CharityGives Money Directly To TheWorld’s Poorest People
by Monique Conrod
What would you do with a thousand dollars? You can probably think of a lot of fun ways to spend that much money.
But what if your family didn’t always have enough to eat? Or what if you lived in a house with a dirt floor and a thatched roof?A thousand dollars couldchange your life.
That’s the idea behind a charity called GiveDirectly, which puts money in the hands of poor people and lets them spend it however they choose.GiveDirectly was founded in 2008 by four American university students. Paul Niehaus, Michael Faye, RohitWanchoo and Jeremy Shapiro were studying economics (how goods and services are produced and distributed) in the developing world. They wanted to find the best way to help the poorest people.
Traditional charities work by raising money from donors and spending it where they think it can do the most good. Charities often support major projects like building schools, hospitals, roads, wells and irrigation pipes, or providingmedicalcare for people in need.
But not all of the money collected by charities goes straight to these projects. Some is used to pay for the cost of running the organization, the salaries of the people involved, and even the cost of raising money from donors (fundraising). In some cases, as little as half of the money donated to a charity is actually used for the programs it supports.
The idea behind GiveDirectly was to give money directly to the poorest people it could find and let them decide how to use it. This is called anunconditional cash transfer(UCT).
The organization reduced as many expenses as possible, so 90 per centof the money it raises goes to the people who need it.GiveDirectly decided to start its program in Kenya, a country on the east coast of Africa where many people live below the poverty line. (This means they do not have enough money to pay for their basic needs.)
The organization uses census informationto find the poorest regions of the country. Then it looks through villages to find houses which do not have solid walls or floors, or which have thatched roofs instead of tin, to help identify the poorest people there.
Using a sort of lottery, GiveDirectly chooses people from this group to give money to. Selecting people randomly makes it easier to explain to the village why some households get money and others do not.
Those who are selected are given about $1,000. In Kenya, $1,000 can buy food for one adult for five years, or pay for secondary school education for a child for five and a half years, or it could buy an acre of land.
GiveDirectly has been giving UCTs to poor people in Kenya for about two years. In October 2013, two menreleased a report they had written on how this money is affecting the lives of the people who receive it.
The researchers found that people tended to use the money for such things as installing a tin roof on their house, buying food, or paying for medical and education expenses. Some people used it to start businesses such as farming, raising chickens, or selling clothing or other goods.
There was no evidence that people spent the money on alcohol, tobacco or gambling.
Traditional charities are often concernedwith improving health care and education for children, because these have been shown to have benefits for the future.
People who received UCTs from GiveDirectly have higher incomes, more food and less stress than they had before. But it is too soon to tell what the long-term effects will be.
Source: Adapted and simplified from teachingkidsnews.com
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1. Vocabulary – new/unknown words in the text
a thatched roofbe founded
economics
the developing world
charities (pl.)
well
irrigation pipes
provide
medical care
salaries (pl.)
donate
expenses
randomly
census information
release
affect
tend to
evidence
be concerned with
2. Definitions - Please explain the following expressions!
Raising money from donors means to ……………………………………………………………………………………
Pay the cost of running the organizationmeans…………………………………………………………………
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An unconditional cash transfer (UCT) means ………………………………………………………………………
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To live below the poverty linemeans that ……………………………………………………………………………
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To be selectedmeans………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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3. Questions on the text
a. How do the poorest people in Kenya live? Describe and give 2 examples.
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2. What is the idea behind the charity of GiveDirectly?
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3. How do traditional charities work?
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4. Sometimes only half of the donated money goes into projects. Why?
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5. How does GiveDirectly choose the people to support?
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6. How do the supported people spend the money they received?
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7. How has life changed for them compared with other people in the village
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