2010-01-03 18:06:52 | Tags:

Hey Seeta, I just happened to see your blog post and I noticed that you also attend GW. I am currently a sophomore there and this past semester I began a Givology chapter at GW. It would be great if you wanted to get involved the chapter, we definitely need the help! For more information about us you can always contact me at pnandini@gwmail and we also have a blog (it's currently on a hiatus but updates will be posted there about meetings!) http://givologyatgw.wordpress.com/

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2009-08-20 02:25:20 | Tags: team uganda-peace-primary-scho notes from the field

I remember once a few years ago, I was speaking to a classmate of mine who referred to the civil war in Sri Lanka and how that affected her family there. When I first heard I felt slightly taken aback… “civil war? Sri Lanka? Why haven’t I heard of this before?” Once I heard I immediately did a quick Google search and tried my hardest to comprehend the history of such a war. I keenly remember how I felt after realizing my ignorance about the Sri Lankan civil war. I felt… well I felt embarrassed. How did this escape my notice?

Well, this disappointment in myself happened to me again when I first heard about the Ugandan Civil War. Once again I thought “civil war? Uganda? Why haven’t I heard of this before?” I once again quickly remedied my ignorance through the internet.

I won’t go into why I think we don’t hear much about civil wars in Sri Lanka and Uganda, but I will delve into what I proceeded to learn about Africa’s longest running conflict.

The two sides fighting are the Ugandan government versus the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

The LRA is a rebel group that believes in a amalgamation of Christianity, mysticism, witchcraft and Acholi tradition. One of their main goals is to have Ugandan law dictated by the Ten Commandments and Acholi tradition. This is an assumption though, scholars consider the LRA to be one of the least understood terrorist organizations in the world. When hearing LRA leaders speak there are obvious hypocrisies between what they say and do. They have raided boarding schools and villages repeatedly in order to abduct children. In total by 2005 over 20,000 children had been abducted. The boys were used as child soldiers and the girls as sex slaves for the older soldiers in the LRA.

Due to the turmoil many people in Northern Uganda have been forced to live in refugee camps. Living in these conditions means these people cannot farm their own food thus creating a food shortage in Uganda.

Strangely enough the group fighting for the Ten Commandments is the same group which in December 2008 raided and massacred many people attending Christmas services.

I can see why the LRA is one of the least understood terrorist groups.

I cannot fully wrap my head around what is going on in Uganda, but I encourage everyone to read more about it. What I can now understand, though, is the full significance of the Ugandan Peace Primary School.

I will quote a young girl named Mulungi Zaina who attends the school, “I am a Catholic and I go to St. Luke’s Catholic Church on Sundays. In our school we have Catholics, Protestants, Born Agains, and Muslims. We all get along very well.”

The Ugandan Peace Primary School is not only an inspiration because it welcomes children generally marginalized by society: the poor and orphans. It is also an inspiration because amidst one of the worst and most ignored conflicts going on in our world, they bring their country a little closer to peace.

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2009-07-23 12:03:17 | Tags: team uganda-peace-primary-scho notes from the field

While looking over some notes about the effects of education and economics, I came across two unfamiliar terms: ability bias, and signaling.

I googled these terms immediately and found an article discussing both.

The article which I found bothered me, but before I discuss that I will discuss what each term means.

Ability bias is the claim that people who go onto higher education do not earn more money than their counterparts because of their higher education. Instead people who choose to go onto higher education have higher IQs. Thus if hypothetically these people with higher IQs did not go onto college, they would still make more money than their counterparts. Essentially the point is that a person earns more money because they have a higher IQ, not because of the education they received in college or beyond.

In labor economics many people talk about signaling as a way to distinguish yourself from the rest of the applicants for a job. A degree, serves as a signal that a person essentially jumped through various hoops in order to prove their IQ. In other words a degree is a signal to employers that distinguishes you from other applicants because the degree proves your innate abilities.

In this article (found here: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2006/06/two_educational.html) I found that the author essentially made those points.

I find these arguments troubling to say the least.

I think both of these arguments are detrimental to Givology’s goal of spreading access to education in developing areas.

