.
I think there are good trustworthy places to donate and the person you replied to was a bit too cynical. OP might be a good place to donate! However:
> hot take :/ Would you really have trouble trusting the OP?
Yes? Your first instinct when someone tells you a sob story or an epic western savior spiel is to do your due diligence.
Recent HN account, the website is a year old, they don't list the 501 EIN and searching for "Tanzania Education Project" on https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ yields nothing. OP doesn't list his name on the website (but it is on gofundme).
I understand where you're coming from and I think that gut reaction is appropriate.
My name is Luke Bodmer. I graduated in June with a PhD in Computational Science from the University at Buffalo in New York and I am currently working in los angeles as a post-doc in Nuerosurgery at a major hospital doing cancer research. I'm a real person, you can look me up!
Not listing the EIN was an oversite. It is EIN: 87-3919577. I'll add it to the site when I get home tonight from work. If you look it up you might see "Ibumila Fund" which is what it was called before I named it to Tanzania Education Project.
The epic western savior thing is very cringy and I don't know how to avoid it at his point in the project. I try to limit my role as much as possible and have everything done by Tanzanians in Tanzania. Eventually I hope to remove myself from the site and the story and have it be a fully Tanzanian effort. I don't see how I can remove myself at this point.
Ideally I don't want people to look at this effort as "oh look at how good of people we are!". My hope is that people will assess their situation and the situation of the children in the village and feel compelled to give because it is fair and right.
I appreciate your skepticism and I think its totally fair. This post is really the first time I'm going public beyond my inner circle with this effort and any tips on how I can build trust are really appreciated.
I will echo what others have said and say this is amazing on a personal level, but also super cool to share with others. I think especially in tech we can get a little focused on efficacy and scale instead of human impact, and some might quibble about that in the comments ill be interested to see the discourse.
Your impact is undeniable, and i think quite importantly very tangible and concrete to you. Very inspiring.
If I may add, I don't think people should question their own or others' motives for sharing good deeds and charitable work they have done. In this day and age, we need that motivation and hope in humanity, regardless of the actual intent behind the disclosure.
This is great man. I've been on the other end of this. My annual high school fees cost $700. Couldn't afford it, and it was extremely stressful. If not for the benevolence of my high school principal, I have dropped out. It completely changed my life. You're making a massive difference.
Grew up/Went to high school there. Which is why this post resonated. I know exactly what this means and what difference it can make. I'm in the US now.
Not GP, but my wife and I looked at the charter schools in Arizona at one point early in her youth. We didn't ultimately go that route (or any private route), but their stated costs were well beyond this, even with scholarship help.
I knew quite a few people in high school and college that wouldn’t have been able to afford it without crippling debt but we were able to get our tuition paid for by the State if you had a B average.
I don't want to hijack the thread, but would like to surface another such organization which I am aware of - Yuwa [1], which operates in India.
It was founded by Franz Gastler [2] when he visited India a couple of decades ago and spent time in some _really_ rural parts of the country. I'm proud to call him a friend, and have volunteered myself at the Yuwa School to teach math/CS. Through this school, girls have ended up at Harvard (!!) with scholarships, who would've never stepped out of their villages and probably ended up as child brides. I usually introduce him to my compatriots as the firangi who's done more for our country than anybody else I know!
Just a heads up (in case you're able to let the founder know) that the "Fundraise" and "Pledge" buttons on that page lead to 'page not found' error. "Give monthly" button works though.
Ugh, thanks for pointing that out. I've pinged Franz about it. I actually host the website for them, but can't fix these buttons since donations are run from a third-party.
Hey this sounds really cool and is giving me Bram Moolenaar vibes. Please try to get some sort of trusted source to vouch for you though, I've been around long enough to see a lot of these charities -- especially involving children from poorer countries -- turn out to be scams.
Thanks for the comment. Could you elaborate on getting a trusted source to vouch for the project? I think thats a great idea but I'm not sure where to start.
I'm not sure, tbh. Perhaps consider reaching out to some reputable news organization. Seems like something NPR might be interested in picking up. I believe they're fairly responsive to their contact forms as well.
This is amazing. I once adopted a kid's education who lived in Colombia. The organization would send me a letter with his picture every 3 months or so, giving me some updates of how the kid is doing in school etc. After about a year I asked the organization if i could say Hi to the kid on a video call (i think i was watching some show on netflix or prime, where the main plot was how seemingly non profits scamming donors or something like that). I kinda grew suspicious that how do i even know if these kids are real and if this money is actually going somewhere. The org said they can't do it, they can't arrange for the kid to say Hi to me on the video call. I decided to cancel the payment from that month's onward. I redirected that money to doctors without borders. I don't know if i did the right or not; the point is that trust is extremely important when it comes to non profit efforts and the donors need to be able to get some sense (even a teeny,tiny action) that this effort is real. Again, thank you for what you did. you sound like an amazing person.
I really appreciate this response. It's my biggest worry because I share the same skepticism as you. That's part of the reason I started doing this because I started question where my donations to bigger organizations were going.
I will say that I could arrange video calls for sure if you wanted to support a kid. I want to grow this as much as possible and trust is the way to do that. I'm all ears for anyone with any advice for how to build trust.
not sure if right for your project, but an idea ive had in the past is that the organizations should have the jobs filled by people from the places they are organizing support for.
too often the work involved in taking it to an organization level is written off by the doners, and / or taken advantage of by the org. but renting a building and hiring people to take calls, perform accounting, etc has real cost that cuts into donations but it is also an area of job creation. Those jobs created, imo, are incredibly important and when they are given to people in the donating country it turns into mostly just economic activity in the doner country run on donations with just whatever amount is leftover going to the actual aid. of which, without any outright corruption, people are always eager to spend that money to make the organization side of things better.. or invest it into the organization under the guise (genuine or not) of scaling the organization such that donating a bit less today leads to more donations tomorrow. and then it becomes like any other business mostly running on debt and the actual donations are like a material cost that is constantly pressured to be cut down to pay back debts
I completely agree with this and its what we are doing already actually. Currently everyone is volunteering and all the money goes to the kids (except for bank transfer fees). I mentioned in another comment how much help I've received from the local community and the schools which has made this whole thing work. My thought was to hire Anwarite after she completes her education (if she wants) and start employing local Tanzanians as the project grows.
As a side note. I was once in a remote part of the Caribbean. When I was there I saw a shack selling Tom's shoes (the ones where if you buy a pair they donate a pair to someone in need). It seemed to me that Tom's shoes had donated to the local government, who then sold the shoes to a merchant who was selling them at this market. That means the local cobbler was basically out of work while the shoes were being supplied, and other shoe venders were losing out on sales, overall having a negative impact on the economy. On top of that all, Tom's shoes are very low quality and the pair they donate is even lower quality so within a few months they would wear out.
Yes, donating clothes really doesn't help any more (if it ever helped). There is tons of stuff coming in, much of which is low quality and it's competing with local tailors.
I've made it a rule to only donate significant money (whatever "significant" might mean) to charities where I know the people and/or have visited them first hand. I love the idea of donating for a kid's education, and indeed have been "sponsoring a child" at jhamtse.org for the past several years. Because I've met the principles of the place, and have had family members involved on the ground there, I know the money is well spent. I know the "sponsorship" doesn't actually mean the money only goes to help that one individual kid, but I don't mind, and I like getting the updates about the progress of this particular boy.
I see where you're coming from, but it is not a penpal service either and they don't want to be passing messages. I traveled to a school in Uganda which had some students' education sponsored by Americans. They were real students, and the issues were usually student performance, if students had a problem or got pregnant would that affect their scholarship program and scare off the donors, etc. Knowing that it is assigned to an individual person is important for some people, but you might just want to donate to doctors, schools, etc. in general.
This is a fair point. There is a way these things can overly performative. My thought was always that it's not supposed to make the donators feel good, it's just supposed to be something that they do because it's fair and right. I think most people, if they got to actually see this village, would understand what I mean.
That being said, I want people to trust the effort, and if that means having some sort of communication or feedback from the kids in the program, then I'm totally OK with that.
I think the most interesting thing about this is that no one but the kids benefit from this. I take zero payment and everyone involves is volunteering. It's not easy to find an organization that doesn't spend %30 of their budget on ads and overhead.
Some friends were involved with an aid organization which helped several rural areas across a few different countries in Africa.
A key point was the organization didn't finance things. Instead they financed seminars, workshops and such. They'd pay for travel, food and accommodations, as well as renting a place and one or more speakers.
They'd facilitating people learning basic accounting skills which they could use in the co-op back home to make it harder for another co-op member to embezzle money, for example.
A lot of aid per buck this way.
Seems like you're well on your way with something similar. Well done!
Thank you! Yes my goal is that this becomes a self sustaining project where people in the area are given the skills they need to transform their lives. Models like the ones you are talking about that create change and don't just supply aid I think are the most important in my opinion.
Would you share your EIN? I'd like to donate through my employer to receive a match, but I can't find Tanzania Education Project Inc documented anywhere besides your website.
