The Life You Can Save

The question is- if you could save someone’s life right now, would you do it? If say, you saw a small child drowning in a shallow pond, would you jump in and save them? Even if it meant ruining your best pair of shoes or outfit? I’d say that for most of us the answer is a DEFINITE, UNQUESTIONABLE YES.

At the same time did you know that UNICEF, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, estimates that about 24,000 children die every day from preventable, poverty-related causes. The World Bank estimates that there are 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty. Yet at the same time almost a billion people live very comfortable lives, with money to spare for many things that are not at all necessary. (You are not sure if you are in that category? When did you last spend money on something to drink, when drinkable water was available for nothing? If the answer is “within the past week” then you are spending money on luxuries.)

While thousands of children die each day, we spend money on things we take for granted like bottled vs tap water, starbucks coffee, expensive clothes vs thrift stores. IS THIS MORALLY WRONG?

This is the basic question proposed in Peter Singer’s book “The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty”

Its difficult to estimate how much it costs to save a life, but Peter Singer estimates that by donating to international development organizations/charities, the cost can be as little as $200. It means cutting back on a couple of bottled waters or sodas per week, and instead donating it, that in less than year YOU COULD SAVE A SOMEONE’s LIFE!! By switching from bottled water to tap water and donating the savings to charity, any one person can save another human life after just 3 years (http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities)

I recommend this book to everyone I know. From this book I have decided that I am extremely privileged and live in gross excess in a time when people (and animals!) are dying and suffering needlessly. So starting from now on I PUBICALLY PLEDGE TO DONATING 10% OF MY INCOME to international organizations that work in developing countries. I am hoping to increase this percent as I go.

I decided that the call is urgent for the world’s extreme poor and it is time to do something. I recommend taking the pledge too. If not 10% then just something that is significantly more than you have been giving so far. Then see how that feels. You may find it more rewarding than you imagined possible.

Will you take the pledge (http://www.thelifeyoucansave.com/pledge), and thereby encourage others to do the same?




Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
- Plato (427-347 B.C.)

Then I saw you through myself, and found we were identical.
- Fakhr ad-din Iraqi (1211-89)