codeforafrica

Remote: yes

Willing to relocate: yes, to any location in Africa, where I can get the necessary permission to live and work. Occasional travel is possible.

Technologies: Linux, front or backend/fullstack web development, general software development, system administration.

Consulting: software development mentoring, china and africa outsourcing guidance.

Résumé/CV: on request (software development, CTO, mentoring, training, fluent in English and German, german citizenship)

Contact: Email: see profile or http://codingforafrica.at/

Like this Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31518945], I am looking for similar work, but I am open to work on any interesting project. I am a European software developer who has lived and worked on four continents. It was time to move on and so I relocated to Africa.

I have more than a decade of experience running a company, doing software development, support and training and mentoring adults and students, as well as working on educational projects, and I am willing to take on a mixture of roles as needed to support a project.

I value good teamwork over fancy tech, and I don't shy away from working on legacy code. I am primarily motivated by solving problems, so let me help you solve yours.

I am open to work for a company anywhere as long as the work can be done fully remote from Africa.

While I could find a job elsewhere I believe that the experience living in an area where my work is going to have an impact gives me a better understanding of the needs of the location I am serving. Whether it is through direct contact with clients and users or just by being part of a local community and learning about the reality of living there.

In addition, I want to use some of my income to hire local interns and junior developers and train them in order to pass on my experience. I also sponsor children that otherwise can't afford to go to school (see my website). If you want to support this, I would love to work with you. Also if you are interested in hiring African developers yourself. I can help you build up a team for you.

You probably also don't want to focus on just one location to avoid becoming a dominant factor there making people expect that you'll help them. I can actually ask my friend how he approaches that, and if he has some advice. Personally I'd pick only a few cases per village, and more importantly, per school. Because I just remembered another thing my friend experienced: Many of the sponsored kids went to their school, and those kids started sticking together because they thought they were something special. Once he realized that he broke that up of course (I don't know how though) and made sure that the the sponsored kids would integrate with the rest as normal.

You are probably have thought of some of this yourself in some way, but I believe it is helpful to hear it from someone else too, to confirm or challenge your own ideas about that, and learn from the experience of others.

I agree with that. But paying for a kids school is not enriching individuals. They don't get a financial benefit out of it, they just get education, which in the end is something that can only be applied individually. Meaning that while you could build a school for a whole village instead, in this case there is probably already a school there, it's just that the school system is set up such that you still need to pay for the school uniform, books, food, fees, etc, and some families can't even afford that.

And it'd not like local cooperation doesn't happen. I know one family who took in kids from their village from a disabled mother who could not care for them so that they could go to school. The family that we rented our rooms from was always full of people because they took in relatives from their village so they could get a chance at finding work in the city. I had kids where the families already did their best to cover the cost, but sometimes it wasn't enough. So I added a little bit to cover the rest. To enable them to participate on a school trip that they would otherwise have to sit out on. To buy lunch instead of going hungry until they got home because the money was just a bit short.

So what Luke is doing is just more of what the locals are doing already. Finding cases that fall through the cracks.

The thing with building cooperative societies is that it starts with education. You can't just waltz in as a foreigner into a village and say: OK, we are going to teach you how to cooperate. That doesn't work. You teach a few individuals by being an example of what it means to be cooperative and then let the locals spread the experience. But this takes the work of many people. Luke is doing what he can as an individual from where he is, and he has to trust that his efforts will add to the efforts of others, locals and non-locals alike to eventually make a difference. I actually moved here to do the same in a different way, but that's not something everyone can do, nor should they.

Helping people is much harder than simply giving money to someone in a way that makes you feel good about yourself

True, but again, paying for someones education is not doing that.

One thing that I feel is important, is that I do not believe charity, handouts in general are a good idea. they make people dependent or expectant of such charity instead of motivating them to solve problems.

Paying for education however is different. Education should be free. I come from a country where all education including university is free. So when I pay for a students education I am not being charitable, but I am correcting an error in the system.

Another way to look at it is to see going to school as the kids job. I literally got one kid off the streets by paying for their school and board, and all other personal expenses. The kid had already dropped out of school and ran away from home, and I offered to help only if and as long they would go back to school. That was their job. Their obligation.