I started a small yearly scholarship at my old university 10 years ago and have seen some wonderful students graduating. It isn't much but pays for some supplies and gives them a sense of reality that someone in their field believes in them. I love the conversations we have, I make it a condition of the scholarship that we talk for a while and I hear their stories.
Note - I did this because I also received such a scholarship and it was critical in building my sense of belonging. Call your alumni association, they can help you and would be delighted to hear from you.
This is similar to my story as well. I was given a full ride merit scholarship to undergrad that came with a stipend. It was so impactful on my life I felt a strong urge to offer the same thing, no string attached, to other people. Thanks for sharing.
Highlight the fact that it's a 501(c)(3) on the website. Being a non-profit opens up opportunities for donations from large corporations and applying for government grants. I notice that you have a PayPal Donate button. IIRC, PayPal has a specific payment structure for nonprofits.
I'll highlight it more when I get home after work tonight. Thank you for the tip. I have set up the specific payment structure for PayPal. Thank you very much for the feedback!
Thank you all for the responses. I wasn't exactly sure how this would go over here. Someone pointed out that I have a typo in my email on the site (thank you!). I'll fix that when I get home from work tonight. The correct email is tanzaniaeducationproject@gmail.com (not .org) if you want to reach out
This is great. Thanks for sharing. I'm always happy to make a donation for education.
Weird HN type question. On your site you mention paying $5 for hosting the site but didn't mention that here. We're you able to figure out a free way to host?
I wasn't. If I remember correctly I had to pay the $5 for proper security certificates to be able to put the PayPal link. The $5 just comes from my personal bank account so that is taken care of separately from the org. Thanks for donating!
This is amazing. I'm curious how you provide oversight. I imagine with Amwirite there was a lot of trust, but how can you be ensure the money is actually being used properly as you add more students?
I'd imagine that in many parts of the world where money is tight, you might encounter families who just use the money for other things or all sorts of schemes.
I'd also love to learn more about the 501c3 process and how easy/hard it is.
Trust is key in any effort like this. I made some connections to a local church in Njombe (I'm not religious and neither is the organization, anyone is welcome) and met some of the most selfless people I've ever met (special thanks to Sister Theo) who help arrange transportation to and from the schools, and take the kids into town to get supplies, or arrange doctors visits when needed).
The money can be paid directly to the schools via western union and they send me receipts and even report cards.
Another helpful thing is that students have to take national exams in Tanzania at different stages of their education. Those scores get posted to the interent, so I can track progress that way too.
The truth is that there are many families who are working tirelessly to send their kid to school, so the motivation is already really strong in the village.
I go back every few years to check up on things, talk to the schools and give many many thanks to the nuns.
501c3 was fairly easy to set up. About as simple as an llc if I remember correctly, with a little more paperwork. I set it up in Idaho where my mom lives because I tend to move around a lot and she has a permanent address there, and the process is relatively simple in Idaho.
> how can you be ensure the money is actually being used properly as you add more students?
I suppose one way would be to pay the bills directly. I.e. the money to pay for education could be paid directly to the school, rather than giving it to the student’s family to pay the school. That could even bypass certain situations like the student and one parent being honest but the other parent trying to keep the money.
You could then keep very small tabs on progress. E.g. get notified by the school if the student is missing classes. You could then get in touch with them to see what’s going on (there could be a legitimate reason) and decide if you should keep paying or give the money to someone else.
You keep contact with both. Pay the money to the school, but get the feedback directly from the student. The school would have to collude with the student to claim that school fees are paid when they actually aren't.
I mean sure, but at some point you have to trust someone. Take it far back enough and we could argue you also have to trust the banks used for the transaction.
The institution has more eyes on it than an individual—be it journalists, the government, concerned citizens, even the students themselves—and is thus more likely to be caught in fowl play.
She said that when she earns her PhD she wants to bring it back to the region but what would a degree in Language Studies bring to a region with so little?
That's a fair question. I made a decision early on that I wasn't going to push any student in any particular direction. They were free to pursue any education they wanted. Anwarite chose this route and I'm happy to support it.
However, just the fact that she is so educated, regardless of the degree, I think can make a huge impact on her village. Most adults I met there had around a second or third grade education at most. Many never went to school at all. The fact that she can speak English, use a vomputer, and teach could be transformative.
I wholeheartedly agree. While I admire OP in his charitable endeavors. I can't help but think that this puts the incentives on studying things that offer little to no market value. Market value of a degree tends to be a huge predictor of how needed that skill is in the market. I don't know if what Tanzania needs right now is language PhD's instead of Architects, Engineers, Doctors, etc...
IMO this kind of hyperoptimization will cause more trouble than good. It's cheap and productive just to get humans to advance through any sort of education. This person will almost certainly contribute more than she would have with a 5th grade education.
Let people self-direct, even if not everyone follows an optimal route. It's a numbers game.
An important point is that this is not for us to decide. Development doesn't happen by us telling others how to develop, but by giving them the means to develop on their own. Maybe this person finds out that her choice was a mistake, but realistically, I believe that language studies is not the worst choice. There are many languages spoken in Tanzania (and any other african country) some of which are at risk of slowly dying out. Having a background in languages could make the difference in her ability to support her local language, not only to preserve it but to strengthen the confidence and self-image of its speakers which in itself can make a great impact in the development of that region. It could even be that it affects how much parents value their children going to school. We don't know any of this. Only the people living there can figure this out. All we can do is to provide some resources to help them along.
One thing they probably don’t need are bad unhappy professionals uninterested in their field. The people from the village know better than us random internet commenters what their heart is in, and they have just as much right as us to pursue their dreams and interests.
The focus on “the market” is a disease which narrows our thinking. For all we know, her language studies might allow her to communicate with many more people and cultures from the outside and bring much more prosperity to the village than an architect.
I understand your line of thought, but the individual specifically being talked about is returning to her home to contribute to the success of her community. Literally the exact opposite of what you are complaining about. Seems like this form of support, just providing an opportunity, succeeds in its goal.
People leaving a village or city for other opportunities is nothing new and something pretty much all humanity (and species) experience.
It's a good point. If only a fraction of children can go into STEM subjects & can get good in practical knowledge. They can give a lot back to their community by creative problem solving with the limited resources they have!!
I think it's hard to get child curious towards particular domain if they don't get any external push of some sort. I got into computer science because I used to tweak computers & play games in childhood in home computer.
I work with a non-profit that gives music lessons, teaches music engineering and recording and when needed, music therapy to children and displaced persons and people in conflict zones:
They have locations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Congo, El Salvador, Palestine, Jordan, Netherlands, Ireland, Kosovo, Rwanda, North Macedonia and others.
They have a special program called 88 Keys, you donate less that $100 a month and help keep their lights on and the programs running. Their website is very transparent, they are a verified Dutch non-profit / stichting. The feels are really high with these people. They could really use help right now as funding is increasingly challenging, as governments are looking at spending on war rather than peace.
The current teachers in the rock school are the kids who went into the program when it's started. True success.
I love this hyper-individualized approach. I would be way more willing to meet someone and sponsor _them_ than I would be to just give anonymous dollars.
It's a great idea, and the OP and donors are making a big difference. While I was a doctorate student, I supported a Romanian orphanage (run by Americans I never met except via email) with parcels of medicine and stationary (basic stuff e.g. anti-fever pills, coloring pens etc.). Since I never sent any cash, I was not worried about being scammed.
I've also been financially supporting
three grassroots projects to help children in three
places, namely Lomé, Togo, Caruaru, Brazil and Bhopal, India (via https://www.fkb-bza.de, sorry, Website in German only, a charity that has the advantage of being free
of any overhead - thanks to people I personally know and trust that travel there regularly, paying for their own tickets).
Thought experiment (putting back the geek hat on): I wonder if the OP's activity could be made viral and scaled up across the continent:
While there are more donors do:
- for each African country
- pick a seed city c
- pick a seed student s from c
- assign donor d to s to fund s' education
When paying for s.o. education, receiving students pledge to pay it forward by becoming a donor once they get a job that permits to do so or to return to become a teacher for a while.
On top of that, students form or join an online community to support each other and get to know each other (peace is as important as education!).
I could arange this. Meeting in person is tough. It takes me about 40 hours door to door to get to the village from my house (plane ride, taxi to a bus station, 12 hour bus ride through the country, another taxi, then motorcycle for the last leg). However, if you wanted to support a specific student, I could absolutely arrange that. The cost varies from year to year with exchange rates but it comes out to around $1200 a year. Email me at tanzaniaeducationproject@gmail.com to talk more. Thanks!!
As you have experienced it yourself (and as I wrote in my other comment), I think that coming to Africa and see the reality in person is in itself very valuable. We need more people who get a realistic picture of Africa to take home and share with friends.
If there are people who want to do that, maybe I can help arrange things locally. I would recommend individuals only, or families, but not groups in order to allow the visitors to focus on their interactions with locals and not just socialize with each other.
Could a group of donors be dedicated to financing an individual - with group members connected to each other? Communications could happen on one of the federated platforms, maybe coordinated by a temporary group head.
