Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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It might be better to just get another gerbil.

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City fix (TV program)

Filthy river and slum in Nigeria? Giant used-clothes mountains in Ghana? We're on our way!
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Documentary turned into Action.

Teams of planners, businessmen, makers, inventors, grass-roots activists, and half bakers get together each season and tackle a seemingly impossible situation, where there is no way to fix the city without throwing the people away.

US car parks with the homeless, Middle Eastern Fancy-hotel builders' sewage and electricity lacking living-quarters. Rubbish gatherers town in Brazil, Somali smoke covered village, We tackle them head on. People from all over the world suggest stupid solutions that could never work, and the ones that grab attention are discussed and then actually get accomplished.

In some cases its just a small corner of the problem that is solved, but in others, we can transform the whole situation.

At the end of each season we see the people who were worst off change everything and smile.

pashute, Aug 17 2022

https://www.youtube...watch?v=x5MSBeTFFGc [pashute, Aug 17 2022]

The Activist https://variety.com...-nation-1235065908/
Original concept widely considered the worst idea on TV ... setting a pretty high bar! [a1, Aug 17 2022]

Makers translation https://docs.google...Ww/edit?usp=sharing
work in progress [pashute, Aug 17 2022]

Saving Starfish Parable https://www.teachin...-parable-is-better/
... better than any retort I could make [a1, Aug 17 2022]

All Within My Hands https://www.allwithinmyhands.org/
You don't have to like Metallica - but this is showbiz philanthropy done right. [a1, Aug 18 2022]

But not this place... https://www.youtube...watch?v=ILcUScfebJ4
[pashute, Aug 19 2022]

[link]






       Groups of people are generally too stupid to come out of the rain.
Voice, Aug 17 2022
  

       Unless they are working for a TV program with great director. Besides did you ever see the very moving program of "The Makers"?   

       The Israeli version has the team help people with disabilities, or organizations that help others.   

       In chapter 6 they meet two twin sisters who cannot hear well, and are not aware that someone is at the door, or if there's an emergency rocket attack they don't notice the siren. Also they don't wake up.   

       Another meeting is with a singer who has hearing aids, and is hurting herself with the overly loud sounds which she isn't able to hear.   

       They make a system that wakes people up by turning on the lights, and tapping on the bed. They take the hearing aids and make them become part of the earphones.
pashute, Aug 17 2022
  

       "We could make activism into competition based reality TV!   

       Er ... let's not (link)
a1, Aug 17 2022
  

       //pearl clutching//   

       Fie. If it encourages more eyes and dollars where they're needed I don't care if we're paying natives to dance the tango wearing KKK hats. There's no line that needs to be drawn between entertainment and productive assistance.   

       If you have real problems you don't care that someone is getting applause for helping to fix them, or that they're crass commercialization around fixing them, or about your delicate sensibilities.
Voice, Aug 17 2022
  

       Yeah, we can raise big money with pictures of sad starving child... Just let someone else enjoy a big meal (or even a candy bar) off camera, but within sight of the child.   

       (recalled vaguely from someone else's comedy sketch. Maybe Sam Kinison? not 100% sure)   

       Great idea on so many levels - but history over many decades has shown it doesn't work very well.
a1, Aug 17 2022
  

       From your link ([a1]): As a result, we are changing the format to remove the competitive element and reimagining the concept...   

       Everything the "Makers" series is. No competition. Just cooperation of brains knowledge and capability.   

       >At the end of each season we see the people who were worst off change everything and smile.   

       Note the part where the people who were worst off are the ones initiating and making the change.   

       Its obvious they want to. The woman who lives in the car park found the gym solution for her daily shower... The (former) waste picker on the Sao Paulo trash dump mountain moved away from her abusive "boy friend" and made a (harsh) life of her own in the former shanty town. (She now works for the municipality as a manager at a back breaking facility built by a good willing government plan)
pashute, Aug 17 2022
  

       I still question if this is the best use of resources, good value for money, a greatest good for greatest number kind of thing.   

       Could the same level of resources allocated by/for "teams of planners, businessmen, makers, inventors etc" do more than help a handful of telegenic beneficiaries, if you weren't pouring them into a TV documentary?
a1, Aug 17 2022
  

       Yes. Why not? Just because you watched a channel that you don't like?   

       Aren't negative people like the Vice TV guys doing a good job at exposing the worlds problems. Why not team them up to actual accomplishers to make a better life for the displaced peoples of South Sudan, or the stranded drivers of Bangkok?
pashute, Aug 17 2022
  

       I added a link to the English translation of the Makerz episode 6 program. Work in progress.
pashute, Aug 17 2022
  

       Let me put it another way. You have $100,000 to spend (or have people willing to donate an equivalent value of time and effort). Do you:   

       1) Produce a documentary to show how you could get 5 people into a housing assistance program?   

       or   

       2) Put the money DIRECTLY into a housing assistance program that helps 50 people?   

       I made those numbers up, of course. I couldn't pick either option until I saw a real cost / benefit analysis of both approaches. And "Why not?" isn't an analysis.
a1, Aug 17 2022
  

       Like you I don't know which would be more effective. What I know is a knee jerk answer is likely to be wrong. Also there are other considerations. If 80% of the money from the show would have gone to other charities is that really a net benefit? If it encourages other shows how about that? What if the money never would have gone to help someone less fortunate unless the show were being made with it? How much of the benefit people get from watching the show counts as a net human positive, and what's the value of that as opposed to the same number of people not being entertained? What is the education and/or science value of demonstrating this kind of assistance?   

       There's a web comic out there in which Superman spends his energy running a turbine for maximum economic output.   

       There must be a way to assign dollar value to utilitarian output, but prices ain't it.
Voice, Aug 17 2022
  

       //Let me put it another way. You have $100,000 to spend (or have people willing to donate an equivalent value of time and effort). Do you:
1) Produce a documentary to show how you [...]
or
2) Put the money DIRECTLY into
?//
  

       I think it's potentially going for (1), even if it's got extra costs - if the program is earning enough money to do it repeatedly, it's a win even if there arn't other downstream benefits.   

       I think it could be a pretty interesting program, if it was done right.
The trick might be to do it with very little money, work small-scale, and have projects which are interesting but might feasibly have solutions which don't cost a great deal of money.
Loris, Aug 17 2022
  

       Nae, the trick is find the right thing to do. I had a really long screed half written but then found someone else had done a better job of it (Starfish link).
a1, Aug 17 2022
  

       //Nae, the trick is find the right thing to do.//   

       Absolutely, but won't that be a fascinating part of the documentary; figuring out what to do?
Loris, Aug 17 2022
  

       And getting people to go along with what you've figured out is even harder. Doing so without being evil is just impossible.
Voice, Aug 18 2022
  

       response to A1s starfish link (is that you?)   

       Who did Jacques Cousteau think he is, Jacques Cousteau?
pashute, Aug 19 2022
  

       [paashute], no I did not write the starfish item. Wish I had.
a1, Aug 19 2022
  
      
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