UP | uncultured project

A while back, I wrote about my project’s turning point.  I wrote about how FSD had decided that because my project is young, they didn’t want to put any more money in it until it proved itself to be sustainable.  There were certain FSD stipulations attached that made my project “unsustainable.”  For instance, I had to find a way to guarantee that the loans would be repaid.  I had to complete 75% of the project by the time I left Uganda.  Also, I wasn’t allowed to use it for anything that “exploits the earth.”

My project didn’t guarantee that loans are repaid.  If something terrible happened to the loan recipient, OGLM wasn’t going to be there kicking down the door for repayment.

My project would have gone on much longer than I was here in Uganda.  It was long-lasting.  Granted, I wouldn’t have been here to oversee it, but isn’t long-lasting the goal?

And admittedly, my project exploited the earth.  It was going to supply small subsistence farmers and animal breeders with the capital necessary to grow from subsistence to business.

In summary, a project that was going to fund local solutions to local problems, repay itself, benefit others on down the road, and last for a long time was ruled unsustainable.  To paraphrase the oft-used phrase from Zoolander, I felt like I was taking crazy pills.

Even though I had flown all the way to Uganda, I was stuck inside writing Excel spreadsheets.  I was doing something important, sure, but it didn’t take long before I was finished and just waiting for the end of my internship.  What is worse, of the 187 grandmothers who are registered for our loan program, only 24 of them had anything to show for it.

Then, along came the Uncultured Project.  Along came the power of YouTube and the internet, connecting people who care about poverty.  Who want to change the conversation about poverty by seeking real-world solutions.

Thanks to the Uncultured Project and its donors and its awesome community, I won’t have to confront those three groups of grandmothers and deny them their loans.  Instead, I will be able to give them seeds and tools and animals and training.

It will be tough, since I only have 10 days left before my internship is over.  But now, my project can go past my ending date. I can do “tough.”

What I can’t do is “impossible.”

And thanks to the Uncultured Community, I don’t have to worry about “impossible” any more.

I titled this video “Using YouTube with a Purpose” because, really, this couldn’t have been done without the help of a little website called YouTube and the community that is part of it (in particular the Nerdfighter community). From the donors Hank and Pat – both of whom are YouTubers – to the musicians who lent their music for free in this video such as Jamison Young, Brad Sucks, and Josh Woodward. And, here in Bangladesh, if Rick Davis never found my videos on YouTube – I would have never thought to make this trip nor would I have been able to meet the amazing children in this rural village.

If you notice in this video, I use a clip from one of my sadder videos – The Hard Lessons of Aid Work. That’s because, even though I don’t talk much about it in this video, I did learn a lot from this experience. I now have a better understanding about why big name charities need to have large overhead and infrastructure. I also have a better understanding of how help can sometimes come with a risk and how even trying to help can sometimes have it its pros and cons.

All that plus some photos from the field after the jump.

Continue reading ‘Using YouTube with a Purpose’