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Sometimes I wish I was a celebrity. Not for the fame. Not for the fans. Not even for the money. But rather, if I was a celebrity and wanted to help people in any country, all I’d have to do is pick-up a phone and a charity would be at my beck and call.

The Front Door for Many Charities

The sad reality is that, even when I’m on location, it can be an uphill battle to team up with large reputable charities. This is regardless of how many times I get my foot in the door, regardless of how many views I can help them get on YouTube, or how many of your donations I can send their way.

I’m not going to bad-mouth any particular charity. But, needless to say, in the hours, days, and weeks since an earthquake struck Haiti, I’ve been working to contact every reptuable international charity out there. If you can think of them – I’ve probably called, emailed, tweeted, or talked to them.

All of them, with maybe one (or two) exceptions, are not interested in teaming up.

Continue reading ‘Do Charities Need Celebrities?’

In January of 2007, I withdrew from grad school at the University of Notre Dame and began an unemployed, unplanned, and “uncultured” journey to help the poor.

Almost exactly three years later, that journey has brought me to within grasp of being able to talk to world leaders about global poverty at one of the planet’s most important conferences. I can get there – but only with your help.

Out of 75 applications from around the world (and many more that didn’t make the deadline), I was selected as one of five potential candidates to go to Davos. The winner, is determined by you – because it’s your vote that determines the winner.

I won’t lie. I’m up against some brilliant people. I wish we could all go – because I’d love to meet them all and brainstorm. At the same time, I know that it’s not like global poverty can be solved with a one week trip to Switzerland.

But this could be big. It’s the biggest thing to ever happen in my life and it could be the biggest thing for the future of this project. So, if you’d like to help, here’s how you can do so:

Things you will need [REVISED as of Jan 11th, 2010]:

1. A YouTube or Google account. Signing up for either is free. UPDATE: You don’t need to signup for anything to vote.
2. An internet connection good enough to use YouTube.
3. The ability to get online every 24 hours until January 15th.
4. If Possible: Friends & family who might be interested in voting as well.

Here’s how you can vote:

1. Go to http://YouTube.com/Davos

2. On the top half of the page, you will see something about the Davos Debates. It will have three tabs. Click on “vote”.

3. You will see five videos from the five candidates. Select my video called “A Message to Davos” – the thumbnail is my picture.

Videos Are Randomly Sorted and May Not Appeared In This Order

4. Once the video starts playing, click the green thumbs-up button. Wait a few seconds. Your vote has been placed.

When The Red Thumbs Down Turns Grey, Your Vote Has Been Cast.

5. You can vote again everyday.

It may seem that, with so many followers on Twitter and so many subscribers, this is all but guaranteed. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Without getting too academic, it boils down to public vs. private networks. My support network is very public. And, like every network, not everyone following me or subscribed will be reading my tweets, watching the videos, or reading this blog.

It’s very possible (and very likely) that many of these candidates have a group of friends, family, and colleagues who will be diligently voting. This could be close.

Every. Vote. Counts.

(Photo Seen in Featured Content is from Flickr)

I Give a Talk to YouTube & Google Staff in San Bruno, California

“Years from now, I’m going to be looking back at this point in my life and laugh,” I told my friend whom I’m staying with in San Francisco. “I’m doing something successful enough that people are inviting me to meet them and give talks… yet unsuccessful enough that I can’t afford to buy myself some new clothes,” I said with a wry laugh.

Right now I’m in San Francisco – home of Silicon Valley. It’s home to where all this technology that has made this project possible exists. There’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google and so much more. Heck, I got to meet one of the guys that designed the MacBook Pro I’m typing this blog post on! As awesome as this place is… I’d rather be back in Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, I’m the guy that helps others. I’m the guy that comes out of nowhere and - if I’m lucky – make a difference in someone’s life. In San Francisco, I’m the guy looking for help. In a city with such a disproportionate amount of well connected and successful people, I’m hoping someone comes out of nowhere and – if I’m lucky – makes a difference in my life by helping me sustain my work.

I’m taking it one day at a time.

One of the biggest days for me happened not to long ago. I was invited to speak at YouTube Headquarters. People have told me that the talk I gave was really well received and that the turn-out for this talk (which went for an hour) was much higher than expected. But, in all honestly, I don’t remember much because I was nervous as could be.

The question of why I'm doing this is easy. How to sustain this? Not so much.

The one thing I do remember is that I stressed at the talk is the fact that my work would not be possible without YouTube. Whether it was John Green & the Nerdfighters convincing me to accept donations, teachers at the American International School in Dhaka helping with room, board, and contacts with charities, or people around the world reaching out to me – none of this would be possible if it was not for YouTube & it’s community.

Although in a completely different way, the same is also true for Twitter. When I think about how I’ve been able to use Twitter, it’s only now sinking in how much of what I’ve done have been Twitter “firsts”. I was, for example, the first person to use Twitter as a means of providing real-time donation receipts. People donated to Cyclone Aila relief – and many got a tweet with a photo of the exact person they helped in real-time from the disaster area.

One thing that people who are seeing me in real life often comment is how excited I get when I talk about my work. I love what I do – and I don’t want to stop. As much as I love the sights, sounds, and food of this place – the only reason I’m here is because I want to find a way to get back to Bangladesh and to keep doing this project.

Wish me luck. One day at a time.

This is maybe my final week in Bangladesh.