Thank you very much. When I was 19 I was convinced that my understanding of the world was wrong so I decided to travel to East Africa to see some of it for myself. Tanzania is a relatively safe place to travel and I wanted to learn swahili.
A friend of a friend of my parents heard that I was going and asked me to check up on a orphanage they were funding in the Njombe region. That's how I ended up in such a remote place. I helped work on the orphanage and spent time getting to know the village. That's where I met Anwarite.
I go back every few years to check up on things. It's quite the journey to get there.
I haven't though of documenting actual data points about this yet. I think that's a good idea. Any ideas on where to start?
> I haven't though of documenting actual data points about this yet. I think that's a good idea. Any ideas on where to start?
I think it’s important to be careful with this. “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure” and all that. You’re doing something good and your heart seems in the right place, so don’t lose that. It’s perfectly fine to measure your success with “the people from the village tell me it’s having a positive impact” without having to quantify things yourself, as long as you’re happy that the money is being used for the intended purpose.
I agree with you. Qualitative data would be great.
It would be very satisfying to find out that one of the kids is now a doctor or nurse and working in the clinic that services the town. Or somebody studied agriculture and now helps farmers in the area.
There are a lot of success stories that could be a success for the person but maybe not for the town (like the person got their degree and was able to build a great life in some other place). I can't imagine there's a ton of opportunity in rural Tanzanian communities...
Thank you to everyone who has donated. This has been a wonderful experience to see the support from you all. I was not expecting this sort of a response.
Again, there is a typo on the email on the site. It should be TANZANIAEDUCATIONPROJECT@GMAIL.COM not .org. I'll change that as soon as I get home tonight. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me. Thank you!!
What a fantastic thing you are doing. Thank you for making the world a bit better and my day a bit brighter. I'm not in a position to do anything for your organization right now due to other engagements but if and when those are brought to a - hopefully successful - conclusion I will re-visit this. Absolutely awesome initiative.
It was revealed George Michael donated millions of pounds to charity and individuals in need during his life... and never told a single soul nor felt a need to.
I didn't realize that and I think it's great and humble what George Michael did.
Not entirely sure what you're insinuating about the OP's intentions, but I think if one is running a non-profit, telling people in order to try to get more help for the cause is a wonderful thing indeed!
Wow, that is amazing, congratulations on making such difference on peoples lives. Btw, you can use Netlify to host your website for free and still be able to add a PayPal client button. That would save you 5$ per month that could be directed to the cause you are helping for all those years.
Given this is a fairly common setup, you can go autonomously on this setup with the help of Codex or Claude if you have access to it, or whatever AI model really. You can start by showing your website (and the source code of it and saying that you wanted to migrate to Netlify and ask the step-by-step). If you are stuck get in touch edumucelli[at]gmail.com
And CEO salaries (while the average charity worker gets a pittance).
A lot of these mega-charities seem to just be in business to "raise awareness of issue x" which also generates more donations to the charity so they can raise even more awareness.
A local charity to me has just had to cease operating. They provided free minibus travel for elderly/less mobile people. Nothing fancy, but it met a need and was tangible.
> And CEO salaries (while the average charity worker gets a pittance).
Yes, that too.
> A lot of these mega-charities seem to just be in business to "raise awareness of issue x" which also generates more donations to the charity so they can raise even more awareness.
I've seen this with Greenpeace. When I was a kid living in Nieuwendam there was a guy that had emigrated to NZ with family nearby to where we lived that went on the first edition of the Rainbow Warrior. The one the French secret service sank in an attempt to get rid of Greenpeace (and which killed Fernando Pereira). At that time they were 'madmen in zodiacs' and this guy ended up as the skipper of the Rainbow Warrior.
The transition from 'doing good stuff at scale' to 'international organization that is raising money while also doing good stuff at scale' was a hard one. They did their level best to stay active but as a fraction of total income vs expenditure on action the relationship has shifted considerably over the years.
> A local charity to me has just had to cease operating. They provided free minibus travel for elderly/less mobile people. Nothing fancy, but it met a need and was tangible.
That's super sad in a way, because especially for the elderly you can see their world shrinking year by year and such services can make a massive difference to people's lives.
Can you substantiate this? What charities? What’s “the bulk” mean to you?
Quick searches of tax filings and napkin math suggest the top 10 charities by donations in the US spend between <1% and <9% on fundraising with the exception of St. Jude which is still only 15%.
Yes, because the person involved did it quietly and without drawing attention to themselves such as the EA crowd (including those on HN) do with great regularity. They seem to use their virtue signalling as a shield for criticism of EA.
This is awesome. I would note that there are similar charities (based in various Western countries) that do similar things if people like the idea but for whatever reason don't want to donate to this particular one, just a simple Google search away.
10 years ago, I paid a lump sum to have three roughly 5 year-old Indian girls go all the way to college and I used to get yearly updates and pictures but then I moved a couple of times. I wonder how they’re doing now. I did my due diligence at the time with the charity and saw that their overhead was less than 12% and 88% of whatever was donated went to the kids.
So, this was a horrible idea I had back in 2012...
"Save A Kid"
It costs $100 to buy the game, and it's $15 per month to play.
When you pick a character, you get to pick a Country of origin, and then an age and a sex. Then you get to start customizing, by looking for a character that has a given race or religion, if you care about that. For newbies, I'd definitely recommend picking a character that speaks a language you can speak fluently. And if you're an Expert, you can play a character that has different Disadvantages. It doesn't give you any bonus attributes, but you get bragging rights for playing one of them well. There's like, Orphan and Kid-With-AIDS, and then there are harder ones like "Scarred by War" where the kids have missing limbs, etc. Anyway, newbies should probably avoid those at first.
So, anyway, it's kind of like The Sims, or a Tamagotchi, or Farm Town, or something.
You log on every day, and depending on the character you picked, you either get an email, or maybe a voice mail or a video mail. The character tells you about how much it appreciates the new computer and the food. The first couple levels, it's all about gaining Health Points. You can totally nerf your character by spending some of your monthly allotment of extra gold points on buffing the kid's parents, if he has them. The parents start generating more gold points on their own, which makes it a lot easier to play. Some people even buy buffs online, which I think is cheating, but for a newbie, it's an easy way to keep your kid alive.
Anyway, you and your friends can make a clan, and all play characters in the same village. I've even heard that some really crazy rich players can buy buffs for the whole village, like a potable water and electricity system.
There are Events in the game, where like the country the kid is in goes into War. That sucks, because sometimes you lose your character, and the game is perma-death, which is lame. They do a really good job making the game realistic, because sometimes you even see in the news that the real country is in war. Most of the time, they just make stuff up though, because most of the wars never show up on TV, but your character won't shut up about them.
Anyway, it's a sandbox game, which some people don't like. But the AI is incredible. Your character will like ask you how they can keep their food from spoiling, and if you look it up online, and explain to them how to do it, they can save some of their food. Or like, how they can build a windmill from scrap metal.
Anyway, you play the same character as long as you want to, but most people get bored after the kid has a job and their own family, and they start over at level one. Restarting costs another $100 though.
The game developers say if too many people play the game, they might even run out of characters to play. I don't buy it. They'll always make up some new War, or some world-shattering Disaster like a typhoon or something, and then a bunch of new characters will open up. Expansion packs, and all that.
A lot of people play this game like 40 hours a week, or something ridiculous. Some people say that playing this game has changed their lives or whatever, and they give up their jobs and play it full time.
Anyway, I guess you can already play most of those mini-games in other forms, but until they package it up in a nice box that you can buy at Best Buy, and they set up some dedicated servers, and set up a scoring ladder (good grades in school, etc.) and maybe some achievements ("high school diploma", "got a job," etc.), oh and a nice technical support line to answer questions and give advice, I don't think the game will really take off.
Good question! I would love to. I started this when I had very little money as a college student. I could have donated 100% of my money and not made a dent in an American education. With Tanzania I was able to fund a student with so little money, so the leverage was huge.
Eventually I would love to do more work in the US. I'm a postdoc now so I'm still not in a personal position to make a meaningful contribution to an American education, but one day I plan to get there.
The idea I've had is to just keep funding as long as they want to keep attending. The reason I track specific kids is because I think it maximizes the impact rather than just funding one kid for one year, then running out of money so they to take a year off, then getting a donation to have another kid go for a semester, etc. The idea is if they start the program then they can keep going until they want to stop, or finish.
This is a bit of pressure on me as you might imagine, which is why I've kept it small until today. I want to make sure that if everyone stops giving then I can personally keep things going.
My hope now is to expand it to the point where x amount of donations mean another kid can join the program.
Seeing this response from HN has been really insightful and I hope to add more kids soon now that I see the reaction that people have.
