Mika Marcondes de Freitas explains what biking across Europe has to do with GiveDirectly, and why he’s committed to donating 10% of his earnings directly to extremely poor families.
What would you do with an extra $1,000?
I would personally take a couple of months off and ride my bicycle solo from Copenhagen to Istanbul. In fact, that’s what I just did, and $1,000, the size of a typical GiveDirectly grant, is just about how much the whole operation cost me, including travel insurance and transportation back home. Growing up in a mid-lower class family in Brazil, I had always dreamed of traveling and experiencing the world like that. But I hadn’t had the financial means and opportunity until recently, after a couple of years at a well-paying job which allowed for me to save some money and fund the trip myself.
Those were what I judged to be my needs at the moment. Neither cigarettes nor alcohol, nor another job, nor anything else. I don’t believe anybody could have made a better decision on my behalf. In fact, few people even understand what I chose to do with that time and money. And yet this experience, which I would hardly call an extended vacation, has made me feel alive in a way I hadn’t for years, and dramatically changed the course of my life. I came back a different person, with a whole new set of values and opportunities to pursue.
That roughly summarizes why I have supported GiveDirectly, and will continue to donate 10% of my gross earnings to them, as well as promote them in social media and real life. My vision is a world where everybody has the autonomy to decide their own fate. GiveDirectly’s diligent and incredibly transparent work, repeatedly vetted for several years in a row by reputable charity evaluator GiveWell, has shown that giving cash directly to the poor and letting them judge for themselves, within their context, what to do with it to improve their own lives might be a great way to realize that vision – if not the best!
***
Mika (not the singer) is a nomad born and raised in Brazil, educated in the US, and awakened in Denmark. Mika is now working full time on Not Mad Yet, an adventure tourism experiment.