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The Difference A Decade Makes: The 10th Annual Project for Awesome Is Here!

2016-12-09 · announcement · John, Muhammad · 3:35 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development · mode: Advocacy & fundraising · tags: calendar ritual, fundraising ask, civic or action cta, heavy topic

Opening the 10th Project for Awesome, John shows what Partners In Health and Save the Children do by looking at a decade of progress in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the world, then, since statistics can be a barrier to empathy, tells how Save the Children reunited a South Sudanese refugee mother with her daughters; little successes are not little when they're yours.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — P4A 2016 begins: livestream, voting, donating and perks; first-half charities Save the Children and Partners In Health

00:00:29 — The difference ten years make: Partners In Health's hospitals in Rwanda, community health workers, and falling child death, poverty and malnutrition

  • ★★ John says ten years ago Rwinkwavu Hospital in Rwanda was extremely dilapidated and barely functioning; today it is a safe, sanitary hospital providing high-quality care. — 00:00:32
  • ★★ John says ten years ago Rwanda's Burera district had no hospitals; today it has one with a cancer center and a neonatal intensive care unit, and Partners In Health led the drive to build, fund and staff both hospitals. — 00:00:41 · Partners In Health
  • ★★ John says Partners In Health trains and employs community health workers around the world, like Muhammad from Sierra Leone and tens of thousands of people like him. — 00:00:54 · Partners In Health, Sierra Leone
  • ★★ John says it is pretty astonishing how effective this work has been. — 00:01:07 · Partners In Health
  • ★★★ John says a decade ago almost 13% of children in Sierra Leone died before age 5; today it is under 9%. — 00:01:10 · Sierra Leone, child mortality
  • ★★★ John says life expectancy in Rwanda was 56 a decade ago and is 64 today. — 00:01:17
  • ★★★ John says there are similar stories around the world: in the last ten years the global absolute poverty rate has fallen by more than half. — 00:01:21 · extreme poverty
  • ★★★ John says that in 2006 18% of the world's children were underweight because of malnutrition; today it is 14%. — 00:01:27
  • ★★★ John says 4 million fewer children died worldwide last year (2015) than in 2006. — 00:01:32 · child mortality

00:01:38 — The coldness of numbers; Save the Children reunites Grace with her daughters in the South Sudanese refugee crisis; little successes are not little when they're yours

  • ★★ John says there is a coldness to numbers: it is hard to imagine the millions of parents spared losing a child, or the tens of thousands of kids who would not have mothers without the decade's gains in maternal health. — 00:01:38 · maternal death
  • ★★ John says Save the Children provides nutrition, health care and educational opportunities to millions of kids every year, though such a number is not a picture. — 00:01:50 · Save the Children
  • ★★★ John says that sometimes statistics can be a barrier to empathy rather than a path to it, so he looks at one family. (hedged) — 00:01:58 · empathy
  • ★★ John says Save the Children is very active in the ongoing South Sudanese refugee crisis, providing education and safe spaces for children and trying to reunite families torn apart by war. — 00:02:04 · Save the Children
  • ★★★ John tells how Grace, separated from her two daughters in an attack and not knowing for two years whether they survived, was reunited with them by Save the Children caseworkers through a database of missing kids. — 00:02:14 · Save the Children

  • ★★★ John says the reunion didn't end the war or the refugee crisis but meant everything to that family: little successes, reuniting families or saving lives, are not little when they're yours. — 00:02:28

    “these little successes are not little when they're yours”

00:02:42 — The challenge is overwhelming, but support funds more health workers, hospitals, schools and reunions; a decade from now these may add up

  • ★★ John says the challenge remains overwhelming, but support lets Save the Children and Partners In Health hire more community health workers, build more hospitals and schools, and reunite more families. — 00:02:42 · Save the Children, Partners In Health
  • ★★ John says maybe a decade from now we will look back and see the little successes as part of a much larger one. (hedged) — 00:02:56

00:03:03 — $300,000 matching at $4 per dollar, perks including John's first new writing in years, second half for voted charities; sign-off

  • ★★★ John says that in the first half of P4A every dollar donated, up to $300,000, is matched to $4, so viewers can have a huge impact at projectforawesome.com/donate. — 00:03:03 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★ John says perks range from tote bags and commemorative pressed pennies to the first new writing he has released in several years. — 00:03:13 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★ John says the second half of P4A raises money for charities chosen by viewers' votes at projectforawesome.com, and asks them to go watch and vote. — 00:03:21 · Project for Awesome

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Grace (refugee, mentioned from 2016) · Partners In Health · Project for Awesome · Save the Children

Also: People: Muhammad (community health worker, mentioned from 2016)

Organizations: Rwinkwavu Hospital

Concepts: child mortality · community health worker · empathy · extreme poverty · global health · identifiable victim effect · life expectancy · malnutrition · maternal death · refugee

Places: Burera District · Rwanda · Sierra Leone

Events: South Sudanese Civil War

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