A dramatic moment during my Rhodes scholarship interview makes so much more sense now. Towards the end of the interview that had moved from the Sen-Bhagwati debate to the Food Security Act, the panel asked me "We can see that you've done great things academically. But what have you done for others?" In a moment of minor bravado, I got agitated and said "There has not been a single day in my life when I have not tried to help someone. If my fault is that I have not built a nice NGO around it, then I am at fault and a part of me regrets it. But I refuse to be a one-man show."
My thinking has changed much since then. The bitterness of peers getting ahead in life because they had more to show for "social service" is now gone. Having reached a comfortable position in my career, I feel answerable only to myself and that has allowed me to be free from having to position myself in a certain way. I have now started thinking actively about how I can contribute to the world sustainably and with high impact.
One such way that I found very rewarding was pro-bono consulting. It started off as a stint with the Oxford Microfinance Initiative, consulting for a handicrafts NGO in Cambodia. Later, I found myself busy as a Project Lead for a months-long effort with New Generation Thinkers' Foundation (now Saint Ann Foundation) in Kampala, Uganda. From March to May 2015, I led a team that worked with SAF to define themselves and to think through meaningful changes that they could make to their organisation. At the end of the project, much like regular consulting, we handed them a powerpoint with our key recommendations.
To me, that was obviously not enough. Saint Ann Foundation works in a very difficult environment. The average Ugandan earns almost a third of what an average India does, and India is a very poor country to start with. While working for RSSAF, I also realised that the challenges faced by the NGO sector in Uganda are quite large, with a very massive skill gap and weaker financial linkages, even compared to India. The 'barriers to entry' for new NGOs are immense. This is where something like Saint Ann Foundation comes in. They are a group of young, motivated Ugandans who are doing all they can to bring change in their community. As a privileged member of the global youth community, I believed that it was imperative on my part to help them in any way I could. Therefore, even after the project ended, I have been in touch with SAF and working with them intermittently. SAF has now reached an inflection point - they have acted on most of the recommendations that we gave them, and the biggest barrier they now face is one of capital. Much like other NGOs in Uganda. This could be my, and your, chance to pitch in.
It is difficult for Ugandan NGOs to raise funding internationally due to the large transaction costs. After spending weeks evaluating the cheapest method, SAF and I have summarised some of the methods on this page. It is quite easy, especially on World Remit, and takes only a few minutes. For friends in India and UK, I will be happy to make the transaction on your behalf so that we can reduce transaction costs incurred.
I also completely understand if donating money is not top of agenda for you right now. However, you can still help! Start-up NGOs like SAF face more issues than just financial, and one of them is visibility. SAF is applying to a number of international partnerships (eg. GlobalGiving). It will therefore be great for them to have a large(r) social media presence. Please do like their facebook page, and share this post so that more people globally can hear about them.
At some point in the past, I would think a lot about why a particular organsation, why not others etcetera etcetera. However, I now realise that it is more important to take the first step, even in it is an inaccurate and tentative one, than to think too much before taking that first step. I have found a productive outlet, and hopefully a sustainable one, for the social worker within me. I hope that I can use my social networks to be of some use to these young change-makers from Uganda.
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