I thought that the first short essay was the most compelling. I think that a lot of times, people have good intentions but may not know the best way to direct those intentions. I read a book called Half the Sky for one of my other classes and it said that oftentimes people coming into a community do not know the best ways to help that community. They may assume that sending money will solve the problem when there is something deeper than just an issue of money. I went to one of the entrepreneurship lectures before spring break and the woman who spoke talked about starting a program that reads to children. Not only does this help the children emotionally and intellectually, but it also helped them stay in school. It got them excited about reading and learning which fostered their love for school.

This also reminded me about the doing good better discussion that we had earlier in the semester. It is sometimes hard to figure out what the best way to do good is. It takes work, and you have to actually try and figure out what the community really needs. Throwing money at a problem is not always the best way to fix it. We talked about the seesaw pumps that were a huge failure. People came in and thought they knew how to solve the problem when they were really just creating more problems in the long term. Though people often have good intentions, there is more effort that needs to be put in than just inserting yourself into an issue and assuming you know best.