The Goal of the Doane Net Project
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day;
Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
Our overarching goal is to “break the cycle of dependence.” This is achievable by meeting our three goals of saving lives, creating jobs, and cleaning the environment. We will do this by teaching people how to make their own nets from recycled plastic. Manufactured mosquito nets have a life expectancy of about three-to-five years. Simply giving anyone a mosquito net ensures that the recipient will be in trouble again in a few years. Where will the donor be then? How many millions of dollars will be spent just replacing nets that were donated earlier? Teaching people how to make their own nets breaks the chain of dependence and allows people to do for themselves long after the donors have left.
Cost:
The cost of this project is extremely cheap. It requires only education. By educating locals and sending them out to educate neighbors, we can reach vast regions with very little expense.
The going price for a donated net is $10. Three million nets would be required to cover the city of Nairobi at a cost of 30 million dollars. On the other hand, by sending 50 teachers to educate in separate villages on market day for one year, we could reach more than 6 million families or impact more than 28 million lives* for $1,000,000- $1,500,000**. To directly educate most of the 30 million people in Kenya it would take one-to-two years. Instead of $10 per person the cost would be about $0.05 per person***.
Further, as educated people can now make their own nets, these nets essentially last forever. A donated net will last three-to-five years, and thus net users need donors again in the future. Over the 40 years of the average Kenyan’s life, they would need 10 nets. To protect 40 years of Kenyans, donors would need to provide $300 million.
This project’s goal:
1. Create teachers from existing indigenous populations.
2. Send these teachers out to educate within their countries and eventually out to the world.
Needs:
1. Money to pay locals to teach.
2. Money to provide supplies.
3. Money to offset travel expenses for the teachers.
Total estimated cost to cover most Kenyans in Doane Nets in one year is less than $2 million.
*Assumptions:
1. A 52-week work year.
2. Teaching in four different villages per week; and that the choice of markets are evenly spread; and that the largest markets are chosen preferentially.
3. That on average 600 people are educated in each market.
4. That the 600 people are from separate families, each family having four members.
** Assumptions:
1. That teachers are paid a completive and viable teaching salary. This amount is clearly up for debate, but the average starting teacher salary in Nebraska is just over $20,000.
***Note:
1. Each year people continue to make their own nets. This reduces the cost per person. At the end of six years (the end of life for a manufactured net), no additional cost would be needed. However the cost per person using manufactured nets would jump to $20.