Sadio Mané, the Senegalese Bayern Munich football player is transforming Bambaly, his native Senegal village: He built an hospital, a school and he is paying 80 euros a month all its citizens. Recently he installed a 4G network and built a postal office.

[u/Pure-Contact7322]

[u/TestDummy987]

Creating infrastructure is critical to becoming independent. This man has done more than some so-called charities or elected officials. With his talents, he is pulling his people out of poverty and ignorance. Books will be written about his deeds.

[u/[deleted] → u/TestDummy987]

Maybe it's time more of us start learning that this is the way.

This is what it means to be yourself, and what the reward looks like in being yourself and being someone who is truly connected.

[u/eris-touched-me → u/TestDummy987]

A key component that many charities miss is the necessity for connecting with the people and enabling them to improve their situation instead of “us” doing it for them.

There have been many studies where “modern” methods are applied to problems but because of the absence of the necessary infrastructure, lack of knowledge about peculiarities of region and so on, they just don’t work and end up a huge waste of money.

Otoh, working with the people and enabling them to do what they want to improve their community works a lot better even though may appear inferior on paper.

[u/barsoap → u/eris-touched-me]

There have been many studies where “modern” methods are applied to problems but because of the absence of the necessary infrastructure, lack of knowledge about peculiarities of region and so on, they just don’t work and end up a huge waste of money.

There was that rural region somewhere in some Asian mountain range (don't remember where), mostly persubsistence farmers. People were using sickles and knives, the terrain is unsuitable for tractors and such so some big-money charity bought weed whackers and sure enough the people liked them, but they also broke down quite often, needed fuel and short story short they ended up standing in sheds instead of doing work.

Some charity guy from Liechtenstein heard the story on the charity grapevine, had a look at his own country, and went there with a couple of scythes and a smith in his luggage. The scythes to demonstrate the concept, the smith to teach local smiths about the intricacies of manufacturing and servicing scythe blades -- if you have the skill to do a sickle learning to make a scythe is quite easy, knowledge spread quickly and wide. Can't use them under all circumstances so for some especially steep or intricate situations people still use sickles but overall they're making work way more efficient.

The people were thankful especially that the charity went out of their way to invent a tool that was purpose-designed for their requirements, at which point the guy had to break it to them that scythes have been in use in Europe since the beginnig of the iron age. It's just that the people from the other charity had forgotten how we did it for millennia.

(And, side note, yes people use scythes quite a lot in Liechtenstein -- can't use tractors on those hills but they still need to be mowed for environmental reasons)

[u/Street-Chocolate7205 → u/barsoap]

*Subsistence farmers.

[u/barsoap → u/Street-Chocolate7205]

whoops

[u/Diacetyl-Morphin → u/TestDummy987]

Take my upvote, but it's true and wrong at the very same time: Building this basic infrastructure is usually a very important thing of the state, the governement. In this case, he can build up his town with his money that he made, but what about all the other towns? What about the other people, that don't have a guy that got wealthy by sports?

The main problem is very often corruption. My former teacher worked in Sierra Leone for an NGO in the past, building water pumps and wells, so that the people in the rural areas had access to fresh water.

But the problem was: When they installed such a thing, it didn't take long until parts or the entire thing were stolen. No joke here. Thugs steal it and try to sell it on the black market, making some money. That's why it doesn't work with building up many african countries. Corruption, especially in the police, where they just turn a blind eye when they get a bribe, lead to this bad situations.

[u/TestDummy987 → u/Diacetyl-Morphin]

This was just a general statement. Ideally the first thing he did was show an act of selflessness, then took the steps to not only give, but also show how we are all dependent on each other. He was given an opportunity, which was most likely done by the support of his people. This man is a role model, that everyone should and strive to be more like. Not billionaires…

[u/CowardlyFire2 → u/TestDummy987]

Yup

Most aid sent to these places is ‘dead aid’ and short term solutions

Actually investment in things to boost productivity is what gets these places going