An 8-year-old girl is drowning in a pond. Her head is bobbing up and down the surface of the water, and she is clearly struggling to stay afloat. You happen to walk by this pond. There is no one else around. Would you save this girl? Of course you would. Most people will drop what they are doing to save this child without a moment’s hesitation.
26,000 girls are drowning in 26,000 ponds all around the world. You are on the other side of the world, with your own daily problems and everyday tasks to worry about. Would you save these girls? If you are like most people, probably not. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof presents this theoretical scenario in a recent column “Would You Let This Girl Drown?” Why is it that people are less inclined to help others when it involves a large number of people?
For example, he cites a study where soliciting $30,000 to help a 7-year-old girl from Africa raised money with far more success than soliciting for the same amount that benefited 8 people instead of just one.
He also acknowledges the diffusion of responsibility that occurs when there are billions of bystanders present in face of human suffering. When there are more people around us sharing equal responsibility, we individually feel less inclined to take initiative or to reach out to help — whether it is a stranger falling down in the street, or a child dying of malaria on the other side of the world.
What does this mean for the rest of us who want to do good in this world? My conclusion is this: if it is true that human empathy works best in one-to-one connections between the individual with resources and the individual in need, then we need to work harder than ever before to bring those one-to-one connections all over the world.
Our natural human empathy is not wired to focus on a number, a region, or a cause. When we are given high death tolls or the complex geo-politics of the particular issue, we grow numb with a sense of helplessness. On the other hand, when we focus on specific people with names, faces, and families, and we are given a specific action step to ease their suffering, then our desire to help flows more naturally.
You can see the success of these one-to-one connection principle in other organizations and businesses that have built their strategies around this rule of human empathy. Kiva Microfund (www.kiva.org), a non-profit organization that started in 2005, connects individuals in developed countries to specific business owners and families on the other side of the world. Individuals with money to spare can choose from a number of business owners and families to donate a microloan to help start their businesses, and these online profiles are complete with personal life stories and photographs. Donating $25 to a man or woman with children who wants to start a business feels extremely rewarding in this case because you know with absolutely certainty that your money will contribute directly to the well-being of a specific person or group of people.
I also suspect this is the reason why TOMS shoes has been doing so well, famous for its promise that for every TOMS shoes you buy, a pair of shoes will be donated to a child in Africa. Giving a certain percentage of the shoe price to a large charity organization is not as personable as the mental image of a poor child overjoyed at the prospect of receiving a new pair of shoes. We get that instant mental gratification when we choose to buy TOMS shoes.
Thanks to the power of the internet, our ability to create one-to-one human connections between the giver and the receiver is greater than ever. As citizens of a new technological century where anyone literally can be connected to anyone else within mere seconds, it up to us to concoct new and creative possibilities to decrease human suffering as much as possible. UNICEF’s goal is to reduce the daily number of children dying from preventable causes from 26,000 to zero. We cannot stop until every child in this world is safe and healthy.
I hope that Nicolas Kristof’s column sparks constructive dialogue within non-profit organizations and charities around the world — and also within every global citizen with a desire to help. Though we cannot change the strange hard-wiring of our human empathy, we can work with it by its own terms to bring as much peace and relief to as many people as possible — one child, one person, one family at a time.
I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own
I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemies eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing
“Now the old king is dead! Long live the King!”
Some of you may recognize the words above as the opening lyrics to Coldplay’s single “Viva la Vida.” Chances are, you have never heard these words sang by a chorus of fifth-graders from the elementary school P.S. 22 in Staten Island, New York.
The P.S. 22 chrous is lead by music teacher Mr. Breinberg, more fondly referred to his students as Mr. B. Mr. B, who arrived at P.S. 22 in 1999, convinced the administration to let him become a full-time music teacher and start a chorus choir at the school in spite of financial cutbacks in the arts. Instead of teaching traditional children’s songs, he had his students singing contemporary adult songs. In addition to “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay, the P.S. 22 chorus have also tackled covers of songs by Tori Amos, Stevie Nicks, Bjork, Journey, and others.
One fateful day three summers ago, gossip blogger Perez Hilton came across the choir’s cover of a Tori Amos song on YouTube and posted the video on his famous celebrity blog. The rest, they say, is history.
The P.S. 22 Chorus have been aired on ABC News, written about in The New York Times, and — as quite possibly the greatest honor of online fame one can achieve in this day and age — tweeted about on Ashton Kutcher‘s Twitter. Tori Amos herself once came down to see the choir’s live cover of her music, which immediately moved her to tears. As of last Sunday, P.S. 22 Chorus videos have been seen by 5 million viewers.
The Intent team was mesmerized watching these vidoes on the P.S. 22 Chorus blog. Hearing worldly themes of love, cynicism, loss, faith and betrayal sang with so much earnestness by such young children lends the lyrics an aching vulnerability that yanks at my heart strings and brings tears to my eyes. What a great gift these children have given to the world for all of us to experience.
Kudos to Mr. B for believing in the importance of arts in public schools, and for giving these amazing and talented children a chance to achieve well-deserved fame. Ending the school year, his passion and commitment to his students reminds us of the power a teacher has to change the world.
And as a mother of two little daughters, I couldn’t think of a more hopeful sign of our future generation than the shining eyes and soaring voices of the fifth-graders in P.S. 22 Chorus.
Recently, as part of my family’s effort to tighten up our home finances, we have begun the transition from bookstore to library. And the benefits have been incredibly rewarding! Santa Monica — where I live — has a new, beautiful library. We made a family trip to the new building, got library cards and spent the afternoon looking at the endless books there. Tara, my elder daughter, was so excited to see the variety of books from fiction to biographies to fantasy. They each got two lovely books to read (which they read that same night) and are ready to go back as soon as possible. In addition, we are setting aside books and dvds to donate and share with others in our community.
I marvel that if it weren’t for the uncertainty of the recession, I would have pushed off this incredible opportunity to teach my girls that a love for books is separate from the need to accumulate them. Not only are we supporting our local library, we are also encouraging our children to live more a more sustainable lifestyle — that is, taking advantage of what is already there instead of always buying everything brand-new.
Though the constant outpouring of negative news on foreclosures, bankruptcies and unemployment is nearly impossible to avoid, I have been reading with great interest the silver lining that has been emerging from this difficult economic period. Of families spending more time with their kids in nature or playing ball, rather than just seeing a movie. Or the rise in volunteers for non-profit organizations and charity events. An increase in public transportation. People everywhere learning in big and small ways that you really do not need to buy so many things to live a happy, fulfilled life.
This recession is an opportunity for us to curve our consumerism, and also to think more as a community. Readers, please share your intents on how you hope to decrease your spending while increasing your sense of community. Imagining a more caring, active and sustainable neighborhood within our own cities and towns is the first crucial step in repairing our country and the world at large. Mallika Chopra blogs regularly at Intent.com
