Show HN: I've been paying for a rural Tanzanian's education for 10 years (tanzaniaeducationproject.org)
This summer she graduated from the University of Dar es Salaam with a degree in Language Studies, and last week she told me she'd been accepted into a Master of Arts in Swahili program there. Roughly 2% of people from Njombe ever finish a university degree. Her goal is to get a PhD and then to bring it back to the region.
Her entire 18-month master's program (tuition, registration, fees, books, supplies) comes to 3,060,000 TSh, about $1,161.
Since this worked out, I kept adding students as I could afford to, and in 2021 I registered it as a 501(c)(3), the Tanzania Education Project. It supports five students from Ibumila now, school fees and healthcare. I kept it small while I was finishing my PhD because I didn't want commitments I couldn't personally guarantee for a decade; I've since started a postdoc, so it feels like the right time to grow past my own paycheck. The long-term goal is that every kid in the village has access to education and healthcare. I sometimes think of this project as a slow experiment. How much could the village itself change over someone's lifetime if the kids have access to education?
https://tanzaniaeducationproject.org/ is the website. Nobody takes a salary, and aside from bank fees the money goes to the students. If anyone wants to fund Anwarite's master's specifically, it's here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/send-anwarite-to-her-masters-prog...
Happy to answer any questions or take any tips you all might have about doing this sort of thing.
197 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadWeird 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?
Shouldn't it be @gmail.com not .org?
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.
People leaving a village or city for other opportunities is nothing new and something pretty much all humanity (and species) experience.
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.
Let people self-direct, even if not everyone follows an optimal route. It's a numbers game.
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.
Thought experiment (putting back the geek hat on): I wonder if this 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!).
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.
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.
Also the organization only talked about girls and never mentionned the boys in the schools. Unbalanced providence is a pretty important trigger to me, it's the source of my own suffering.
Just donated $100US
Your impact is undeniable, and i think quite importantly very tangible and concrete to you. Very inspiring.
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?
How did you get that impression? I can't conform that at all. Rent in rural areas and outside of city centers is very low. If they rent at all. Local tribes live on land that they own or get assigned to by the government and at least don't have to pay for. The rest is food and other necessities.
The issue with micro-loans is that you need infrastructure to track/enforce the re-payments. I don't see how it can be done without significant local support and it may even have some legal implications.
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.
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!
And people don’t like them for that exactly, quite deservedly.
If you're talking about stem cell and blood donations, yes, there are many EAs who are against that for stupid reasons like "why would I spend 30 minutes donating blood when I can spend them on my very effective work", but those are also just the vocal minority and most are pretty reasonable about doing easy helpful things in addition to the main "effective" stuff. Notably for example, many EAs even do undirected kidney donations, despite other EAs arguing it's not "effective" enough.
You may see it as cynical or unfair but that's unfortunate reality of time we currently live in.
I've been funding Microfinance loans, $25 at a time, for a while now. Just checked the numbers - I have spent only about 5K in total, made almost 68K for ~2900 loans (keep recycling the money when repayments come in).
Lost motivation for a few years in between, after Covid. Used to think it is just $25, what difference can it make? I was totally wrong. $25 won't even get a good pizza these days in most American cities, it is not a lot in the west. But it can have amazing purchasing power in Africa, parts of Asia etc.
What I am trying to say is - even if we have just $10, it is okay, it can be of immense help to someone. There is Watsi, there is Kiva, Doctors without Borders and many more great projects, like Tanzania Education Project.
Here is a very simplistic (and optimistic) calculation by ChatGPT - simply loaning $25 month consistently can help more than a 1000 people in 20 years
https://chatgpt.com/share/6ac80150-feb8-83e8-a6b0-4b162c056a...
I used to think I need lots of capital to help, this shows how wrong that line of thinking is.
But more importantly, can you share the details of how you did that practically? Did you do this yourself or as part of a larger organization who just took your money and paid you back later?
https://www.kiva.org/about/how
I also tried a couple of other Microfinance orgs (can't remember the names now), but kept going back to Kiva. Been doing it for 15 years, so it slowly adds up, even though I wasn't consistent.
That's what I expected. Thanks. Your wording: "made almost 68K for ~2900 loans" had me confused. Making money means profit or income to me. You didn't make any money but you helped 2900 people.
68k/25=2720. That suggests that the defaults are less than 10%. That's not so bad I think.
Most charities do more harm than good. Does this charity operate in the best interest of the state? which state? Why don't people ask these questions instead of consuming feel-good slop?
It's not an entirely moral judgement if your actions put them in conflict with the state.
Is getting more children to school not in everyone's best interest? As for conflict with the state, in Tanzania any charity/NGO has to operate for three years before they are even allowed to apply for official recognized status. It makes sense to me. They can't control what everyone is doing. So go, do, and if you want to be officially recognized then show what you did for 3 years and they'll see if they like it. If they don't, they'll probably be told to stop. Small operations like this one can probably be ignored.
Relevant to the topic: https://www.cato.org/books/beautiful-tree
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.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/15/how-likely-universal-basic-i...
My options then were to go back home, or to try Africa and see if it is possible to live there for a while. I'll be staying here as long as I can financially sustain myself with online work or through sponsors. And even if I can't stay much longer, we have now been here long enough that Africa has made an impact in our lives, and we'll hopefully be able to use that to have a positive impact on others too.
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.
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.
This is probably better, but just shifts the trust to the institution rather than the individual, which can also be hit or miss.
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.
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.
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.
No I filed it myself. It was 5 years ago now but I remember the process being fairly simple.
I see you're using PayPal to take donations - any problems with that or considerations of alternatives?
No problems yet. It's quite annoying that PayPal takes a fee from each donation. That part doesn't sit well with me but I haven't found any alternative that takes a smaller fee.
Also very curious to know these questions, and the ongoing cost/maintenance/bookkeeping to maintain 501c3.
As far as the cost, there was an upfront cost that I paid out of pocket (not from donations). Each year I have to file a IRS form 990 and a annual report which are both very simple at the moment because my bookkeeping is quite simple as well. Bookkeeping is like any business. You need to track where each penny goes. That hasn't been an issue for me due to the small size of the charity.
I hope that helps.
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.
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%.