Since I landed, I’ve been trying to complete projects related to Challenge Poverty. As you know, I’ve been working on building that Pond Sand Filter and repairing that school. It’s been nearly 6 months and I want to wrap everything up in the next 72 hours. Yeah…. that maybe a bit ambitious. Fingers crossed.

The good news is that the water quality of that Pond Sand Filter is now clear, clean, and deemed safe to drink by official tests conducted by the Department of Public Health here in Bangladesh. Here’s a photo. One is a glass of water from the Pond Sand Filter and the other is a glass of store bought mineral water. Can you tell which is which?

Mineral Water (Left), Pond Sand Filter Water (Right) has been tested by the Department of Public Health thanks to Save the Children

Getting to this point has been long. Since landing there was the BDR mutiny which stopped things, Cyclone Aila which stopped things, and normal bureaucracy and office meetings which come with trying to do something like this. Save the Children has been helping me navigate most of this as best they can and now we’re pulling out all the stops to get this done before I fly home.

The question is – am I going back for a break or for good? Back in January, I wrote that if I can’t sustain this project I’m gonna have to pack up in 12 months time. By “sustain” I want to do this in a way that doesn’t impoverish my parents. My savings are long gone – and I do this by borrowing from my parents. We’re not Rockefellers unfortunately – just regular Suburban Middle Class Canadians (basically like Americans… but we get free health care).

I also don’t want to start taking a cut from people’s donations. That still just doesn’t sit right with me.

I’ve decided to spend the next few months trying to figure ways to sustain this work. During this project, I’ve learned a lot about the world of charity work. One things that surprised me is that this field is a hell of a lot more competitive than I ever imagined. Many orgs prefer to copy & compete instead of collaborate & create. These orgs and charities like my approach – but want to replicate it internally instead of teaming up

Save the Children has really been the exception by being supportive, open, and collaborative (instead of competitive). Going forward, I’m hoping there are other exceptions out there…

P.S.

What’s going to happen with your donations? Don’t worry I’m not gonna run away with them! In my attempt to network with more charities and organizations that I’d like to team up with, it’s easier to propose to do certain projects and/or team up when you can assure them you already have the funds. So please, feel free to keep donating to either the project fund or the operating and equipment fund.

Yesterday, I talked about a comment someone had written called “The Uncultured Project is totally useless!”. If you haven’t read it – check it out. Just to be clear – this wasn’t a hater comment. The points raised by the author are actually common points raised in the discussion about global poverty.

That’s why I want to talk about this.

And I want to bring someone else into this discussion – his name is Sharief:

Meet Sharief

I’ll keep the guilt-trip to a minimum – you can read more after the jump.
Continue reading ‘Teach a Man to Fish?’

These past 14 hours have served as an example of one of the many frustrating challenges a project like this faces.

What many non-Bangla speakers sometimes don’t realize, is that there are many variations of Bangla. There is city Bangla, Bangla used by those who emigrated away from Bangladesh, and rural village Bangla. Each one comes with different accents, meanings, and translations.

This can be a lot of trouble when trying to translate words I’ve heard for the first time in rural villages. This was exactly what happened when a local villager tried to explain to Paul that Cyclone Aila had destroyed many “bhitas”:

In many ways, I relate to this villager a lot. I often throw English words into my Bangla when I don’t know what the Bangla equivalent is. And this villager, while explaining the damage caused by Cyclone Aila, had to throw in “bhita” because he didn’t know the English equivalent.

The problem is that there is no direct English translation for “bhita”. And thus began my 14 hour struggle to find a translation.

The first people I turned to were those from the American-Bangladeshi community. This consists of Americans who originally were born and raised in Bangladesh. To my surprise, many of them told me their Bangla was too poor to properly help with any translation. This includes people who still do business in Bangladesh! I was shocked and surprised.

Those in the American-Bangladeshi community that did try and take a stab at translating each came up with different words. One suggested it means “embankment”, another suggested it meant “landscape” or “property”, someone else suggested it meant “home”, finally one of them suggested it meant “mud hut”. How could one word mean so many different things?

Well it turns out they were all wrong… and right at the same time. Click the jump to find out what the word “bhita” means.

Continue reading ‘Lost in Translation’

A Young Villager Talks to Paul About His Experiences with Cyclones Sidr & Aila

When my friend Paul stepped off that plane at Zia International Airport in Dhaka, he thought he was going to get away from it all. For the past several months, Paul has been living in Nepal. He’s seen regular riots, curfews, day-long power outages, and frequent water shortages. Bangladesh, by comparison, was a place he assumed he could get away from that for a bit.

Being the great friend that I am, his experience was more like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Instead of taking Paul to Cox’s Bazar for a break at a seaside resort, to the Sundabans in the hopes of glimpsing a Bengal Tiger, or even the beautiful tea gardens – I took him to a cyclone disaster area to see what we could do to make a difference. In what was no doubt an act of sainthood, Paul endured stomach aches, blistering sun, peeling skin, and a two day journey to reach a remote village affected by Cyclone Aila.

In addition to my mobile vlogs, I have regular footage and photos of the event. But in the meantime, Paul has a great first blog post about his experiences complete with some amazing photos. Paul also was generous enough to let me repost a select few of these photos on uncultured flickr account and license them under the Creative Commons (which I will be doing in the near future).

Although Paul never got to see Bangladesh’s fancy resorts or tourist spots, by the time his trip was over, he could unequivocally say he’s stood in places that no “bideshi” (foreigner) has ever stood before. Which, knowing Paul, probably made this whole crazy trip worth it.