After 15 years in China I moved to Africa 4 years ago. First to Uganda and since more than two years now I live in Tanzania. I have been sponsoring multiple students in Uganda but once I left it became difficult to continue because I could not ensure that the money got to the right people. Already careful, I usually paid school fees directly to the schools. But I also helped them to buy things they need for school. One time a child told me that the money I sent for her was taken by her older siblings. In another case I sent several hundred dollars at once to pay for a child to get into secondary school. I already knew the family and the situation in person, and had been supporting her for a while, but as I wasn't there any more I had to trust someone else to deliver the money. I gave it to a school director from the primary school this child just graduated from. I had been supporting 3 children in that school, and I trusted the director as he was very generous with the children, allowing them to be behind on school fees. That is not common. Many schools will refuse children if the fees are not paid. Unfortunately the payments didn't go as planned. The director claimed different school fees than the school actually asked for, and even those were not fully paid. As a result the child dropped out of school and I have no way to get her back in to school as there is no one I can trust to handle the money.
I don't know what happened to the money. Ostensibly the director used it to support children in his own school. As such the money has likely not been wasted, but the trust is broken because people don't take being honest seriously.
This is unfortunately not an isolated case. I heard from another organization that is supporting orphans in Uganda that at some point they found out that some of the children were not really orphans. It wasn't their fault. The orphanage they worked with wasn't straight forward in their communication. It may even have been an innocent translation error, or misunderstanding. It is not uncommon that families send their children to orphanages temporarily while they can not afford to care for them.
The point is, that it is very difficult to verify what the real truth is. And it takes time to establish trust. The main problem is the stark difference in income. Even to middle class locals, as a middle class westerner I appear insanely rich to them. They have no idea that I am struggling just as much to find work, and that I can't afford to help them pay for what even I consider luxuries. The TV has many shows about the life of more well off people or from other countries giving people a false impression of what is a normal life in other countries.
I can only tell you this because I actually came to Africa to see the reality on the ground for myself. With my children I could live at home semi-comfortably with government child support and unemployment benefits (as a single parent with young children taking a full-time job is out of the question). Instead I have to get by with finding online work, which is getting increasingly harder. Or I have to rely on sponsors to support my work.
I didn't come to Africa with big goals. Especially not with the idea that I could actually make a difference. I came here to learn, and to teach my children about the reality of the world. I also try to work with students and young developers to give them work experience in software development. Currently I guide the software team in a company that is producing electronic learning kits for robotics, physics, etc for schools.
It hasn't been easy. I had a stable client when I came here paying me enough to cover the life here. But after a year I lost that customer and two years later my savings were used up. The move from Uganda to Tanzania was actually cost driven because living in Uganda was a lot more expensive. I am now struggling to get by and I don't know how much longer I can afford to stay here. I would like to dedicate more time to helping students but the struggle to find work is taking most of my focus.
Besides software development, one thing I would like to do is to audit the work NGOs are doing here on behalf of the people who donate to them. I could travel and produce independent reports on what the results are from the money you donate.
I do hope that I will get over this struggle and that I'll be able to live here for several more years.
Thanks for taking the time to write that out. I hope you're doing well and I'd be happy to talk more if you want to reach out to tanzaniaeducationproject@gmail.com
This is beautiful. Bravo. You created an opportunity for someone to thrive and grow. There are few higher callings to humanity than that, IMHO.
I also did something sort of similar: I had a close friend in Brazil (former roommate when he eas in the US; self deported) who was going through a very difficult time. As an experiment..I gave him $100/month, no strings attached. Blow it on food and games, rent, whatever he wants.
Tl;dr it went very well, his life significantly improved, I did it because he was my friend, I had the money, and wanted to see what would happen.
We Skyped after his shift ended one night and he was very depressed. With a VPN and a credit card I ordered him Dominos to cheer him up. I sent a feast that.. only cost me $10.[1]
Realizing the exchange rate benefit, I got the idea of giving him $100 each month as an experiment; $500 Brazilian Reals.
I wanted to know if the extra money would help and if I could use the exchange rate to help my friend get to a better place in life. Sort of a UBI but not quite.
Now, $100 to me is a bit of money, but 500 BR to him was a crazy amount of money to be given.
Over six months, it allowed him to quit his job at McDonald's, get out of a financially unstable roommate situation, move closer to his family in his own place, and find a better job. He started dating again.
I told him I would commit to a year, but he actually said at the 6.5 month mark that he's doing so well that I don't have to keep giving him money.
Three years later he's still doing great. I have concluded from this that more money in our pocket always helps, but there is a certain responsibility (maybe in general) needed when a gift like that lands in our laps. It can be easy to blow it [2] but just as easy to use it to move life forward.
It has certainly made me more ..aware/appreciative of my privilege and (sometimes fragile) security.
[1]. Two medium four topping pizzas, two 2-litre bottles of soda, breadsticks, and chicken nuggets.
[2]. I was once given a generous stipend from the Student Government of $140 which I did not use for school supplies, rent, or even groceries. Nope. I bought alcohol.
Amazing story. And a nice testimony to the asymmetry between earning in one spot and spending in another where a relatively small amount of money can be life changing.
Someone did something nice, posted it, others either appreciated it or thought it was interesting and upvoted it. After three years here you should know the answer to this because that question comes up almost every day and it always gets answered in the same way.
With zero submissions to your name there is something you could do if you wanted to change what gets posted to HN.
Well, it's better than "X had died" which pops up about once a day and usually contains someone unrelated to hacker news... While this one is inspiring and good to have on HN
Love this, but please post the tax ID for the 501(c)(3) prominently on your website!
My wife and I setup a DAF (Donor Advised Fund) so we can make quick donations when we see causes like this that we want to support. Unfortunately "Tanzania Education Project" is not found when searching via ours hosted at Schwab so we can't make a donation unless we have the tax ID and I can't find it on the website either.
I will when I get home tonight. Thanks for mentioning that. That was an oversight on my part. The EIN is 87-3919577. If you look it up you might see "Ibumila Fund" which is what I called it before I renamed it to Tanzania Education Project.
I highly recommend donating some amount of your time, expertise, or money to good causes, regardless of your financial situation. Even the smallest amounts compound to amazing results—especially over long stretches over time.
When I was a student I made (very!) modest contributions to clean water projects, microfinance organizations, and the reports I now read as a mature adult are so gratifying.
I also try to keep a "charity" type project in my queue - volunteering my tech skills to help fix/build things for NGOs so fun to look back on.
I'd also like to point people towards the Giving What We Can pledge to donate some percentage of their income to charity.
While this is of course closely related to EA, which many people here are (both deservedly and undeservedly) not big fans of, it doesn't require you to choose some specific charities or agree with their moral framework. Consistently donating money to whatever cause you personally value would make the world a much better place compared to not donating anything.
I really recommend people consider doing it regardless of their views on EA or the charities they recommend. I'm not a big fan of the modern EA community myself, but I agree that the money that barely make a difference in my life could be life changing for others.
https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/
On a somewhat unrelated note, also consider signing up for blood and stem cell donation!
What is “EA” in this context?
Effective altruism.
It's a very small, tech-literate and philosophically straightforward death cult.
Eh, it's more like a small international aid community which got taken over by a very vocal death cult of SF software engineers.
Where do you find NGOs/projects that you can volunteer your tech skills to help? This sort of thing is something I've been interested in for a while but haven't been able to find a good place to start looking considering I havent previously done tech oriented charity work
https://www.highimpactprofessionals.org/
https://rendered.one/
Those two sites help with job matching for nonprofits. The first has both volunteering and paid positions, the second only paid AFAIK.
These are great links, thanks a lot.
Second that.
Ukraine volunteer here: - Find local charities where you can meet people face to face, and do your own due diligence, this is because: - The best/most tech-starved charities are the ones where they're continously in the trenches of the charities activities (so they won't even be on tech skill matching charity job boards) — and are generally poorly represented online
Seconded.
since i didn't see it mentioned anywhere here yet (and i know it's been around forever i've been using it for about 10 years) kiva.org is a really good one for micro loans/lending.
what does "microfinance organizations" even mean? loan sharks?
The opposite actually. They provide small loans with generous conditions, and often also with guidance and education on how to start a business.
I highly recommend not to. The potential for whole operation being a scam because you have no way to verify anything is pretty high. Now add there reality of generative AI and very easy way to make deep fakes and essentially every charity is certified scam.
You may see it as cynical or unfair but that's unfortunate reality of time we currently live in.
I highly recommend to diversify. Donate a smaller amount to a bunch of different charities.
hot take :/ Would you really have trouble trusting the OP?
Maybe you just don't want to donate resources in general, because otherwise surely there exists some channel you could witness with your own eyes and donate to with confidence.
I think there are good trustworthy places to donate and the person you replied to was a bit too cynical. OP might be a good place to donate! However:
> hot take :/ Would you really have trouble trusting the OP?
Yes? Your first instinct when someone tells you a sob story or an epic western savior spiel is to do your due diligence.
Recent HN account, the website is a year old, they don't list the 501 EIN and searching for "Tanzania Education Project" on https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ yields nothing. OP doesn't list his name on the website (but it is on gofundme).
OP seems genuine, but there are many red flags.
I understand where you're coming from and I think that gut reaction is appropriate.
My name is Luke Bodmer. I graduated in June with a PhD in Computational Science from the University at Buffalo in New York and I am currently working in los angeles as a post-doc in Nuerosurgery at a major hospital doing cancer research. I'm a real person, you can look me up!
