Dignity

Sometimes, understanding comes from the strangest sources, and at the most unexpected times. You read, you think you know all the facts, you form an opinion, and then, one day, suddenly, something happens, and you understand, you really get it.

A couple of days ago, I watched 'Black Snake Moan' , a movie set in the southern United States, directed by Craig Brewer, and starring Christina Ricci, Samuel L. Jackson and Justin Timberlake. Ricci plays a young girl, who, tormented by the sexual abuse she suffered during her childhood, has turned into a nymphomaniac seeking escape in sex with strangers. Samuel L. Jackson is a divorced ex-blues singer. It's a film worth watching, though it is unlikely to have featured in most lists of the best movies of 2006.

After the movie, I watched the special features on the DVD. And Christina Ricci, talking about why she loved acting in the movie, said this:

"You know, the whole idea of you take (sic) someone's dignity away from them so early and then you expect them to behave in some kind of dignified manner is something that I talk about when I am on my soapbox."

The next morning, I came across this article by K.A.Shaji in Tehelka, arguably the best general interest magazine in India:

Masti Ki Pathashala( school full of fun)
A celebrated school for Wayanad’s Adivasi (tribal) children has now been handed to old students to run

KANAVU MEANS dream. And a dream it was for writer-turned activist KJ Baby when he first thought of a school exclusively for Adivasi children that would not only educate them, but also cultivate a sense of pride in themselves. The dream turned into reality about 15 years back when ‘Kanavu’ was started in a cluster of thatched structures on six acres of land donated by a trust in Wayanad district of North Kerala. As many as 60 tribal children started their knowledge expedition there, a possibility that would have been unthinkable in the past, when landlords and settlers held their clan in bondage.

Read the rest of the article here.

If aboriginal peoples all over the world, the desperately poor, the victims of conflict and war, seem to exhibit common patterns of alcoholism and drug abuse, broken homes and poor parenting, is it really such a surprise?

Google wants to help

On Tuesday, Google launched Google for Non-Profits, a collection of free tools to "promote your work, raise money, and operate more efficiently.". While most of the applications are already available free to anyone, there are two additions, Google Checkout and Google Grants, which should be of interest to you if you run an NGO and are looking to improve the way you do things.

The standard applications included in the package that are already available free to anyone are Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Blogger, Analytics, Groups, Gadgets, Maps & Earth, & You Tube.

But even here, Google offers to host your email free should you have your own domain (e.g. children-of-bangalore.com), and even help you get one (for $10) should you not have one. Also, once you have a few videos, YouTube will help you create a YouTube non profit channel, with "premium branding capabilities, and increased uploading capacity, rotation of your videos in the "Promoted Videos" areas throughout the site, and the option to drive fundraising through a Google Checkout "Donate" button"

What is really interesting in Google Non-Profit, however, are these two:

1. Google Checkout, which will collect donations online and process them for free, with no monthly, setup, or gateway fees, till at least 2009.
2. Google Grants, which will provide you with free advertising, using Google AdWords.
   

I think this is a fairly good package, and if you know how to use these tools as part of a well thought out marketing program, you should be able to get great results.

But be warned; being an NGO does not automatically entitle to you to these goodies:

1. To be eligible, your organization must have 501(c)(3) status, as assigned by the IRS, if you are in the United States. If you are in India, you must be a charitable institution that is either a Registered Society, Public Charitable Trust or company under Section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956, as provided for under the Income Tax Act, 1961.
2. Also, "...organizations that are either religious or political in nature are not eligible, including those groups focused primarily on lobbying for political or policy change."

And who decides whether you fulfill the eligibility criteria? A team of about 250 Google employees who volunteer to work on the project.
I think that's fair.

Chain Letters

Like most people, every once in a while I receive a chain letter by email - of the kind that promises cash from Bill Gates, or free cellphones and laptops from Nokia and Ericsson, if I would only forward the email to my friends. I diligently reply with a polite mail explaining why the email was likely to be a hoax, using information from Snopes.com, a remarkable site that is like an encyclopedia for urban legends of various kinds. I rarely get a response, but it is usually enough to dissuade the sender from including me in his/her mailing list the next time around.

Chain letters have been around for a while. The Egyptian 'Book of the Dead' was a sort of chain letter that promised resurrection to those entombed with a copy. In the Middle Ages, Europe had its 'Himmelsbrief', or 'Letters from Heaven', allegedly written by God, or one of the saints, that protected those who propagated it, and punished those who disbelieved.

With email, the costs of propagating chain mail have dropped to zero. I am not even sure whether most of the people in a chain are believers; I have never known people asking others in the chain whether they got the money or the laptop that was promised. Nor have I heard of people in my circle responding with angry emails to chain mail, since most of these tend to be sent to friends. Its easy to imagine why, with zero costs, and a possibility, however remote, of a win, it probably still makes sense to some people to participate.

There are, however, some technical problems that can come between that money and you. As Leo Notenboom of Ask-Leo.com explains, it is next to impossible to effectively track email. No one can tell, including Bill Gates, how many people an email was forwarded to. Of course, this is no obstacle if it's the gods who are keeping count; 'Letters from Heaven' are still popular. I received this email with a Latin flavour a couple of weeks back. I think the accompanying picture is of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a popular object of veneration in South America.

The President of Argentina received this picture and called it "junk mail." Eight days later, his son died.
A man received this picture and immediately sent out copies. His surprise was winning the lottery.
Alberto Martinez received this picture, gave it to his secretary to make copies but they forgot to distribute it. She lost her job and he lost his family.
This picture is miraculous and sacred, don't forget to forward this within 13 days to at least 20 people.
Do Not Forget to forward and you will receive a huge surprise!!

The mail is brief, it does not claim divine authorship (unlike the 'Letters from Heaven' of the Middle Ages), it has a deadline (13 days), a minimum quota ('at least 20 people'), a testimonial ('the President, the 'man', and Alberto Martinez), and a list of all the people who participated in the chain mail, all of which make it a good example of a 20th century chain, according to this exhaustive article on the evolution of chain letters.

However, the mail did carry a somewhat apologetic subject line:

' See Carefully............dont believe in it .but try to play safe :)'

Does this presage the end of such mails? According to this entry in Wikipedia, chain letters are a kind of meme, the cultural equivalent of the gene, and are likely to mutate, evolve, and survive. The Ericsson laptop (I have never seen one in my life) will likely be replaced by an Apple Macbook Air, and Bill Gates, whose wealth for long nourished modern chain mails, by Warren Buffet.

Curiously enough, I have not received any mails promising largesse from an Indian billionaire: "Mukesh Ambani wants to give you a year's supply of groceries", or "Kushal Pal Singh promises a free apartment in Gurgaon". Even to the most gullible of Indians, these may just be too hard to believe.

Calvin gets a Chain Letter...