Education

The GivingAlpha Education portfolio supports evidence-based, effective charities that have direct implications on education. The focus of these organizations is to keep children in school longer and therefore improve educational outcomes.

Traditional education development campaigns frequently focus on raising funds to buy school uniforms or supplies like textbooks and pencils while overlooking the underlying social, economic, and health issues that cause children to not attend or drop out of school in the first place.

Schistosomiasis Control Initiative

Children either aren't able to attend school or can't perform their best while at school for several reasons, one of which being Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD's) like Schistosomiasis and STH. In addition to reduced school attendance, these diseases can lead to stunted growth, impaired cognitive development, anemia, reduced worker productivity and internal organ damage.

The World Health Organization estimates that 206 million people have schistosomiasis and 1.5 billion have STH. Evidence shows that mass school deworming can improve school attendance and increase the incomes of children when they become adults. GiveWell, an organization that looks for outstanding research-backed giving opportunities, estimates that deworming has one of the highest expected values among the interventions it recommends.

Seva Foundation

An estimated 1.4 million children live with blindness around the world and another 19 million are visually impaired. Most of these kids live in areas of the world where even the most basic eye care services continue to be out of reach. Combatting child blindness is one of the most cost effective health interventions and kids who have their sight restored are given an average of 50 years of sight.

Seva works to prevent and cure blindness and visual impairment among impoverished communities in the developing world. Seva works with existing local programs and institutions, providing a range of vision care and blindness prevention procedures.

Oxfam

Oxfam is focused on structural change to permanently alleviate and even eradicate poverty. Many of these efforts directly benefit children’s education - for example, constructing primary schools.

As one of the largest and best-known aid organizations, Oxfam exerts tremendous global influence. Unlike smaller nonprofits with narrow focus areas, Oxfam’s interventions have the potential to influence policy and infrastructural changes on the international, national, and local levels.