The updates on the Give Directly site might be good to look at together—they’re people’s real responses about what they do with the money they receive and how it’s changed their circumstances.
We also love the book “Children Just Like Me”, with pictures and interviews of children around the world. I haven’t read the new edition, but the 1990s version I grew up with featured the whole range from children living in developed countries to in children living in extreme poverty (for example one child whose family survives by picking trash from a dump in India). I like the approach of presenting them all as children with similarities (featuring their answers about their favorite foods, what they like to do with their friends, etc.) But it also gives a lot of food for thought about the different environments the featured children live in.
The book is different in tone in that it doesn’t explicitly point out things that are lacking (like running water) in a given household, and I don’t remember picking up on the class differences as a kid—partly because we looked most at the children with prettiest clothes! So definitely more in the “global solidarity” vein more than the “look how different things are” vein.
An interesting way of using Dollar Street is filtering by income, rather than country. You start to notice that people all over the world with a similar income level have very similar homes. People at my income level have homes similar to mine; people making, say, $15k a year have homes very similar to when I was in uni. It’s interesting to be able to distinguish between what’s a cultural difference and what’s an income difference.
I just saw this post and came onto this comment thread to post that (had the Amazon link open and everything)! I’m home living with family for the holidays and while moving my bookshelf a few days ago I came across ‘Children Just Like Me’. It led me down a whole pathway of reflections about how much I loved that book as a kid and whether it was something that prompted me toward EA values.
I must have read it at least half a dozen times as a child, as I can remember parts verbatim. I am so amazed that other EAs grew up reading it! Wow, this has made my day. I’m tempted to order a copy for my little cousin now.
The updates on the Give Directly site might be good to look at together—they’re people’s real responses about what they do with the money they receive and how it’s changed their circumstances.
We also love the book “Children Just Like Me”, with pictures and interviews of children around the world. I haven’t read the new edition, but the 1990s version I grew up with featured the whole range from children living in developed countries to in children living in extreme poverty (for example one child whose family survives by picking trash from a dump in India). I like the approach of presenting them all as children with similarities (featuring their answers about their favorite foods, what they like to do with their friends, etc.) But it also gives a lot of food for thought about the different environments the featured children live in.
You’ve reminded me about Dollar Street: https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street/matrix which does the same thing as Children Just Like Me but online and interactive.
Wow, that’s a great resource.
The book is different in tone in that it doesn’t explicitly point out things that are lacking (like running water) in a given household, and I don’t remember picking up on the class differences as a kid—partly because we looked most at the children with prettiest clothes! So definitely more in the “global solidarity” vein more than the “look how different things are” vein.
An interesting way of using Dollar Street is filtering by income, rather than country. You start to notice that people all over the world with a similar income level have very similar homes. People at my income level have homes similar to mine; people making, say, $15k a year have homes very similar to when I was in uni. It’s interesting to be able to distinguish between what’s a cultural difference and what’s an income difference.
Yeah I noticed with “cleaning equipment”there’s a very clear distinction between 1. homemade brushes, 2. storebought brooms, and 3. vacuum cleaners.
I just saw this post and came onto this comment thread to post that (had the Amazon link open and everything)! I’m home living with family for the holidays and while moving my bookshelf a few days ago I came across ‘Children Just Like Me’. It led me down a whole pathway of reflections about how much I loved that book as a kid and whether it was something that prompted me toward EA values.
I must have read it at least half a dozen times as a child, as I can remember parts verbatim. I am so amazed that other EAs grew up reading it! Wow, this has made my day. I’m tempted to order a copy for my little cousin now.