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THE PROJECT FOR AWESOME 2012 IS HERE! Save the Children.

2012-12-17 · John · watch on YouTube · Global development · advocacy activism

John launches the sixth Project for Awesome and makes the case for his charity, Save the Children: poverty is complex, Save the Children responds to it complexly and efficiently, and children born into poverty are not 'other'.

What is said

00:00:00 — P4A 2012 begins: submit and vote at projectforawesome.com; donate via Indiegogo with rewards incl. the Men of YouTube calendar

  • ★★★ John announces the sixth annual Project for Awesome: today people all over YouTube are making videos about their favorite nonprofit organizations. — 00:00:00 · Project for Awesome, YouTube
  • ★★★ John asks viewers to go to projectforawesome.com to submit their P4A videos and to vote for favorites, which helps decide where the P4A funds go. — 00:00:00 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★★ John says the P4A funds only exist if people donate, pointing to the P4A Indiegogo page and its rewards, including a Men of YouTube calendar with the brothers in togas. — 00:00:00 · Project for Awesome

00:00:23 — 48-hour livestream; IKEA-monkey aside; poverty explained: 1.4 billion in absolute poverty, purchasing power parity, poverty's many causes

  • ★★ John says a 48-hour livestream on the Vlogbrothers channel will comment on, share and like P4A videos, making the internet about charity for a couple of days. — 00:00:23 · Vlogbrothers, Project for Awesome
  • ★★★ John says about 1.4 billion people live in absolute poverty, surviving on less than $1.25 a day with inadequate resources for food, water and other basics (last word unclear). — 00:00:23 · extreme poverty
  • ★★★ John explains that the $1.25-a-day line uses purchasing power parity, not exchange rates: it means living on what $1.25 buys in the US, so it does not stretch further in Zambia. — 00:00:52 · United States
  • ★★★ John says poverty is an incredibly complex problem: corrupt governments, malaria and HIV/AIDS, climate change and energy policy hurting food production, malnutrition, poor infrastructure and education, and discrimination all contribute. — 00:00:52 · extreme poverty, climate change, education

00:01:21 — Why Save the Children: the Bangladesh pond sand filter, a complex response to a complex problem, seven million under-five deaths, these kids are not 'other'

  • ★★ John recalls that in 2009 Nerdfighters worked with Sean's Uncultured Project and Save the Children to build a pond sand filter giving a Bangladeshi village clean water. — 00:01:21 · Nerdfighteria, Shawn Ahmed, Bangladesh
  • ★★★ John says he loves Save the Children because it responds to a complex problem complexly: training teachers, HIV/AIDS work for orphans, training farmers for drought, disaster response, and training midwives and frontline health workers. — 00:01:21
  • ★★★ John says seven million children under five will die this year, most of diseases that can be treated or prevented inexpensively. — 00:01:50
  • ★★★ John says these children are not fundamentally different from his own two-year-old son and are not 'other' because they were born into poverty; they could grow up to be anything from construction workers to vloggers. — 00:01:50
  • ★ John shows a painting by his two-year-old son, calling him a genius. (playful) — 00:01:50

00:02:20 — Survival to five cuts poverty; Save the Children's efficiency; John's P4A pick; e-book perk; 100% through the Foundation; comment pennies; sign-off

  • ★★★ John says children first have to survive to five, and that cutting childhood illness and death rates also cuts poverty rates. — 00:02:20 · extreme poverty
  • ★★★ John says Save the Children works with astonishing efficiency: 91% of donations go directly to programs rather than fundraising or overhead, and it works worldwide, from Pakistan to Angola. — 00:02:20
  • ★★★ John says that for this year's Project for Awesome he is supporting Save the Children. — 00:02:20 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★ After two years of selling zombie stories for P4A, John will share an e-book of stories with contributors, including a semi-autobiographical story, the first thing he wrote on the road to The Fault in Our Stars. — 00:02:49 · The Fault in Our Stars, Project for Awesome
  • ★★ John says that, with no overhead, 100% of donations through the Foundation to Decrease World Suck go to P4A charities, which viewers partly choose. — 00:02:49 · Foundation to Decrease World Suck, Project for Awesome
  • ★★★ John asks viewers to head to projectforawesome.com, watch the livestream and comment like crazy, since every comment on a P4A video is a penny (word cut off) he has to donate to charity. — 00:02:49 · Project for Awesome, Vlogbrothers

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