Thursday, April 19, 2018
How to make the world a better place by Ankit Shah
So how to make the world a better place...a question the academics have been pondering for ages. There is no specific answer, no specific solution, however, there are some identifiable problems that need to be resolved. To me, I believe the number one issue that needs to be solved is education. More specifically financially education. Although I know we were told to ignore money, I think educating people on how to manage their money is the key to pulling people out of poverty. Now I know the first backlash will be "how do you get people in the poorest of the poorest areas like the slums of India, or the favelas in Brazil out poverty and tell them to save their money when they spend it all on just surviving"? Well the answer to that is not just teach them how to save money but also how to make money. After consulting for Barkus Educational, a Brazilian social enterprise teaching financial education, I have learned specific ways to provide this type of knowledge. While Barkus is a for-profit company, I had to complete benchmark analysis of their competitors, many being non-profits. Teaching classes about entrepreneurship, selling or creating goods out of what you have, is key to helping establish a solid source of income. Additionally, when the market is stimulated in the slum, a community based off trading, bartering, and selling each others goods to one another, every member of the community benefits. I don't think that having online classes will help someone in the slums if they don't even have internet. I don't think having workshops about saving and investing will help somebody when they have no money to save as all is spent on food. teaching people ways to make side money to help them in the future is key. Although this is an overarching idea and cannot be applied everywhere, I think it would be more beneficial when each organization looked at each slum as a community and focused on stimulating growth differently for each area. Not every impoverished area is the same and I think that is how they should be approached.
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Hi Ankit! I think your idea is very interesting but also very large. It seems similar to the work done regarding sexual education around the world. I'm not sure if your plan is more focused on doing something similar to The Blue Sweater or providing financial education sources, but if it's the latter then researching the work that sexual education organizations do could be very helpful for your next step!
ReplyDeleteHey Ankit! I love your idea to help people not only save money, but actually earn money. It's definitely a big task to look at and I'm not sure how large of a company it will be that can cover all the needed industries, countries, etc. It's also interesting how you draw from your experience working at Barkus Educational, where you got to present certain financial education. I think your idea related to my thought that the strategy of telling people to simply save and count every single penny in order to have more money to spend on necessary tasks is redundant. Instead, these people need to understand how to make more money to be able to take care of their families.
ReplyDeleteAnkit, I am really on the same page here. Ellie actually raised a similar notion to how things are interconnected when it comes to global issues, and I agree that education is at the bottom of it all. We need a decentralized, free way to educate people of the earth. Higher learning can still be an institutionalized market, but the true basics? That should definitely be available and maybe even required online! Think of a world where every single person has a general understanding of the economy, politics, and more? It would truly be a great thing. I know you directly discredit online classes here, but think about if everyone DID have internet access? I think we see this issue a little differently, so it was great reading your opinion as well. It definitely widened my perspective.
ReplyDeleteAnkit,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great point. Some are only focused on receiving and giving education that they don't exactly understand the true purpose of education. It should be tailored to students with different backgrounds, different cultures and different histories.
Ankit,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your points that it is not only important to learn how to save money, but also important to learn how to make money. In my post, I mainly pointed to education and wealth being two of the main problems causing world issues, and the two are interconnected on a deeper level than some may assume. It's so wonderful that you actually got to experience working for Barkus Educational, and what you gained from that experience will be helpful for you to go out and help change the world in real life, rather than just in a theoretical assignment.