My options then were to go back home, or to try Africa and see if it is possible to live there for a while. I'll be staying here as long as I can financially sustain myself with online work or through sponsors. And even if I can't stay much longer, we have now been here long enough that Africa has made an impact in our lives, and we'll hopefully be able to use that to have a positive impact on others too.

Practically I believe the individual outcome will be of two kinds: a student will use their schooling to help their village, start a business and bring a small amount of improvement. Or they will leave the area and find work elsewhere. Neither is unsustainable. The worst outcome would be if everyone leaves and the village dies out. Could that happen? Maybe. But I think it is unlikely. Or at least, I think that education is unlikely going to be a major factor, because even without education people from villages move to cities to seek their fortune.

And while this is pure speculation, I'd like to believe that people with education are more likely to stay because thanks to ubiquitous internet they have more opportunities to use that education to their advantage even from their remote location.

Systematic change will happen when more people with better education move into the ranks of government or business where they can affect such change.

Btw: when I talk about education I don't just mean STEM. I also mean ethics or moral education to teach people that contributing to society is important. Sponsoring students does not achieve that on its own, but it's something others are working on, and these students tend to be grateful for the help they get that they also get the message in a way and are motivated to pay it forward.

A documentary can't have anywhere near that effect, it could however motivate more people to investigate and maybe get some people to travel. It also would support the legitimacy of your project. Since if already fits with the things that you like to do, I'd say, go do it. As I wrote in another comment, we should try to find a way to contribute that is most suitable for each of us. And we should make use of all the skills available to us to further our goals. If documentary making is in your set of skills and interests, then by all means.

Is getting more children to school not in everyone's best interest? As for conflict with the state, in Tanzania any charity/NGO has to operate for three years before they are even allowed to apply for official recognized status. It makes sense to me. They can't control what everyone is doing. So go, do, and if you want to be officially recognized then show what you did for 3 years and they'll see if they like it. If they don't, they'll probably be told to stop. Small operations like this one can probably be ignored.

That's what I expected. Thanks. Your wording: "made almost 68K for ~2900 loans" had me confused. Making money means profit or income to me. You didn't make any money but you helped 2900 people.

68k/25=2720. That suggests that the defaults are less than 10%. That's not so bad I think.

But more importantly, can you share the details of how you did that practically? Did you do this yourself or as part of a larger organization who just took your money and paid you back later?

keeping that in mind I believe you started at the right place as HN is probably more forgiving, especially when it turns out that the person in question is able to strike the right tone to fit in, which I believe you do.

I am in a similar position having created this account once I decided to move to Africa, and I am still trying to figure out how to promote my work. As part of that I try to engage on topics that are related to Africa to slowly develop my standing and share my experience.

I think an important part is to figure out what is the best way to contribute. While it is good to let Tanzanians do as much as possible by themselves, they can't reach out to your friends. Only you can do that. When I tell my country mates about programmers in Africa, and I get a response like "They can do that?" with a big surprise impression on their face [1], I don't see how any African could do that by themselves. Bridges need to be built from both sides. If you remove yourself then you end up with half a bridge.

[1]: That was just one reaction I got when I told people about my work in Africa. Starkly contrasted by another reaction which was the opposite: "Oh cool, I am hiring devs in Ghana, they are awesome!". It's not all lost, but a lot of people simply still don't know. And that includes African-Americans.

I do believe however that it is possible to have an influence on what people experience. For one it is not even necessary to travel to remote villages. One can see the reality in the cities and just a few km out. I would introduce them to average people here, meet business owners and give them an insight to what is a typical life here.

This also should not be a short trip. A month minimum. And ideally not in a hotel but some form of homestay or maybe AirBnB where you have to cook for yourself. Go to the market, buy ingredients, realize what is available to the average person. Then maybe visit a village and find the difference. The idea is to get an experience of what is it like to live here, and not just be a tourist.

Any of these visitors can then multiply their impact just like you did. They can motivate their friends to sponsor students and act as ambassadors.

How did you get that impression? I can't conform that at all. Rent in rural areas and outside of city centers is very low. If they rent at all. Local tribes live on land that they own or get assigned to by the government and at least don't have to pay for. The rest is food and other necessities.