Not listing the EIN was an oversite. It is EIN: 87-3919577. I'll add it to the site when I get home tonight from work. If you look it up you might see "Ibumila Fund" which is what it was called before I named it to Tanzania Education Project.
The epic western savior thing is very cringy and I don't know how to avoid it at his point in the project. I try to limit my role as much as possible and have everything done by Tanzanians in Tanzania. Eventually I hope to remove myself from the site and the story and have it be a fully Tanzanian effort. I don't see how I can remove myself at this point.
Ideally I don't want people to look at this effort as "oh look at how good of people we are!". My hope is that people will assess their situation and the situation of the children in the village and feel compelled to give because it is fair and right.
I appreciate your skepticism and I think its totally fair. This post is really the first time I'm going public beyond my inner circle with this effort and any tips on how I can build trust are really appreciated.
Yes, best to live in a cave and never take any risks or have any contact with dangerous, suspicious, filthy humans.
It's fine. There is plenty of good in the world. Touch some grass and take a deep breath.
I will echo what others have said and say this is amazing on a personal level, but also super cool to share with others. I think especially in tech we can get a little focused on efficacy and scale instead of human impact, and some might quibble about that in the comments ill be interested to see the discourse.
Your impact is undeniable, and i think quite importantly very tangible and concrete to you. Very inspiring.
If I may add, I don't think people should question their own or others' motives for sharing good deeds and charitable work they have done. In this day and age, we need that motivation and hope in humanity, regardless of the actual intent behind the disclosure.
Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
This is great man. I've been on the other end of this. My annual high school fees cost $700. Couldn't afford it, and it was extremely stressful. If not for the benevolence of my high school principal, I have dropped out. It completely changed my life. You're making a massive difference.
Grew up/Went to high school there. Which is why this post resonated. I know exactly what this means and what difference it can make. I'm in the US now.
Not GP, but my wife and I looked at the charter schools in Arizona at one point early in her youth. We didn't ultimately go that route (or any private route), but their stated costs were well beyond this, even with scholarship help.
I knew quite a few people in high school and college that wouldn’t have been able to afford it without crippling debt but we were able to get our tuition paid for by the State if you had a B average.
The state usually provided loans for University, not high school.
Thank you for this. I really appreciate it.
I don't want to hijack the thread, but would like to surface another such organization which I am aware of - Yuwa [1], which operates in India.
It was founded by Franz Gastler [2] when he visited India a couple of decades ago and spent time in some _really_ rural parts of the country. I'm proud to call him a friend, and have volunteered myself at the Yuwa School to teach math/CS. Through this school, girls have ended up at Harvard (!!) with scholarships, who would've never stepped out of their villages and probably ended up as child brides. I usually introduce him to my compatriots as the firangi who's done more for our country than anybody else I know!
[1] https://yuwa-india.org
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Gastler
Just a heads up (in case you're able to let the founder know) that the "Fundraise" and "Pledge" buttons on that page lead to 'page not found' error. "Give monthly" button works though.
Ugh, thanks for pointing that out. I've pinged Franz about it. I actually host the website for them, but can't fix these buttons since donations are run from a third-party.
Also, this donate link - https://yuwa-india.org/donate/ - does work.
Hey this sounds really cool and is giving me Bram Moolenaar vibes. Please try to get some sort of trusted source to vouch for you though, I've been around long enough to see a lot of these charities -- especially involving children from poorer countries -- turn out to be scams.
Thanks for the comment. Could you elaborate on getting a trusted source to vouch for the project? I think thats a great idea but I'm not sure where to start.
I'm not sure, tbh. Perhaps consider reaching out to some reputable news organization. Seems like something NPR might be interested in picking up. I believe they're fairly responsive to their contact forms as well.
I'm going to give this some thought. I think its a great idea. Thank you very much.
This is amazing. I once adopted a kid's education who lived in Colombia. The organization would send me a letter with his picture every 3 months or so, giving me some updates of how the kid is doing in school etc. After about a year I asked the organization if i could say Hi to the kid on a video call (i think i was watching some show on netflix or prime, where the main plot was how seemingly non profits scamming donors or something like that). I kinda grew suspicious that how do i even know if these kids are real and if this money is actually going somewhere. The org said they can't do it, they can't arrange for the kid to say Hi to me on the video call. I decided to cancel the payment from that month's onward. I redirected that money to doctors without borders. I don't know if i did the right or not; the point is that trust is extremely important when it comes to non profit efforts and the donors need to be able to get some sense (even a teeny,tiny action) that this effort is real. Again, thank you for what you did. you sound like an amazing person.
I really appreciate this response. It's my biggest worry because I share the same skepticism as you. That's part of the reason I started doing this because I started question where my donations to bigger organizations were going.
I will say that I could arrange video calls for sure if you wanted to support a kid. I want to grow this as much as possible and trust is the way to do that. I'm all ears for anyone with any advice for how to build trust.
Thank you!
not sure if right for your project, but an idea ive had in the past is that the organizations should have the jobs filled by people from the places they are organizing support for.
too often the work involved in taking it to an organization level is written off by the doners, and / or taken advantage of by the org. but renting a building and hiring people to take calls, perform accounting, etc has real cost that cuts into donations but it is also an area of job creation. Those jobs created, imo, are incredibly important and when they are given to people in the donating country it turns into mostly just economic activity in the doner country run on donations with just whatever amount is leftover going to the actual aid. of which, without any outright corruption, people are always eager to spend that money to make the organization side of things better.. or invest it into the organization under the guise (genuine or not) of scaling the organization such that donating a bit less today leads to more donations tomorrow. and then it becomes like any other business mostly running on debt and the actual donations are like a material cost that is constantly pressured to be cut down to pay back debts
I completely agree with this and its what we are doing already actually. Currently everyone is volunteering and all the money goes to the kids (except for bank transfer fees). I mentioned in another comment how much help I've received from the local community and the schools which has made this whole thing work. My thought was to hire Anwarite after she completes her education (if she wants) and start employing local Tanzanians as the project grows.
As a side note. I was once in a remote part of the Caribbean. When I was there I saw a shack selling Tom's shoes (the ones where if you buy a pair they donate a pair to someone in need). It seemed to me that Tom's shoes had donated to the local government, who then sold the shoes to a merchant who was selling them at this market. That means the local cobbler was basically out of work while the shoes were being supplied, and other shoe venders were losing out on sales, overall having a negative impact on the economy. On top of that all, Tom's shoes are very low quality and the pair they donate is even lower quality so within a few months they would wear out.
Yes, donating clothes really doesn't help any more (if it ever helped). There is tons of stuff coming in, much of which is low quality and it's competing with local tailors.
The simple solution is to always have such calls be monitored by another adult.
I've made it a rule to only donate significant money (whatever "significant" might mean) to charities where I know the people and/or have visited them first hand. I love the idea of donating for a kid's education, and indeed have been "sponsoring a child" at jhamtse.org for the past several years. Because I've met the principles of the place, and have had family members involved on the ground there, I know the money is well spent. I know the "sponsorship" doesn't actually mean the money only goes to help that one individual kid, but I don't mind, and I like getting the updates about the progress of this particular boy.
A lot of these orgs say you are sponsoring EG Jane's education but in reality the money gets spread across a whole school or region.
The technology is finally here for scams to let you video chat with an artificial kid.
It would make sense to separate kids from the people who are donating money to them, but they could have offered to let you chat with the parents.
I see where you're coming from, but it is not a penpal service either and they don't want to be passing messages. I traveled to a school in Uganda which had some students' education sponsored by Americans. They were real students, and the issues were usually student performance, if students had a problem or got pregnant would that affect their scholarship program and scare off the donors, etc. Knowing that it is assigned to an individual person is important for some people, but you might just want to donate to doctors, schools, etc. in general.
This is a fair point. There is a way these things can overly performative. My thought was always that it's not supposed to make the donators feel good, it's just supposed to be something that they do because it's fair and right. I think most people, if they got to actually see this village, would understand what I mean.
That being said, I want people to trust the effort, and if that means having some sort of communication or feedback from the kids in the program, then I'm totally OK with that.
I think the most interesting thing about this is that no one but the kids benefit from this. I take zero payment and everyone involves is volunteering. It's not easy to find an organization that doesn't spend %30 of their budget on ads and overhead.
A con would've found a kid that could do that call for $5
Yeah, but then at least a kid is getting $5! /s
If it’s a con, the kid is probably enslaved.
Some friends were involved with an aid organization which helped several rural areas across a few different countries in Africa.
A key point was the organization didn't finance things. Instead they financed seminars, workshops and such. They'd pay for travel, food and accommodations, as well as renting a place and one or more speakers.
They'd facilitating people learning basic accounting skills which they could use in the co-op back home to make it harder for another co-op member to embezzle money, for example.
A lot of aid per buck this way.
Seems like you're well on your way with something similar. Well done!
Thank you! Yes my goal is that this becomes a self sustaining project where people in the area are given the skills they need to transform their lives. Models like the ones you are talking about that create change and don't just supply aid I think are the most important in my opinion.
