One night this year, senior reporter Sigal Samuel stumbled upon a nonprofit called Tamaika and saw that it made an extraordinary claim: For just $94, she could get a severely malnourished kid access to its treatment program, which helps the vast majority of kids recover within weeks.
But what really shocked her was the purported cost of actually saving a life with Tamaika’s program. Since not every person who gets treated for malnutrition would have died otherwise, you’ve got to treat a bunch of people before you can assume you’ve actually saved one person’s life.
In her reporting on effective philanthropy, she was used to seeing programs — particularly malaria programs — that said they could save a life for around $4,000. But Taimaka was claiming that with their hunger program, they could do it for just $1,500.
If that’s true, it would make this one of the cheapest ways to save somebody’s life.
She wondered: Could I really prevent a kid from dying that easily? And if so, why wasn’t everyone doing it?
🎨: Nicole Rifkin for Vox 📸: Pius Utomi Ekepei/AFP via Getty Images
Vox
One night this year, senior reporter Sigal Samuel stumbled upon a nonprofit called Tamaika and saw that it made an extraordinary claim: For just $94, she could get a severely malnourished kid access to its treatment program, which helps the vast majority of kids recover within weeks.
But what really shocked her was the purported cost of actually saving a life with Tamaika’s program. Since not every person who gets treated for malnutrition would have died otherwise, you’ve got to treat a bunch of people before you can assume you’ve actually saved one person’s life.
In her reporting on effective philanthropy, she was used to seeing programs — particularly malaria programs — that said they could save a life for around $4,000. But Taimaka was claiming that with their hunger program, they could do it for just $1,500.
If that’s true, it would make this one of the cheapest ways to save somebody’s life.
She wondered: Could I really prevent a kid from dying that easily? And if so, why wasn’t everyone doing it?
🎨: Nicole Rifkin for Vox
📸: Pius Utomi Ekepei/AFP via Getty Images
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