The issue with micro-loans is that you need infrastructure to track/enforce the re-payments. I don't see how it can be done without significant local support and it may even have some legal implications.

If there are people who want to do that, maybe I can help arrange things locally. I would recommend individuals only, or families, but not groups in order to allow the visitors to focus on their interactions with locals and not just socialize with each other.

I don't know what happened to the money. Ostensibly the director used it to support children in his own school. As such the money has likely not been wasted, but the trust is broken because people don't take being honest seriously.

This is unfortunately not an isolated case. I heard from another organization that is supporting orphans in Uganda that at some point they found out that some of the children were not really orphans. It wasn't their fault. The orphanage they worked with wasn't straight forward in their communication. It may even have been an innocent translation error, or misunderstanding. It is not uncommon that families send their children to orphanages temporarily while they can not afford to care for them.

The point is, that it is very difficult to verify what the real truth is. And it takes time to establish trust. The main problem is the stark difference in income. Even to middle class locals, as a middle class westerner I appear insanely rich to them. They have no idea that I am struggling just as much to find work, and that I can't afford to help them pay for what even I consider luxuries. The TV has many shows about the life of more well off people or from other countries giving people a false impression of what is a normal life in other countries.

I can only tell you this because I actually came to Africa to see the reality on the ground for myself. With my children I could live at home semi-comfortably with government child support and unemployment benefits (as a single parent with young children taking a full-time job is out of the question). Instead I have to get by with finding online work, which is getting increasingly harder. Or I have to rely on sponsors to support my work.

I didn't come to Africa with big goals. Especially not with the idea that I could actually make a difference. I came here to learn, and to teach my children about the reality of the world. I also try to work with students and young developers to give them work experience in software development. Currently I guide the software team in a company that is producing electronic learning kits for robotics, physics, etc for schools.

It hasn't been easy. I had a stable client when I came here paying me enough to cover the life here. But after a year I lost that customer and two years later my savings were used up. The move from Uganda to Tanzania was actually cost driven because living in Uganda was a lot more expensive. I am now struggling to get by and I don't know how much longer I can afford to stay here. I would like to dedicate more time to helping students but the struggle to find work is taking most of my focus.

Besides software development, one thing I would like to do is to audit the work NGOs are doing here on behalf of the people who donate to them. I could travel and produce independent reports on what the results are from the money you donate.

I do hope that I will get over this struggle and that I'll be able to live here for several more years.

Remote: yes

Willing to relocate: yes, to any location in Africa, where I can get the necessary permission to live and work. Occasional travel is possible.

Technologies: Linux, front or backend/fullstack web development, general software development, system administration.

Consulting: software development mentoring, china and africa outsourcing guidance.

Résumé/CV: on request (software development, CTO, mentoring, training, fluent in English and German, german citizenship)

Contact: Email: see profile or http://codingforafrica.at/

Like this Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31518945], I am looking for similar work, but I am open to work on any interesting project. I am a European software developer who has lived and worked on four continents. It was time to move on and so I relocated to Africa.

I have more than a decade of experience running a company, doing software development, support and training and mentoring adults and students, as well as working on educational projects, and I am willing to take on a mixture of roles as needed to support a project.

I value good teamwork over fancy tech, and I don't shy away from working on legacy code. I am primarily motivated by solving problems, so let me help you solve yours.

I am open to work for a company anywhere as long as the work can be done fully remote from Africa.

While I could find a job elsewhere I believe that the experience living in an area where my work is going to have an impact gives me a better understanding of the needs of the location I am serving. Whether it is through direct contact with clients and users or just by being part of a local community and learning about the reality of living there.

In addition, I want to use some of my income to hire local interns and junior developers and train them in order to pass on my experience. I also sponsor children that otherwise can't afford to go to school (see my website). If you want to support this, I would love to work with you. Also if you are interested in hiring African developers yourself. I can help you build up a team for you.

Remote: yes

Willing to relocate: yes, to any location in Africa, where I can get the necessary permission to live and work. Occasional travel is possible.

Technologies: Linux, front or backend/fullstack web development, general software development, system administration.

Consulting: software development mentoring, china and africa outsourcing guidance.

