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February 18, 2012
A Conversation with Bill Gates: How Can I Help
When Bill decided to do a live, online webcast to take questions from viewers around the world, no one knew what to expect, including Bill himself. The event demonstrated that poverty and development are tremendously important to people everywhere.
A Conversation with Bill Gates: Global Development Opportunities
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Question excerpt from Transcript of Q & A Session with Larry Cohen
LARRY COHEN:
Most of the people who are watching today, they're not government ministers, government leaders. They don't control aid budgets. But a lot of them asked, "What can I do to help? How can I get involved?" As I'm sure, after reading the letter, it's a question many people ask of themselves. What would you say to people are interesting ways that they can lean more and get involved?
BILL GATES:
Well, we need people's political voice to say that this few percent of the budget is not what should be cut. So there are groups like One.org that you can sign up for. Depending on what country you're in, they'll send you a regular update about what key decisions are, so you might want to write letters or go to meetings and things about that.
There's a lot of incredible organizations that work in this space, who can use volunteer time, or even a small donation can make a big difference. The Gates Foundation website has the list of our various partners. You know, whether it's Nothing But Nets to buy malaria bed net, going through Rotary to give to the polio eradication campaign, Save the Children, Global Alliance for Vaccines, a lot of them.
And the beauty is the diversity. My children love Heifer International, where you can give money and they give a cow or goats or pigs, quite a few choices, to a poor family. And that family commits as that animal has more, they give those away. So there's some really neat, creative things. Some of which you can clearly get a sense of, "Okay, what difference did my gift make?"