Here’s why,
The argument for the ability bias, to me is very dangerous. I see it as a correlation between how much someone earns to how intelligent someone is. I think that not only extremely simplifies why people are in poverty but it also leaves those not in poverty with a sense of comfort. It can lead people to think they reached their stages of comfort because they had the higher IQ, something innate. This thinking leaves many with the excuse to not help the disadvantaged, as though they are in their situations because they lack the necessary IQ. In reality educating those who are impoverished yields extremely high returns especially when people continue onto secondary education.

Now, no doubt I believe there is validity to ability bias at times. I feel that when we control for many factors such as level of wealth and the level of parent’s educational attainment, a case may be made that those who continue to higher realms of education do so because they have higher IQs.

Now my problem with signaling, as many economists claim a degree does, is that it in many ways de-emphasizes the importance of education. Education is not simply jumping through hoops in order to attain a degree and say “Pay more attention to me now.” Education is one of the greatest tools we have that can level the playing field across the world. It gives children across the globe the ability to leave their villages and compete on a global scale with the necessary skills. Education increases cognitive skills. It provides a sense of community, a challenging yet nurturing atmosphere. It helps us encourage not only core subjects such as math and reading comprehension, but also valuable life skills such as critical thinking.

Education matters. Arguments emphasizing innate ability and IQ simplify the world around us. Simplifying the world could lead to marginalizing the next Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, or Henry David Thoreau. These very people saw the complexity surrounding us, and they tried to better understand it.

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2009-07-16 15:36:55 | Tags: notes from the field team uganda-peace-primary-scho

Lets pretend, shall we?

The school near your house is charging an astronomical fee; with your parents out of the picture you simply can’t afford it. You’re disappointed but that’s OK you found this really great boarding school that won’t charge you, they just ask that you work hard.

It’s your first day and things are going great, the other students are in the same position as you, and everyone’s ready to buckle down and work hard.

Now the fun begins, your first class, geography. First you realize there’s no electricity that day because the power company jacked up the prices and the school can’t afford to pay for electricity. You’re a little disappointed because you can’t see your teacher’s powerpoint showing maps of countries around the world, but it’s no big deal. These things happen, and the geography book you share with your two other desk-mates works too.

Then you realize that without electricity there will also be no light to do homework. This means you can’t study at night… this is a slight problem with your Algebra test in a few days, but with a few hours before the sun sets some time can still be devoted to factoring polynomials.

Finally it’s nighttime and you really enjoyed your first day making friends and having some structured classes at last. You’re sure that tomorrow will go more smoothly and are getting ready for your shower before you go to bed. As you enter the shower area and reach for the water to pour over your body, you are shocked. It’s freezing!

No electricity AND no hot water? What else could go wrong?

Take this day and repeat it over and over again. It would probably make you want to go home.

In Uganda’s Peace Primary School that is not an option. These problems are every day ordeals and the students overlook these difficulties in their attempts to continue their education. Their commitment and hard work never ceases to astound me. This astonishment comes from the girl who likes to prelude her studying with a Starbucks grande iced skim vanilla latte – light on the ice please.



The children aren’t asking for iced lattes, they’re asking for clean water, consistently available electricity, a water heater, and a form of fuel to cook meals with.

By teaming up with AHEAD Energy, Givology would like to help provide sustainable forms of energy to this school.

Through our Givology campaign, what if we each gave up that one thing we need to get us through the week, take that money we save and donate it towards the Givology project for the Peace Primary School?

I know, I know, it’s practically blasphemy to ask people to make sacrifices. But let’s really consider what this means before we cling to our cosmopolitans, lattes, and green tea fro-yo.

Whether it’s keeping yourself from buying a few less drinks at the bar, going with a smaller dose of your usual caffeine rush, walking by that delectable bakery on your way home from work, or ignoring the crazy sales going on at H&M... it's not really blasphemous to ask for this, right?

Donating your small sacrifice not only helps the kids at the Peace Primary School, but it fosters the message of Givology, we don’t want to wait for you to strike it rich and donate a million dollars (that doesn’t mean we would mind if you did!). We’re asking for as many people to contribute whatever they can.

Because we're always learning to give.

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