Résumé/CV: on request (software development, CTO, mentoring, training, fluent in English and German, german citizenship)

Contact: Email: see profile or http://codingforafrica.at/

Like this Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31518945], I am looking for similar work, but I am open to work on any interesting project. I am a European software developer who has lived and worked on four continents. It was time to move on and so I relocated to Africa.

I have more than a decade of experience running a company, doing software development, support and training and mentoring adults and students, as well as working on educational projects, and I am willing to take on a mixture of roles as needed to support a project.

I value good teamwork over fancy tech, and I don't shy away from working on legacy code. I am primarily motivated by solving problems, so let me help you solve yours.

I am open to work for a company anywhere as long as the work can be done fully remote from Africa.

While I could find a job elsewhere I believe that the experience living in an area where my work is going to have an impact gives me a better understanding of the needs of the location I am serving. Whether it is through direct contact with clients and users or just by being part of a local community and learning about the reality of living there.

In addition, I want to use some of my income to hire local interns and junior developers and train them in order to pass on my experience. I also sponsor children that otherwise can't afford to go to school (see my website). If you want to support this, I would love to work with you. Also if you are interested in hiring African developers yourself. I can help you build up a team for you.

Remote: yes

Willing to relocate: yes, to any location in Africa, where I can get the necessary permission to live and work. Occasional travel is possible.

Technologies: Linux, front or backend/fullstack web development, general software development, system administration.

Consulting: software development mentoring, china and africa outsourcing guidance.

Résumé/CV: on request (software development, CTO, mentoring, training, fluent in English and German, german citizenship)

Contact: Email: see profile or http://codingforafrica.at/

Like this Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31518945], I am looking for similar work, but I am open to work on any interesting project. I am a European software developer who has lived and worked on four continents. It was time to move on and so I relocated to Africa.

I have more than a decade of experience running a company, doing software development, support and training and mentoring adults and students, as well as working on educational projects, and I am willing to take on a mixture of roles as needed to support a project.

I value good teamwork over fancy tech, and I don't shy away from working on legacy code. I am primarily motivated by solving problems, so let me help you solve yours.

I am open to work for a company anywhere as long as the work can be done fully remote from Africa.

While I could find a job elsewhere I believe that the experience living in an area where my work is going to have an impact gives me a better understanding of the needs of the location I am serving. Whether it is through direct contact with clients and users or just by being part of a local community and learning about the reality of living there.

In addition, I want to use some of my income to hire local interns and junior developers and train them in order to pass on my experience. I also sponsor children that otherwise can't afford to go to school (see my website). If you want to support this, I would love to work with you. Also if you are interested in hiring African developers yourself. I can help you build up a team for you.

Remote: yes

Willing to relocate: yes, to any location in Africa, where I can get the necessary permission to live and work. Occasional travel is possible.

Technologies: Linux, front or backend/fullstack web development, general software development, system administration.

Consulting: software development mentoring, china and africa outsourcing guidance.

Résumé/CV: on request (software development, CTO, mentoring, training, fluent in English and German, german citizenship)

Contact: Email: see profile or http://codingforafrica.at/

Like this Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31518945], I am looking for similar work, but I am open to work on any interesting project. I am a European software developer who has lived and worked on four continents. It was time to move on and so I relocated to Africa.

I have more than a decade of experience running a company, doing software development, support and training and mentoring adults and students, as well as working on educational projects, and I am willing to take on a mixture of roles as needed to support a project.

I value good teamwork over fancy tech, and I don't shy away from working on legacy code. I am primarily motivated by solving problems, so let me help you solve yours.

I am open to work for a company anywhere as long as the work can be done fully remote from Africa.

While I could find a job elsewhere I believe that the experience living in an area where my work is going to have an impact gives me a better understanding of the needs of the location I am serving. Whether it is through direct contact with clients and users or just by being part of a local community and learning about the reality of living there.

In addition, I want to use some of my income to hire local interns and junior developers and train them in order to pass on my experience. I also sponsor children that otherwise can't afford to go to school (see my website). If you want to support this, I would love to work with you. Also if you are interested in hiring African developers yourself. I can help you build up a team for you.

But I didn't post this to gloat, just to point out that spammers are lazy. Of course if everyone moves their email into the profile then this will change, but even if everyone reading this thread does it, most others won't, so I trust that this will still work for some time.