Would you share your EIN? I'd like to donate through my employer to receive a match, but I can't find Tanzania Education Project Inc documented anywhere besides your website.
Yes! EIN: 87-3919577
It used to be registered as "Ibumila Fund" but I changed the name since no one understood what that meant.
Thank you very much!
I started a small yearly scholarship at my old university 10 years ago and have seen some wonderful students graduating. It isn't much but pays for some supplies and gives them a sense of reality that someone in their field believes in them. I love the conversations we have, I make it a condition of the scholarship that we talk for a while and I hear their stories.
Note - I did this because I also received such a scholarship and it was critical in building my sense of belonging. Call your alumni association, they can help you and would be delighted to hear from you.
This is similar to my story as well. I was given a full ride merit scholarship to undergrad that came with a stipend. It was so impactful on my life I felt a strong urge to offer the same thing, no string attached, to other people. Thanks for sharing.
Noblesse oblige and all that! Great to hear you heard the call too.
Highlight the fact that it's a 501(c)(3) on the website. Being a non-profit opens up opportunities for donations from large corporations and applying for government grants. I notice that you have a PayPal Donate button. IIRC, PayPal has a specific payment structure for nonprofits.
I'll highlight it more when I get home after work tonight. Thank you for the tip. I have set up the specific payment structure for PayPal. Thank you very much for the feedback!
Thank you all for the responses. I wasn't exactly sure how this would go over here. Someone pointed out that I have a typo in my email on the site (thank you!). I'll fix that when I get home from work tonight. The correct email is tanzaniaeducationproject@gmail.com (not .org) if you want to reach out
This is great. Thanks for sharing. I'm always happy to make a donation for education.
Weird HN type question. On your site you mention paying $5 for hosting the site but didn't mention that here. We're you able to figure out a free way to host?
I wasn't. If I remember correctly I had to pay the $5 for proper security certificates to be able to put the PayPal link. The $5 just comes from my personal bank account so that is taken care of separately from the org. Thanks for donating!
A typo in the email on the page too.
Shouldn't it be @gmail.com not .org?
Oh man. Thank you so much. I'll change that when I get home. It should be .com
This is amazing. I'm curious how you provide oversight. I imagine with Amwirite there was a lot of trust, but how can you be ensure the money is actually being used properly as you add more students?
I'd imagine that in many parts of the world where money is tight, you might encounter families who just use the money for other things or all sorts of schemes.
I'd also love to learn more about the 501c3 process and how easy/hard it is.
Thanks for the comment.
Trust is key in any effort like this. I made some connections to a local church in Njombe (I'm not religious and neither is the organization, anyone is welcome) and met some of the most selfless people I've ever met (special thanks to Sister Theo) who help arrange transportation to and from the schools, and take the kids into town to get supplies, or arrange doctors visits when needed).
The money can be paid directly to the schools via western union and they send me receipts and even report cards.
Another helpful thing is that students have to take national exams in Tanzania at different stages of their education. Those scores get posted to the interent, so I can track progress that way too.
The truth is that there are many families who are working tirelessly to send their kid to school, so the motivation is already really strong in the village.
I go back every few years to check up on things, talk to the schools and give many many thanks to the nuns.
501c3 was fairly easy to set up. About as simple as an llc if I remember correctly, with a little more paperwork. I set it up in Idaho where my mom lives because I tend to move around a lot and she has a permanent address there, and the process is relatively simple in Idaho.
> 501c3 was fairly easy to set up.
Did you use any online services? Or hire a local lawyer? Care to share approximate cost?
I see you're using PayPal to take donations - any problems with that or considerations of alternatives?
I'm helping with a foreign charity and finding PayPal doesn't work with local banks.
Also very curious to know these questions, and the ongoing cost/maintenance/bookkeeping to maintain 501c3.
> how can you be ensure the money is actually being used properly as you add more students?
I suppose one way would be to pay the bills directly. I.e. the money to pay for education could be paid directly to the school, rather than giving it to the student’s family to pay the school. That could even bypass certain situations like the student and one parent being honest but the other parent trying to keep the money.
You could then keep very small tabs on progress. E.g. get notified by the school if the student is missing classes. You could then get in touch with them to see what’s going on (there could be a legitimate reason) and decide if you should keep paying or give the money to someone else.
> paid directly to the school
This is probably better, but just shifts the trust to the institution rather than the individual, which can also be hit or miss.
You keep contact with both. Pay the money to the school, but get the feedback directly from the student. The school would have to collude with the student to claim that school fees are paid when they actually aren't.
I mean sure, but at some point you have to trust someone. Take it far back enough and we could argue you also have to trust the banks used for the transaction.
The institution has more eyes on it than an individual—be it journalists, the government, concerned citizens, even the students themselves—and is thus more likely to be caught in fowl play.
She said that when she earns her PhD she wants to bring it back to the region but what would a degree in Language Studies bring to a region with so little?
That's a fair question. I made a decision early on that I wasn't going to push any student in any particular direction. They were free to pursue any education they wanted. Anwarite chose this route and I'm happy to support it.
However, just the fact that she is so educated, regardless of the degree, I think can make a huge impact on her village. Most adults I met there had around a second or third grade education at most. Many never went to school at all. The fact that she can speak English, use a vomputer, and teach could be transformative.
Maybe she can become a teacher in the region and continue the process of helping others to expand their horizons beyond the region?
culture, rights for women, appreciation of learning...those are all downstream of PHDs in the humanities
I wholeheartedly agree. While I admire OP in his charitable endeavors. I can't help but think that this puts the incentives on studying things that offer little to no market value. Market value of a degree tends to be a huge predictor of how needed that skill is in the market. I don't know if what Tanzania needs right now is language PhD's instead of Architects, Engineers, Doctors, etc...
IMO this kind of hyperoptimization will cause more trouble than good. It's cheap and productive just to get humans to advance through any sort of education. This person will almost certainly contribute more than she would have with a 5th grade education.
Let people self-direct, even if not everyone follows an optimal route. It's a numbers game.
An important point is that this is not for us to decide. Development doesn't happen by us telling others how to develop, but by giving them the means to develop on their own. Maybe this person finds out that her choice was a mistake, but realistically, I believe that language studies is not the worst choice. There are many languages spoken in Tanzania (and any other african country) some of which are at risk of slowly dying out. Having a background in languages could make the difference in her ability to support her local language, not only to preserve it but to strengthen the confidence and self-image of its speakers which in itself can make a great impact in the development of that region. It could even be that it affects how much parents value their children going to school. We don't know any of this. Only the people living there can figure this out. All we can do is to provide some resources to help them along.
One thing they probably don’t need are bad unhappy professionals uninterested in their field. The people from the village know better than us random internet commenters what their heart is in, and they have just as much right as us to pursue their dreams and interests.
The focus on “the market” is a disease which narrows our thinking. For all we know, her language studies might allow her to communicate with many more people and cultures from the outside and bring much more prosperity to the village than an architect.
It will lower the birthrate
Intelectuality?
OP is killing the village. No one will be left after the kids grow up.
I understand your line of thought, but the individual specifically being talked about is returning to her home to contribute to the success of her community. Literally the exact opposite of what you are complaining about. Seems like this form of support, just providing an opportunity, succeeds in its goal.
People leaving a village or city for other opportunities is nothing new and something pretty much all humanity (and species) experience.
It's a good point. If only a fraction of children can go into STEM subjects & can get good in practical knowledge. They can give a lot back to their community by creative problem solving with the limited resources they have!!
I think it's hard to get child curious towards particular domain if they don't get any external push of some sort. I got into computer science because I used to tweak computers & play games in childhood in home computer.
What a strange thing to say
If the kids all have better lives, isn't that a good thing? What is noble about an impoverished village where everyone just exists?
The village is not alive.
A family is not alive.
I hope when I am in need and someone thinks about helping me they don't find someone like you, man.
That might be true, but should we clutch our pearls after we killed our villages?
I work with a non-profit that gives music lessons, teaches music engineering and recording and when needed, music therapy to children and displaced persons and people in conflict zones:
https://musicianswithoutborders.org
They have locations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Congo, El Salvador, Palestine, Jordan, Netherlands, Ireland, Kosovo, Rwanda, North Macedonia and others.
They have a special program called 88 Keys, you donate less that $100 a month and help keep their lights on and the programs running. Their website is very transparent, they are a verified Dutch non-profit / stichting. The feels are really high with these people. They could really use help right now as funding is increasingly challenging, as governments are looking at spending on war rather than peace.
The current teachers in the rock school are the kids who went into the program when it's started. True success.
Donations are tax deductible for Dutch and US.
As a musician myself, this is amazing. Thanks for sharing.
I love this hyper-individualized approach. I would be way more willing to meet someone and sponsor _them_ than I would be to just give anonymous dollars.
It's a great idea, and the OP and donors are making a big difference. While I was a doctorate student, I supported a Romanian orphanage (run by Americans I never met except via email) with parcels of medicine and stationary (basic stuff e.g. anti-fever pills, coloring pens etc.). Since I never sent any cash, I was not worried about being scammed.
