April 5th, 2010
The recent iPad craze has reminded me of a life resolution I made a few years ago in the wake of some serious financial prioritization. To be frank, I’m good at throwing away money on things that don’t really matter. Part of the problem is I’m a geek. I can be hypnotized by the latest, shiny new gadget just as easily as the next person. I spend a shameful amount of money on music, books, and movies. I have considered buying a great many things that would not have given me one tenth the productivity or pleasure that an equivalent gift to charity would have given to someone else. Most libertarians would say that doesn’t really matter; it’s my money, and I can spend it or even waste it however I like. Nobody else has any “right” to it. Those things may be true, but I still think it’s bad reasoning. That kind of selfishness is bad for me, it’s bad for this community we call Earth, and of course it’s bad for other people. So in order to help me resist these kinds of temptations, I made a list of small charitable contributions that have a lot of impact on the sort of problems I would like to see go away. I try to look at this list every time I’m considering spending a lot of money on something. If I can read through it and still want to buy whatever it is, I know it’s probably something worth getting. If not…well…I usually make a donation instead.
So in the spirit of my resolution (and to help me convince myself I don’t really want one), here are twenty things you could do with $500 that would change the world (instead of buying an iPad):
1. Protect 16 girls from slavery
2. Teach 12 girls how to protect themselves from slavery
3. Provide bicycles to 8 health workers to reach vulnerable children in remote communities.
4. Build a school for 40 children
5. Pay for one month of legal protection for 2 girls victimized by sex trafficking
6. Fund small business loans for 25 South American women
7. Start 20 Savings and Loan banks for villagers
8. Help 25 families feed themselves and become financially independent with a flock of chicks
9. Provide textbooks in math, science, economics, and history for 71 girls
10. Serve a nutritious noon meal for 33 days to 50 girls in Burkina Faso who walk 6km to school each way
11. Provide sanitary pads for 16 Ugandan school girls for an entire year, ensuring they can stay in school.
12. Send 10 girls to school for a year
13. Keep a safe house for rape victims open for 33 days
14. Provide vocational training for 50 rape victims
15. Provide HIV testing for 50 rape victims
16. Provide ten days of hospital care for 33 victims of brutal rape
17. Provide counseling for 33 victims of rape
18. Provide 5 rape victims the means to support themselves when they return to their village
19. Sponsor a woman in the most impoverished, war-ravaged parts of the world for a year
20. Provide a month of vocational education for 25 prostitutes