Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Dear EA, please be the reason people like me will actually see a better world. Help me make some small stride on extreme poverty where I live -- by the end of 2024., published by Anthony Kalulu, a rural farmer in eastern Uganda. on April 12, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
This message is for everyone in the global EA community.
For all the things that have been said about EA over the recent past -- from SBF to Wytham Abbey to my own article on EA in 2022 (I have a disclaimer about this at the very bottom of this message) -- I am asking the global EA community to help me make only one small stride on extreme poverty where I live, before 2024 ends.
Let's make up for all the things that have been said about EA (e.g., that EA doesn't support poor people-led grassroots orgs in the global south), by at least supporting only one poor people-led grassroots org in a part of the world where poverty is simply rife.
Be the reason people like myself will actually see a better world, and the reason for people like us to actually see EA as being the true purveyor of the most good.
FYI:
I come from a community that purely depends on agriculture for survival. For this reason, the things that count as producing "the most good" in the eyes of people like me, are things like reliable markets for our produce etc, as opposed to things like mosquito nets, deworming tablets etc that EA might view as creating the most good.
About me:
My name is Anthony, a farmer here in eastern Uganda. My own life hasn't been very easy. But looking at people's circumstances where I live, I decided not to sit back.
Some clue:
Before COVID came, the World Bank said (in 2019), that 70% of the extreme poor in Sub Saharan Africa were packed in only 10 countries. Uganda was among those ten countries. Even among those 10 countries, according to the World Bank, Uganda still had the sluggishiest (i.e., the slowest) poverty reduction rate overall, as shown in this graph.
Even in Uganda:
Eastern Uganda, where I live, is Uganda's most impoverished, per all official reports. Our region Busoga meanwhile, which has long been the poorest in eastern Uganda, has since 2017 doubled as the poorest not just in eastern Uganda, but also in Uganda as a whole.
In 2023, The Monitor, a Ugandan local daily, said: "Busoga is the sub-region with most people living in a complete poverty cycle followed by Bukedea and Karamoja. This is according to findings released in 2021/2022 by Mr Vincent Fred Senono, the Principal Statistician and head of analysis at the Uganda Bureau of Statistics".
Even in Busoga itself, our two neighboring districts Kamuli & Buyende, being the furthermost, remotest area of Busoga on the shores of Lake Kyoga, have the least economic activity, and are arguably Busoga's most destitute.
In short, while Uganda as a country is the very last in Sub Saharan Africa in terms of poverty reduction, our region Busoga is the worst in Uganda, and even in Busoga, our 2 twin districts Kamuli & Buyende, being the remotest, are simply the most miserable.
Help us see some good before 2024 ends:
I am asking the global EA community to help the Uganda Community Farm (the UCF), a nonprofit social enterprise that was founded by me, to accomplish only two goals before 2024 ends. Please be the reason people like us will actually see a better world.
Goal one: Size of Long Island.
That's, expanding the UCF's current white sorghum project to cover every village in Kamuli & Buyende - a 3,300 sq km region the size of Long Island (New York).
Since 2019, the UCF has trained many rural farmers in Kamuli & Buyende, in eastern Uganda, on white sorghum. Our goal right now, is to expand this work and cover every village in Kamuli & Buyende, with white sorghum. Kamuli & Buyende are two neighboring districts in Busoga, Uganda's most impoverished reg...

UF293: Frankie Edgar, Shane Burgos, and UFC Ottawa Recap