I've also been financially supporting three grassroots projects to help children in three places, namely Lomé, Togo, Caruaru, Brazil and Bhopal, India (via https://www.fkb-bza.de, sorry, Website in German only, a charity that has the advantage of being free of any overhead - thanks to people I personally know and trust that travel there regularly, paying for their own tickets).
Thought experiment (putting back the geek hat on): I wonder if the OP's activity could be made viral and scaled up across the continent:
While there are more donors do:
- for each African country
- pick a seed city c
- pick a seed student s from c
- assign donor d to s to fund s' education
When paying for s.o. education, receiving students pledge to pay it forward by becoming a donor once they get a job that permits to do so or to return to become a teacher for a while.
On top of that, students form or join an online community to support each other and get to know each other (peace is as important as education!).
I could arange this. Meeting in person is tough. It takes me about 40 hours door to door to get to the village from my house (plane ride, taxi to a bus station, 12 hour bus ride through the country, another taxi, then motorcycle for the last leg). However, if you wanted to support a specific student, I could absolutely arrange that. The cost varies from year to year with exchange rates but it comes out to around $1200 a year. Email me at tanzaniaeducationproject@gmail.com to talk more. Thanks!!
As you have experienced it yourself (and as I wrote in my other comment), I think that coming to Africa and see the reality in person is in itself very valuable. We need more people who get a realistic picture of Africa to take home and share with friends.
If there are people who want to do that, maybe I can help arrange things locally. I would recommend individuals only, or families, but not groups in order to allow the visitors to focus on their interactions with locals and not just socialize with each other.
Could a group of donors be dedicated to financing an individual - with group members connected to each other? Communications could happen on one of the federated platforms, maybe coordinated by a temporary group head.
That is certainly a possibility. I'd love to talk more about it. You can reach me at tanzaniaeducationproject@gmail.com
What an inspiring story!
How did you end up in Ibumila? Do you ever go back there?
You ask how much can a village change. Are you trying to document that in any way?
Thank you very much. When I was 19 I was convinced that my understanding of the world was wrong so I decided to travel to East Africa to see some of it for myself. Tanzania is a relatively safe place to travel and I wanted to learn swahili.
A friend of a friend of my parents heard that I was going and asked me to check up on a orphanage they were funding in the Njombe region. That's how I ended up in such a remote place. I helped work on the orphanage and spent time getting to know the village. That's where I met Anwarite.
I go back every few years to check up on things. It's quite the journey to get there.
I haven't though of documenting actual data points about this yet. I think that's a good idea. Any ideas on where to start?
> I haven't though of documenting actual data points about this yet. I think that's a good idea. Any ideas on where to start?
I think it’s important to be careful with this. “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure” and all that. You’re doing something good and your heart seems in the right place, so don’t lose that. It’s perfectly fine to measure your success with “the people from the village tell me it’s having a positive impact” without having to quantify things yourself, as long as you’re happy that the money is being used for the intended purpose.
I agree with you. Qualitative data would be great.
It would be very satisfying to find out that one of the kids is now a doctor or nurse and working in the clinic that services the town. Or somebody studied agriculture and now helps farmers in the area.
There are a lot of success stories that could be a success for the person but maybe not for the town (like the person got their degree and was able to build a great life in some other place). I can't imagine there's a ton of opportunity in rural Tanzanian communities...
Thank you to everyone who has donated. This has been a wonderful experience to see the support from you all. I was not expecting this sort of a response.
Again, there is a typo on the email on the site. It should be TANZANIAEDUCATIONPROJECT@GMAIL.COM not .org. I'll change that as soon as I get home tonight. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me. Thank you!!
No questions or comments. Just glad to wake up and read this. Big fan of how the things we consider small can be life changing to someone else.
What a fantastic thing you are doing. Thank you for making the world a bit better and my day a bit brighter. I'm not in a position to do anything for your organization right now due to other engagements but if and when those are brought to a - hopefully successful - conclusion I will re-visit this. Absolutely awesome initiative.
Thank you!
Very cool my friend! Keep up the great work and follow your heart. Its in the right place
It was revealed George Michael donated millions of pounds to charity and individuals in need during his life... and never told a single soul nor felt a need to.
I didn't realize that and I think it's great and humble what George Michael did.
Not entirely sure what you're insinuating about the OP's intentions, but I think if one is running a non-profit, telling people in order to try to get more help for the cause is a wonderful thing indeed!
Wow, that is amazing, congratulations on making such difference on peoples lives. Btw, you can use Netlify to host your website for free and still be able to add a PayPal client button. That would save you 5$ per month that could be directed to the cause you are helping for all those years.
Yes! I was hoping someone from HN would tell me how to do this. Thank you!!
Given this is a fairly common setup, you can go autonomously on this setup with the help of Codex or Claude if you have access to it, or whatever AI model really. You can start by showing your website (and the source code of it and saying that you wanted to migrate to Netlify and ask the step-by-step). If you are stuck get in touch edumucelli[at]gmail.com
Good on you.
I often think sometimes with these diffuse mega-charities, you never know where the money ultimately ends up or what difference it makes.
At least with your donations you can see for sure where the money went and the direct benefit it had.
With those mega charities the bulk of the money usually goes to marketing the charity.
And CEO salaries (while the average charity worker gets a pittance).
A lot of these mega-charities seem to just be in business to "raise awareness of issue x" which also generates more donations to the charity so they can raise even more awareness.
A local charity to me has just had to cease operating. They provided free minibus travel for elderly/less mobile people. Nothing fancy, but it met a need and was tangible.
> And CEO salaries (while the average charity worker gets a pittance).
Yes, that too.
> A lot of these mega-charities seem to just be in business to "raise awareness of issue x" which also generates more donations to the charity so they can raise even more awareness.
I've seen this with Greenpeace. When I was a kid living in Nieuwendam there was a guy that had emigrated to NZ with family nearby to where we lived that went on the first edition of the Rainbow Warrior. The one the French secret service sank in an attempt to get rid of Greenpeace (and which killed Fernando Pereira). At that time they were 'madmen in zodiacs' and this guy ended up as the skipper of the Rainbow Warrior.
The transition from 'doing good stuff at scale' to 'international organization that is raising money while also doing good stuff at scale' was a hard one. They did their level best to stay active but as a fraction of total income vs expenditure on action the relationship has shifted considerably over the years.
> A local charity to me has just had to cease operating. They provided free minibus travel for elderly/less mobile people. Nothing fancy, but it met a need and was tangible.
That's super sad in a way, because especially for the elderly you can see their world shrinking year by year and such services can make a massive difference to people's lives.
Can you substantiate this? What charities? What’s “the bulk” mean to you?
Quick searches of tax filings and napkin math suggest the top 10 charities by donations in the US spend between <1% and <9% on fundraising with the exception of St. Jude which is still only 15%.
I love this energy, and love how it seems to be resonating with others too. seems a more whole and life-giving than the intellectual EA vibe
Yes, because the person involved did it quietly and without drawing attention to themselves such as the EA crowd (including those on HN) do with great regularity. They seem to use their virtue signalling as a shield for criticism of EA.
Thank you!
Super inspiring. Will likely send some $$. Nice one, very well done, great story and project :-)
Good work!!! I love what you are doing.
Thank you! It's just crazy to pay such a small fee and have someone excel as much as Anwarite did.
Hey, as someone born and raised in the "third world": Thanks. Must feel VERY satisfying!
You are a decent person. Bravo.
Well done.
Relevant to the topic: https://www.cato.org/books/beautiful-tree
This is awesome. I would note that there are similar charities (based in various Western countries) that do similar things if people like the idea but for whatever reason don't want to donate to this particular one, just a simple Google search away.
~Scott's~ lukehandcool's Tots.
Absolute kudos!
This is really great. Thanks for doing this!
Just donated $100US
Thank you so much!!
10 years ago, I paid a lump sum to have three roughly 5 year-old Indian girls go all the way to college and I used to get yearly updates and pictures but then I moved a couple of times. I wonder how they’re doing now. I did my due diligence at the time with the charity and saw that their overhead was less than 12% and 88% of whatever was donated went to the kids.
That's awesome. Thanks for sharing. I do want to point out that the only overhead for my project is the bank fees. That is it.
So, this was a horrible idea I had back in 2012...
"Save A Kid"
It costs $100 to buy the game, and it's $15 per month to play.
When you pick a character, you get to pick a Country of origin, and then an age and a sex. Then you get to start customizing, by looking for a character that has a given race or religion, if you care about that. For newbies, I'd definitely recommend picking a character that speaks a language you can speak fluently. And if you're an Expert, you can play a character that has different Disadvantages. It doesn't give you any bonus attributes, but you get bragging rights for playing one of them well. There's like, Orphan and Kid-With-AIDS, and then there are harder ones like "Scarred by War" where the kids have missing limbs, etc. Anyway, newbies should probably avoid those at first.
So, anyway, it's kind of like The Sims, or a Tamagotchi, or Farm Town, or something.
