Searching for Cures?

With this week’s reading and video, a common theme of “managing to outcomes” was prevalent. This meant that the organization was designed around achieving their intended results as efficiently as possible. These ideas led me to examine the issue area that I am most passionate about and the organizations that my family supports.

I am most passionate about maintaining my own health, the health of my family, and that of others. This is driven through two people in my family that have been affected by chronic illnesses. The first is my brother Tommy, who has been living with Type I Diabetes for about a year now. The second is my grandfather on my dad’s side, who died of smoking related lung cancer before I was born. Because of these two people, my family gives mainly to JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) and the American Cancer Society.

Looking at these two organizations, the goals or outcomes are pretty clear – to find cures to the respective illnesses. Neither can fit perfectly into the managing to outcomes scheme. Ultimately, the money raised goes to researchers, and the indicators of progress are determined by them as well. They can determine a model for giving, but the data system and assessment are not solely their own.

This also makes me think about the benefits and downsides of donating to organizations such as these. First of all, you never really know that your money is going to make a difference until a cure or better form of treatment (less invasive, fewer side effects, etc.) is found. Realistically, we don’t know if cures to these illnesses will ever be found. With cancer, for example, the division of cancer cells would have to be stopped, while the division of normal cells is unaffected, which is a very difficult thing to achieve. For diabetes, we’d need to repair the damage done to the pancreas and prevent the immune system from attacking it again. So if we give to these organizations with no idea of whether or not it will help the situation at all, does that mean we have been unwise with our donations? Have we been wasting money on dead ends while we could have been helping people affected by poverty or hunger? But can we justify giving up on helping a large group of people who die each year from these diseases, only because we believe that there is no solution?

These are not easy questions to answer, at least not for me. I think that any progress made is great, since it gives people hope and encourages them to keep strong despite their deteriorating health. I do not know if the money my family gives to these organizations will eventually allow people to find cures, but we care strongly enough to try anyway. In that way, the money is not wasted. If these goals are deemed impossible to reach, it will definitely seem like we wasted a lot of our time and money when we could have made a larger impact somewhere else.

Tweet of the Week: Ensuring Commitment

            After reading Mallory’s great post about her decision to donate through the Jolkona Foundation last week, I decided to check out the website for myself. Similarly to Mallory, I loved the fact that the site showed me exactly what my donation would go towards, allowing me to specifically pick the issues that I am most passionate about. While browsing the website, I came across the opportunity to provide one month of primary education to a student in Uganda through the nonprofit organization Children of Uganda. As someone who is passionate about youth causes and believes that education is the route to empowerment, this opportunity to provide a child with tuition, meals, and medical treatment for a month seemed ideal.

However, as one of my core values is a belief in commitment, I became concerned about what would happen to the sponsored student after the month of education that I intended to provide. I was worried that if no new donations came through, this child’s education might end prematurely, which would be devastating. Therefore, I contacted a representative from Children of Uganda and inquired as to what happens in such a situation. Fortunately, my mind was put at ease when the sponsorship coordinator responded with the assurance that, “When we recruit children into our education program, we pledge to continue supporting them from primary to secondary school.” She went on to explain that if sponsorship funds are not sufficient to provide this education, they use general funds to keep the child in school. I was very impressed not only by the dedicated stance that this organization has taken, but also by the quick, detailed response I received.

Therefore, the empowering mission of Children of Uganda, paired with my interest in education and belief in commitment, has led me to decide to donate the Tweet of the Week money to this great cause. If any of you would like to learn more about Children of Uganda, their website is located at http://www.uccf.org/index.cfm. Also, as Mallory pointed out last week, the Jolkona Foundation really shows how much one can do with only a little bit of money. So, if you have an extra $5 lying around, check out http://www.jolkona.org/. While spending the money on take-out might be satisfying at the time being, wouldn’t it be way cooler to spend the same amount and give one month of computer training to empower a student in Guatemala? (As an added bonus, if you skip the Chinese food, you won’t feel the need to rush to the gym!)

Every Child is Born With Potential

After today's presentations, I noticed a trend.  We are all passionate about issues in education, and every group highlighted different aspects of the issue that are all important. Whether it be the quality of the school and its teachers, the resources that students have or the high school dropout rate, we can all agree that every child is born with potential.  The potential to do great things and achieve their goals.

During my group's presentation today, I mentioned City Year and the experience that I had volunteering with them in Miami.  I thought that the class might benefit from learning a little bit more about my experience because we all share the same passion as City Year.  They have the same beliefs that we do and they are wholly focused on fighting the national dropout crisis in inner-city high schools.  They place corps of 17-24 year-old high school graduates in the inner-city elementary and middle schools where high school dropout rates are the highest.  They believe that the earlier they can change student's ways and inspire them, the more likely they are to be successful in high school and graduate.  City Year is an organization that has inspired the issues that I am most passionate about in philanthropy because I have seen the statistics first hand.

The first time that I worked with City Year was during my spring break of my Freshman year.  I took a trip with Hillel at Binghamton to Miami to work in an inner city school.  Since my only plan for spring break was to sit around and watch TV, I believed that for only $200, this was a better way for me to spend my week.  We, the Binghamton students, along with students from other Universities did work in multiple inner-city Miami schools.  Our group worked at an elementary school.  We woke up early each morning and headed to our site for City Year warm-ups.  After warming up, our days consisted of cleaning out classrooms that were being used for storage, painting classroom walls that were dirty and chipping with bright colors and murals and building and painting both indoor and outdoor furniture to add to the atmosphere of the school.  City Year believed that our efforts to make their school appealing to students' eyes would encourage them to be more excited to attend school.  It was rewarding for me to build benches and cubby shelves from scratch and paint these murals because I was able to see the smile on the principals face and his students' faces.  Even though I was having fun with my new Binghamton friends, I was making a difference in these students' lives.

After spending hours working in one school, we traveled to another school in an adjoining neighborhood to work with students after school.  We helped them with their homework, played games with them outside and organized educational activities for them.  It was unbelievable to see how smart some of these children were and it was fun for me to work with them and know that I was making a difference in at least one of their lives.  During the evenings, all of the university students working with City Year that week gathered for dinner and programming.  We would share stories with each other about our day, compare the work we were doing to Jewish beliefs and take part in deep discussions.  I loved the experience that I had so much, that I traveled with Hillel again during the spring break of my sophomore year.  For a second time, I was able to work in a school to repair the classroom conditions and spend time with students after the school day was over.

City Year is a program that students (aged 17-24) usually participate in as their gap year before, after or during college.  Throughout the year, City Year members are placed in a school where they work with a group of students for the entire academic year.  Corps members act as friends, mentors, teachers, tutors and sometimes an older brother or sister for these students.  Since we all have passion for issues education, I thought that the class would love to hear more about an organization that has the same mission that we do.  

Here is a link to a couple of YouTube videos that do a great job explaining City Year and their mission.  They are interesting to watch and quite powerful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LgQGd5EJJSw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VGur6MN1DAc

And, here is a link to City Year's website!

http://www.cityyear.org/CityYear/Home_New_2011/Home_A_2011.aspx

What do you think of City Year as an organization and the work that they are doing?  How does their mission compare to some of the core values and issues that we discussed in class today?  Do any of you see yourselves being a City Year Corps member after graduating from Binghamton?