Almost every movie or television series tend to include some kind of problem that a protagonist has to face. As viewers, we get to see these situations brewing from the clear perspective of an outsider, watching the characters become progressively more immersed in their chaotic situation. The solution is always something that is easy to identify and that would be easy to implement if it were caught early on, but that wouldn’t make for good entertainment.
The reason for pointing this out is that most people tend to have small problems that they allow to persist over prolonged periods of time. They never bother to fix them because it only causes a small inconvenience, like a tap that’s been leaking for months, or the clutter that’s been slowly building up in the cupboard. They are tolerable. These small problems can accumulate, becoming one of many small contributors to your daily inconvenience. Even worse, they can sometimes, very suddenly, become much worse. The leaky tap could refuse to close entirely, right before you set off for work. An old can of food in your kitchen cupboard could explode, making a huge mess over everything.
Compared to the disasters portrayed in fictional media and the humanitarian and environmental disasters that happen around the world, these examples are better described as minor inconveniences. But there are plenty of examples that demonstrate the similar beginnings of so many disasters.
The Root Cause of Disaster
Sometimes disasters come out of nowhere and there is little we could have done to prevent them, for example, the swift destruction caused by a tidal wave, or a wildfire that destroys a vast area of forest and homes. But there are countless disasters waiting to happen. If you had the eye to see it and the power to stop it, why wouldn’t you?
We have seen some unfortunate examples of this negligence from our own authorities with the Grenfell Tower fire and the flooding of towns across England. What makes these examples even worse to think about is that the problems that contributed to the disasters were well known and action was advised, but ignored.
Most problems that we face are preventable. We can see them all around us and most exist as small obstacles that we learn to tolerate. But when we know that these small things can sometimes escalate into something far worse, we can see from past examples that tolerance can be dangerous. Solving a problem may take great effort, time and resources, but nips a problem in the bud. It completely eliminates that minor inconvenience and prevents it from becoming worse or exploding into a disaster.
Blind Spots and Hopelessness
Sometimes when we are immersed in a situation, we can’t identify what the problem is or may not identify that there is a problem at all. These kinds of problems are easy to identify in other people, but are not as easy to see if you are the one experiencing the problem. You can quickly spot the bad habits that a friend has, yet may be unaware of some of your own. Another way this can happen is due to the “Boiling Frog” syndrome, where you become so accustomed to a problem that it becomes normal to you.
If you come across a problem that you don’t know how to solve, you may feel helpless. In situations like this, some people surrender to their circumstances and continue living with the persistent problem because they know no way to overcome it.
It is in situations such as this that help from someone else can make a difference. Someone who can look at a situation from a distance, offer a fresh perspective and supply the tools and skills needed to fix the problem. This is the role that The Anonymous Project plays.
The Anonymous Project
Many of the people The Anonymous Project has worked with either feel as though they have no power to fix their problems or are unaware that a better life for them could exist. But we know that a few small changes can lead communities on a trajectory towards a better future.
Water Wells
In many rural Ugandan communities, people collect water from distant sources for their village. This is a time consuming task that robs them of hours of valuable time in the day, but is essential for cooking, cleaning and farming. Children who are tasked with bringing back water cannot attend school and miss out on education. In addition to this, water sources are not secure as they may dry up during the hotter seasons and can become contaminated with pathogens, spreading sickness throughout the entire community.
Although people in these communities have lived their lives coping with these persistent problems and uncertainties surrounding water, it is one factor that contributes to food and water insecurity and poverty. By simply helping these communities by building wells for them, we can significantly improve their quality of life, free up time to farm and improve children’s chances for a better education.
Farms
Food security is a widespread problem in Uganda. Poor nutrition leaves over a fifth of the population undernourished and stunts the growth of many children. Many families are not able to afford food when they need it and have limited access to land for farming.
Again, these are problems many have learned to live with, but for which there are solutions. The Anonymous Project knows that by providing a community with the seeds and tools for farming, you are helping people far more than if you were to simply hand them a food package. If we can provide these communities with a way to sustainably grow their own food, it helps improve their food security and reduce their risk of malnutrition.
Education
When there is so much poverty around the world, it is easy to begin to normalise it. We are bombarded by pleas from organisations all the time to help save children from poverty, and these messages have been parroted to us consistently throughout our lives through the media. It is no wonder that many people accept it as a fact of life and feel that there is no way to solve the problem.
There is currently no modern society that is completely free from poverty and it is a difficult cycle to break free from. Raising children in poverty makes them more likely to suffer from malnutrition, deficiency-related illnesses, and poor educational outcomes. This gives them a disadvantageous start to life, almost guaranteeing that they will continue to struggle into adulthood.
Our way of trying to prevent this bleak future is to offer the opportunity to sponsor an orphan. Sponsors ensure that children receive proper care and a good education. This alone gives them a huge boost and offers them a chance at a better future, with better job prospects, free from poverty.
Take Away
If we choose to take notice, we can identify problems all around us that have the potential to grow into something even worse. You may not have the power to change the actions of the protagonist in the latest television series as they stumble towards their next predicament, but there are problems that you do have the power to solve right now. Don’t wait, fix that leaky tap. And if you can see the solutions to the problems faced by the people we help as clearly as we can, please consider donating.