You log on every day, and depending on the character you picked, you either get an email, or maybe a voice mail or a video mail. The character tells you about how much it appreciates the new computer and the food. The first couple levels, it's all about gaining Health Points. You can totally nerf your character by spending some of your monthly allotment of extra gold points on buffing the kid's parents, if he has them. The parents start generating more gold points on their own, which makes it a lot easier to play. Some people even buy buffs online, which I think is cheating, but for a newbie, it's an easy way to keep your kid alive.
Anyway, you and your friends can make a clan, and all play characters in the same village. I've even heard that some really crazy rich players can buy buffs for the whole village, like a potable water and electricity system.
There are Events in the game, where like the country the kid is in goes into War. That sucks, because sometimes you lose your character, and the game is perma-death, which is lame. They do a really good job making the game realistic, because sometimes you even see in the news that the real country is in war. Most of the time, they just make stuff up though, because most of the wars never show up on TV, but your character won't shut up about them.
Anyway, it's a sandbox game, which some people don't like. But the AI is incredible. Your character will like ask you how they can keep their food from spoiling, and if you look it up online, and explain to them how to do it, they can save some of their food. Or like, how they can build a windmill from scrap metal.
Anyway, you play the same character as long as you want to, but most people get bored after the kid has a job and their own family, and they start over at level one. Restarting costs another $100 though.
The game developers say if too many people play the game, they might even run out of characters to play. I don't buy it. They'll always make up some new War, or some world-shattering Disaster like a typhoon or something, and then a bunch of new characters will open up. Expansion packs, and all that.
A lot of people play this game like 40 hours a week, or something ridiculous. Some people say that playing this game has changed their lives or whatever, and they give up their jobs and play it full time.
Anyway, I guess you can already play most of those mini-games in other forms, but until they package it up in a nice box that you can buy at Best Buy, and they set up some dedicated servers, and set up a scoring ladder (good grades in school, etc.) and maybe some achievements ("high school diploma", "got a job," etc.), oh and a nice technical support line to answer questions and give advice, I don't think the game will really take off.
"Save a kid" reminds me of a very funny Key and Peele skit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUfjOTY0Fz8
Is there a site where you can find a list of projects like that one?
Or similarly, a single fund someone can contribute to where the money goes to high-impact charities like this one.
Btw, this tip-toes on ideas behind the now-infamous "Effective Altruism" crap, and I'd like to stay away from that as much as possible.
Why not fund Americans' educations instead?
Good question! I would love to. I started this when I had very little money as a college student. I could have donated 100% of my money and not made a dent in an American education. With Tanzania I was able to fund a student with so little money, so the leverage was huge.
Eventually I would love to do more work in the US. I'm a postdoc now so I'm still not in a personal position to make a meaningful contribution to an American education, but one day I plan to get there.
Funding child education up to 18 seems like a great and noble cause. How does it work beyond that though, with university?
Could you fund a scholarship or a specific department or something with the universities instead of sponsoring an individual person?
The idea I've had is to just keep funding as long as they want to keep attending. The reason I track specific kids is because I think it maximizes the impact rather than just funding one kid for one year, then running out of money so they to take a year off, then getting a donation to have another kid go for a semester, etc. The idea is if they start the program then they can keep going until they want to stop, or finish.
This is a bit of pressure on me as you might imagine, which is why I've kept it small until today. I want to make sure that if everyone stops giving then I can personally keep things going.
My hope now is to expand it to the point where x amount of donations mean another kid can join the program.
Seeing this response from HN has been really insightful and I hope to add more kids soon now that I see the reaction that people have.
After 15 years in China I moved to Africa 4 years ago. First to Uganda and since more than two years now I live in Tanzania. I have been sponsoring multiple students in Uganda but once I left it became difficult to continue because I could not ensure that the money got to the right people. Already careful, I usually paid school fees directly to the schools. But I also helped them to buy things they need for school. One time a child told me that the money I sent for her was taken by her older siblings. In another case I sent several hundred dollars at once to pay for a child to get into secondary school. I already knew the family and the situation in person, and had been supporting her for a while, but as I wasn't there any more I had to trust someone else to deliver the money. I gave it to a school director from the primary school this child just graduated from. I had been supporting 3 children in that school, and I trusted the director as he was very generous with the children, allowing them to be behind on school fees. That is not common. Many schools will refuse children if the fees are not paid. Unfortunately the payments didn't go as planned. The director claimed different school fees than the school actually asked for, and even those were not fully paid. As a result the child dropped out of school and I have no way to get her back in to school as there is no one I can trust to handle the money.
I don't know what happened to the money. Ostensibly the director used it to support children in his own school. As such the money has likely not been wasted, but the trust is broken because people don't take being honest seriously.
This is unfortunately not an isolated case. I heard from another organization that is supporting orphans in Uganda that at some point they found out that some of the children were not really orphans. It wasn't their fault. The orphanage they worked with wasn't straight forward in their communication. It may even have been an innocent translation error, or misunderstanding. It is not uncommon that families send their children to orphanages temporarily while they can not afford to care for them.
The point is, that it is very difficult to verify what the real truth is. And it takes time to establish trust. The main problem is the stark difference in income. Even to middle class locals, as a middle class westerner I appear insanely rich to them. They have no idea that I am struggling just as much to find work, and that I can't afford to help them pay for what even I consider luxuries. The TV has many shows about the life of more well off people or from other countries giving people a false impression of what is a normal life in other countries.
I can only tell you this because I actually came to Africa to see the reality on the ground for myself. With my children I could live at home semi-comfortably with government child support and unemployment benefits (as a single parent with young children taking a full-time job is out of the question). Instead I have to get by with finding online work, which is getting increasingly harder. Or I have to rely on sponsors to support my work.
I didn't come to Africa with big goals. Especially not with the idea that I could actually make a difference. I came here to learn, and to teach my children about the reality of the world. I also try to work with students and young developers to give them work experience in software development. Currently I guide the software team in a company that is producing electronic learning kits for robotics, physics, etc for schools.
It hasn't been easy. I had a stable client when I came here paying me enough to cover the life here. But after a year I lost that customer and two years later my savings were used up. The move from Uganda to Tanzania was actually cost driven because living in Uganda was a lot more expensive. I am now struggling to get by and I don't know how much longer I can afford to stay here. I would like to dedicate more time to helping students but the struggle to find work is taking most of my focus.
Besides software development, one thing I would like to do is to audit the work NGOs are doing here on behalf of the people who donate to them. I could travel and produce independent reports on what the results are from the money you donate.
I do hope that I will get over this struggle and that I'll be able to live here for several more years.
Thanks for taking the time to write that out. I hope you're doing well and I'd be happy to talk more if you want to reach out to tanzaniaeducationproject@gmail.com
This is beautiful. Bravo. You created an opportunity for someone to thrive and grow. There are few higher callings to humanity than that, IMHO.
I also did something sort of similar: I had a close friend in Brazil (former roommate when he eas in the US; self deported) who was going through a very difficult time. As an experiment..I gave him $100/month, no strings attached. Blow it on food and games, rent, whatever he wants.
Tl;dr it went very well, his life significantly improved, I did it because he was my friend, I had the money, and wanted to see what would happen.
We Skyped after his shift ended one night and he was very depressed. With a VPN and a credit card I ordered him Dominos to cheer him up. I sent a feast that.. only cost me $10.[1]
Realizing the exchange rate benefit, I got the idea of giving him $100 each month as an experiment; $500 Brazilian Reals.
I wanted to know if the extra money would help and if I could use the exchange rate to help my friend get to a better place in life. Sort of a UBI but not quite.
Now, $100 to me is a bit of money, but 500 BR to him was a crazy amount of money to be given.
Over six months, it allowed him to quit his job at McDonald's, get out of a financially unstable roommate situation, move closer to his family in his own place, and find a better job. He started dating again.
I told him I would commit to a year, but he actually said at the 6.5 month mark that he's doing so well that I don't have to keep giving him money.
Three years later he's still doing great. I have concluded from this that more money in our pocket always helps, but there is a certain responsibility (maybe in general) needed when a gift like that lands in our laps. It can be easy to blow it [2] but just as easy to use it to move life forward.
It has certainly made me more ..aware/appreciative of my privilege and (sometimes fragile) security.
[1]. Two medium four topping pizzas, two 2-litre bottles of soda, breadsticks, and chicken nuggets.
[2]. I was once given a generous stipend from the Student Government of $140 which I did not use for school supplies, rent, or even groceries. Nope. I bought alcohol.
Universal Basic Income really works, as you've found.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/15/how-likely-universal-basic-i...
Amazing story. And a nice testimony to the asymmetry between earning in one spot and spending in another where a relatively small amount of money can be life changing.
This is a wonderful story. Thanks for sharing.
And this is on Hacker News... why?
Someone did something nice, posted it, others either appreciated it or thought it was interesting and upvoted it. After three years here you should know the answer to this because that question comes up almost every day and it always gets answered in the same way.
With zero submissions to your name there is something you could do if you wanted to change what gets posted to HN.
Well, it's better than "X had died" which pops up about once a day and usually contains someone unrelated to hacker news... While this one is inspiring and good to have on HN