Hello

I was inspired to start The Busking Challenge after reading William MacAskill's book "What we owe the future". Together with moral philosopher Peter Singer, William MacAskill is one of the founders of the Effective Altruism movement, a global community whose members pledge to give a substantial proportion of their incomes to some of the most effective charities working to combat poverty and suffering worldwide. The Fistula Foundation, which the Busking Challenge supports, is one of these exceptionally effective charities.

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After reading MacAskill's book, and then Peter Singer's book "The life you can save", I was inspired. I wanted to join this incredible community of people doing so much good in the world. But just making a few clicks on a website and donating some money wasn’t satisfying to me – I wanted to do more than that. Since I’m a singer, I thought, maybe I can harness my specific skills and raise money through making music?

 

The next day, I gave busking a try. I went into the Old City of Mainz, the town in Germany where I live, and stood on the street and sang – no microphone, no backing track – just my voice singing simple songs that people know and love, like Amazing Grace or Schubert’s Ave Maria. Within about an hour I’d collected 136 Euros. That’s when I realised that, if I kept at it, I might be able to raise a substantial amount of money this way.

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I decided to set myself a personal target of raising at least 300 Euros per month for one year for the Fistula Foundation through busking. That way, at the end of the year I will have raised at least 3,600 Euros, enough to treat six women to repair obstetric fistula.

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But my personal efforts are only the start. With the support of others - either busking themselves or just donating - I hope to raise at least ten times this amount: 36,000 Euros, which would enable 60 women to have this transformative treatment and get their lives back.

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To support our efforts and donate, go to www.justgiving.com/page/thebusking challenge.

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