How can we do the most good? EA question, My local community experience.

By emmannaemeka @ 2022-11-08T08:04 (+2)

What people call "good" may differ from tribe, color, economic status and the state of a people. Someone can judge what he or she cares about as "good"  but another may consider it not "good" enough. So the question will be, who should define what is "good"? Should the person doing the good do good based on what he perceives as good or should doing good be a response to what you have aggregated as what the receiver of the good call "good"? I think the next question will be is "good" biased? 

The COVID-19 pandemic really showed me that good can be misunderstood. My experience showed me that. In the heat of the pandemic, I sought ways to help(My lab did not have funds to sequence SARS-COV-2). So, I thought of possible ways to help. Fortunately, I have been trained in the use of Oxford Nanopore, and I volunteered my skill to a research group in my town(Unfortunately though we could not successfully sequence one virus, this was largely due to a lack of adequate equipment) I thought I was doing good to save lives, people around felt COVID-19 was more of a western problem than their problem. They wanted their immediate local problem to be prioritized. My family and I contracted COVID-19 in the process. So, it's important to prioritise what we do and to look at it in the context of the people.

Another striking experience that shows why so much awareness is needed in the language of the culture of a people is this one. I took care of a friend's wife with Ovarian cancer(Sadly she died). I spoke with the family to make donations to the hospital to support cancer care seeing that the facility is less funded. They saw it as a waste. My daughter had meningitis(Lost vision and hearing), and we saw the need to donate an oxygen cylinder to the hospital (a donation of fewer than 50 USD). This has generated so much appreciation from the tertiary hospital. What have I learnt? A lot needs to be done to convince people to understand the concept of doing good and this should be done by contextualizing the concept. The educated and uneducated alike should understand the core of EA.