40 Days of Giving: Africa

Well, I don't know if any of my efforts today amounted to much, but I had some interesting experiences. This was one of the days when I had to actually drive into work, rather than work from home, and I kept a vigilant watch for people in need. In fact, I found a couple, but they ended up already having things well in hand.

Roadside Assistance
I stopped twice by the side of the road to help people who were off on the shoulder. Once on the way into work in the morning, once on the way out in the afternoon. (Different cars, of course.) I saw a couple of other people who appeared to be having car trouble, but I was in the wrong lane, and couldn't get over in time to stop before being well past them. It's 40 Days of Giving, after all, not 40 Days of Reckless Driving.

Unfortunately, neither effort turned into an actual opportunity to help. The first woman said that her sister was on the way, but she thanked me very much for stopping. The woman in the afternoon car had also already called for help and was waiting on a gas tank.

Cellphones really cut out the opportunity for good Samaritan activities.

Other Activities
I signed up for the One Campaign, so I'll begin getting news from Bono's charity to help alleviate international famine, disease, and poverty.

In addition, I earned 5,000 grains of rice. I also dug around a bit more on the FreeRice.org website, and discovered some disturbing statistics - the United States only gives 18 cents of every 100 dollars in international aid, tying for last place with Japan. This is only 0.18%! Appalling!

(In fairness, I'm not sure what is counted in this statistic. Does this include money given by religious organizations toward international missionary work and funding churches in these regions, which support their local communities? However, even the best estimate I've heard of religious giving places it at about 1.8%, and certainly the majority of that stays in the United States.)

According to the One Campaign website, Obama's recent budget is making some good steps in the right direction, but still has a way to go. So I went and printed out this letter, which I'll send to the White House. If you believe we should be doing more, you should look into this as well.

Finally, I offered up some help to local city officials who are trying to get a major infrastructure investment in my hometown to improve the internet connectivity through the new Google Fiber plan. I may have to try to look into some innovative ways to get the word out on this, as it would be a major boon to our community ... which needs it, after all of the industry we've had abandon the town in recent years.

Tomorrow, the giving fund coffers fill up, and then things should get really interesting.

Last night, I received first place in the first round of the Toastmasters International Speech contest, held in our Chief Anderson Toastmasters chapter. (Only three of us presented speeches for the contest, so this isn't as big an honor as it sounds ... but it still gives me a shot to go on to higher levels, so we'll see!) This being my first Toastmasters contest, I'm still waiting for details about how things proceed from here.

Since I am in the midst of an experiment where I am embracing giving throughout my life, my speech was also on the subject of giving. Here is the speech I gave (with heavy editing, since I write far better than I talk):

Ride the Electric Wind

A few years back, in the African nation of Malawi, there was a famine. The Kamkwamba family, in the village of Wimbe, were down to eating one meal a day, of an un-riped corn turned into a sort of porridge. The father was drying their last tobacco harvest, so he was able to get some loans against it ... but the loans soon outstripped the amount that would actually be made from the sale of the tobacco.

In the midst of all of this, the family didn't have the money to pay the fees for their son, William Kamkwamba, to attend the local primary school. He still tried to go to school, avoiding the authorities that would notice him. Finally, though, he was caught and told to leave. But he didn't give up on learning, and spent time at the local library. He especially enjoyed reading about science topics.

Keep in mind, English was not William's primary language, but the books were in English. So to research the science topics, he had to teach himself English. And what he couldn't learn, he had to get other people to translate.

One of the things that he learned about were windmills. He was fascinated by the idea of building one, to bring this "electric wind" (as he called it) to his poor community. The focus of his research became building one of these machines. Using materials salvaged from his local trash dump, he pieced together the turbines that would turn the motion into electricity and the windmill itself and the circuit breaker [to keep his house from burning down - see the Daily Show video below]. He was mocked by his community and family, most all of which (except for his father) thought him insane.

But William Kamkwamba, at age 14, was successful. He built a working windmill for his house.

This is the point where things get ... well, not interesting, because it's already interesting ... but they get worldly, I guess you could say. Because William's windmill came to the attention of newspapers and blogs, and finally to the attention of the people who organized the TED (Technology Entertainment Design) conferences, who asked William to attend.

At the TED conference, 19 year old William was brought on stage where he, in halted English, explained what had happened: "After I drop out from school, I went to library and I read a book titled Using Energy and I get information about windmill and I try and I made it." [See the video below!]

William met wealthy patrons from around the world. Now he had funding! He built a new, improved windmill, and now women from his village can access the electric irrigation system, which brings water directly into the village ... rather than hiking for miles to bring water every day for their family. He received the funds to attend a prominent school, where he will learn the skills he needs to be successful in life and to transform his community in ways that even he can't yet imagine. Just last December, he announced that he was leading a project to rebuild his primary school. (The old building was built in 1950 to educate 450 students, but now has 1,480 students!)

This would be impressive enough, of course, but I want to focus on another aspect of this story, which wasn't included in his book - The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind - or in any of the other major commentary on the matter that I've read. I only found out about this other aspect because I work for a company which makes textbooks ... in fact, for the very company that published the textbook, Using Energy, from which William learned to build his windmill. The company offered this textbook, as they offer many textbooks every year, through a program where they donate textbooks to libraries in developing countries throughout the world.

So this whole inspiring story, really, begins with someone, over a decade ago, in a boardroom, or an office, or a cubicle, deciding that it would be worthwhile to give away textbooks to libraries in the developing world. And then that person had to, no doubt, push for their idea and get it implemented as a practice by a major corporation ... to give away the very product they sold to make their profits.

The gift of a textbook changed the lives of thousands of people in a village in Malawi. A good call, in my opinion.

When we give, we don't always know what the full impact will be. But we give precisely in the hope that if we give, there will be a worthwhile impact. And the more we give, the more we reach out to expand knowledge, and learning, and opportunity, and hope, the greater the impact that we can expect to have in the world.

Other information:

William Kamkwamba's website

William Kamkwamba's Profile on TED

Interview on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart