It is a given for any nation to be highly literate in order to grow. Pockets or clusters of literacy will surely not help in a big way. Instead every nation must strive towards providing basic education to all. In fact it is the birth right of every citizen of the country.
But, we cannot expect this from countries that are poor & rightly classified as the developing or under-developed nations. The governments in such countries will never be able to single handedly achieve the goal of 100% literacy.
India has close to 260 million children. That's around 25% of the population. Only a fraction of this receives quality education. Most of the children do not receive even the basic level of education which costs just $25. But, the government is unable to do much due to a lack of funds, apart from numerous other reasons like corruption etc.
While it is not plausible to think of weeding out corruption, we, as software engineers, can certainly help monetarily. As responsible citizens and the 'haves' of the nation, we must take it upon ourselves to convert the 'have-nots' to 'haves'.
India has around 700,000 software engineers. Let's take a conservative estimate and say that on an average everyone earns Rs.12000 (or $250) every month. If each one of these decides to spend $25 or Rs.1200 (10% of his salary, which is what it takes to provide basic healthcare & education for a child in India for a year!!) once in two months, then the number of children he/she would have adopted would be 6 per year.
Just imagine:
700,000 x 6 = 4.2 million children are being taken care of every year, just by the software engineers of India.
And what is the saving for the government ?
700,000 x Rs.1200 = Rs.840,000,000 (Rs.84 crores!!) or 700,000 x $25 = $17,500,000.
Remember, only software engineers have contributed till now. Moreover, some affluent ones can pitch in with more funds. Add to this, the fact that, had it been left to the government, a major portion of the same would have been siphoned off by the middlemen! Not a single coin is lost if we directly provide it to the NGOs.
Tomorrow, even if 10% of the children who have been educated this way go on to become scientists and business leaders, we would have done our duty.
Just Think. That's the Power of Giving.
Some top NGOs :
www.cry.org
www.giveindia.org
11 comments:
That's definitely a wonderful idea. But can you recommend some really good institutions which will actually use the donations for the originally intended purpose?
My humble suggestion would be not to "outsource" this work to any other third party, but to manage some time (sigh!!!) and take the onus upon ourselves.
Anirban
Implementation is a challenge but feasible. Having volunteered for CRY I know there are organisations that are capable of using the money given in proper way. People who want to give can donate directly to CRY through their support a child initiative. Believe me it's not at all expensive but for a kid can make a whole lot of difference.
-Saurabh
Thanks for the comments.
With organizations like Give India & CRY, it should not be a problem. It is their professionalism & single minded devotion that sets them apart from the crowd. Contributing to these institutions guarantee results, unlike many other operators. Problems arise when we think of doing it on our own, as Anir has suggested. That is the most important deterrent. Even without your knowledge, you’d have procrastinated. In the name of trying to do it on our own, we say to ourselves “Let me get into a better position, build better networks, found an organization & then do this”. This will only delay implementation. Your contributions may wait, but their age doesn’t. Instead, if I say “here I have two of the best NGOs in India, let me contribute $25 every two months & then increase my contributions as I grow”, then, that would bring in a sea change. Moreover, being lesser mortals, & highly materialistic ones to add, I am not sure if many us would be willing to get out of our jobs to start our own NGO!!!
Contributing money towards this cause is definitely commenadble , but would it not be even better if we could lay down the foundation itself. Am thinking on the lines of 'moble schools' a recent venture to bring-literacy-to-the-children . If we could tear ourselves from Sunday-Satyam-Outings, weekend meditations in the British Library , and spend Time + Money + a bit of ourselves , yeah , we can make this dream come true ...
It would be better Arundhati, no doubt. But just think of it. A few people here and there, like you and me giving up somethings like the outing/cinema & getting into the act will not catalyse the cause. We want a dedicated set of teachers to provide, what I call professional education. It should not be done by individuals on a weekend, but continue as a daily affair, which we certainly can't do. Instead, contributing to top notch organizations like CRY / Give India, who can mobilise quality teachers will bear the apposite results. What we can do is pool our resources and contrbute towards a "balwadi" ( classes of 35 managed by CRY).
Please do leave your email ID (if you don't mind, that is) along with the comment so that I could reply to you personally. May be we can team up for the cause.
Hey Sandeep,
Do drop in @ attitude4unme@gmail.com
Am almost humming 'Heal the World, Make it a better Place' by MJ ... *pun unintended* ;)
You know what...with such calculations you can make the world free of all its worries. You can do such calculations for increasing the number of trees, reducing the number of cars used, giving free treatments to all, getting rid of corrupt politicians......so on. All looks possible. But consider the reality.
1. Donate 1200!!!
You expect a person earning 12000/- take home, and say staying in Bangalore to donate 600 !!!. Do you know what is the membership for fitness clubs in Bangalore?, do you know the rent for a single bedroom house? do you know how much it costs for month supply of food? do you know how much it cost for traveling to office? mobile, milk, electricity, water bill? and his monthly saving plans for a own house?
You donation ratio 1/20 is too high. Unrealistic !!!. Maybe 1200 per year
2. 1200/- to provide basic facilities for a child
I don't agree with this. Maybe this might be true for certain organization which can house large number of children in a single building. But what about others ??? Moreover there is a big Question on the quality of facilities provided to children.
You think you get all the nutrient food with 1200 per child for a year !!! You can provide uniforms, dress, books, pens, pencil... Unrealistic. 600 per month per child.
2. Your calculations "saving for the government" is wrong.
You have not considered the tax rebate people get when they show the donation certificate. !!! And to talk of large organizations donating. I agree they can do that...but don't they do it to get some sort of returns in other ways.
3. Not a coin is lost if u give it to NGO
grow up!!! You will get a big list of NGO which are fakes and you don't know where your money is. NGO's are just 30% effective. But i do admire their work whatever they have done
Wake up! Why do you still rate dollar so high to rupee. Government gives lot of subsidies for software companies be it land, electronic items, development tools. How do you include that?
Still lot of things to say...but tired of typing. Do your homework !
where are you working??
Hey Mr. Anonymous,
Really don’t mean to sound rude, but it is this sort of calculated Cynicism that puts people off from actually making a small move towards the right thing.
1200 /- in two months is ok by me. We have done it, and am a cyber coolie of the lowest order in the IT hierarchy and I still manage to treat my self to good concerts and quality theatre performances. I still manage to allow myself to splurge on Collector's pieces where books are concerned. Donating 600 /- has not made me any poorer, it’s only made me feel more complete.
Nobody is asking you to take it on yourself and change the course of the nation; all it needs is small move.
So don’t look at the calculator or the churned out numbers. Look at the cause. If you can still not see it , well you still remain Anonymous ;)
Its shocking to see a person who was conjoos in his childhood has changed to be generous towards people. I know you from your child hood and was really surprised to see a change.
I am glad to see the change. keep it up.
Good Luck,
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