Summary of the exercises

Exercise one:

My resources are quite low for this project I only have myself, the professor, and the internet. The two things I’m sure I’m doing well is doing effective when doing the interviews and that I am good at coming up with great questions. I will continue to make this a reality by drawing back on my previous experiences and analyzing them. I will continue to take in constructive feedback and looking at new and interesting ways to implement the feedback into my project. My untapped strength is optimizing my interviews and making them more efficient for online versus in real life. I will tap into this strength by collaborating with the people from my class about the organization and what the end goal of the project should look like. I feel like my blind spots are thinking the people would want to participate in an online interview without any incentive. I will address my blind spots by actively following up with the people who I ask to take the survey. I feel like the biggest challenges are to overcome my procrastination and to overcome my natural disorganization. 

I do not have a set plan on overcoming my biggest challenges but I plan on collaborating with similar people from my class to see how they have overcome these challenges.  

Exercise two:

Since I don’t have official group members I can only talk about the people who are working on the project at the same time as me. I have the people in my Cinq389 class who are doing similar projects. There is still a great deal of difference between our projects so I feel as if their ability to help may be limited. My greatest asset may be professor Brunstien.

Exercise three:

Start- Organizing my ideas more efficiently and Frequent contact with Professor Brunstein outside of class. I will try to accomplish this by organizing my time better and start working on the assignment given in the class earlier.

Keep- researching and completing all of my assignments on time and keep asking questions that benefit everyone.   

Stop- Procrastinating on small details and Stop over thinking the end goal/big picture of the project. I will make this happen by asking the professor more questions about the end goal of the project and the best way to organize the data.  

Plan

Since I do not have an official team I will try to keep the plan more focused on the project as a whole and my plan.

Small goals: Learn something new and useful, make new professional connections get a good grade is both classes. I will accomplish this by taking notes, being fully present in all class meetings, and asking all the professors/professionals in-depth questions about the material. 

Big goals/Project goals: Learn and understand more about the COVID 19 crisis and how it impacts people. I will accomplish this by researching a lot of information about the crisis and gathering data from interviews with NGOs

Roles: 

Professor Brunstien (Coordinator)- The main expert with all the knowledge and experience. He should be able to answer all my lingering questions about the research. Although, he tends to leave the project very open-ended allowing me to “use my best judgment”.

Me (interviewer and project worker)- The main person doing the bulk of the interviews and groundwork allowing for further analysis from people with more skills/knowledge than I.

Processes: create and optimize questions, do the interviews, gather useful information from various sources, organize the data/info, analyze the data/info, lastly create the opinion-based paper.

Ways teamwork has changed: There are only three changes to this aspect since I didn’t have a team last semester or this semester.

1. I am in an official class new people whose projects are similar to mine. I can collaborate with them to a certain level
2. Since I am in an official class there are more resources and it is easy to communicate with the professor and ask questions
3. My entire project has changed making it more focused on research information than interview data.

Funding:

I don’t think funding is need for my specific project but I will inquire about it, next class.

FAQs

1. What is your project about?

We are researching if the communities of color across the United States have been disproportionately impacted by COVID 19.

 

2. How will you be researching this topic?

We will be using sources from the media and academic research.  We will also be conduction in-depth academic interviews.

 

3. Who are you interviewing?

We are interviewing community organizations (NGOs) that serve these communities.

 

4. Why is this important?

The research is important because it can be used to inform policymakers and people of power how the pandemic has affected some of the most disadvantaged communities in the USA. The research can help the people living in these communities by informing them about how they might have been impacted by the pandemic.

 

5. Who will benefit from the research?

Everyone who is impacted by Covid19.

 

6. How will people benefit from this research?

The people will benefit from the research by fully understanding the direct and indirect ways they are impacted by the covid19 pandemic.

 

7. Will there be an area of specialization or specific minority demographic?

I will be focusing on the 5 boroughs of NYC.

 

8. What aspects of the pandemic are you focusing on?

I will do a brief analysis of the infection rate and death rates.  I will focus on the economies and wellbeing of the people.

 

9. Are there parts of the pandemic that are not being captured by this research?

No research is perfect at capturing all the variables but my research aims to focus on the specific factors that make the impact of the pandemic on communities of color different than mostly white communities

.

 

10. Will there be a bias in the research?

The biases will be kept to a minimum while researching for an academic view.

 

11. Why is your focus area NYC?

I currently live in NYC so I have some familiarity with the city.  NYC is a diverse city so there are communities that can be easily compared to communities of color that are impacted by the pandemic.

 

12. How will your research impact white communities?

People in white communities will be informed about the impacts of the pandemic on communities of color.

 

13. Are interviews the most accurate measure of collecting data?

This depends on the interviewee but I am using academic journals and databases to counter any accuracy concerns.

 

14. What will the databases be used for exactly?

The databases will be used for the numeric calculations, identifying trends within similar communities and comparing different communities.

 

15. What are the news articles used for exactly?

The news articles are used to confirm different claims made by the media and explore their reasoning behind why the claims are made.

 

16. What are the journal articles used for exactly?

The journal articles are used to research the claims used by the media and to see the implications of COVID 19 data.

 

17. How does your research relate to the rest of the country?

The research can be applied to many places similar to NYC.

 

18. How can this research relate to the rest of the world?

The research can be applied to many places that are similar to NYC.  The conclusions found can help others around the world educate themselves about their situations that they may be in.

 

19. How can we avoid situations similar to this in the future?

Since this the first major pandemic in postmodern history we can learn a lot from the data to prevent/mitigate the harm from another one.

20. How will a vaccine impact the conclusions of the research?

We cannot be certain how a vaccine will impact the conclusions because of the variability of the release time and the availability of the vaccine once it is released.

 

 

Note: I am a one-man group with my project and I didn’t present last semester. My project’s topic was changed at the start of this semester.  These factors have limited my knowledge of what the judges may ask if I was a presenting group and what questions I should ask. Please consider this when grading.

 

Team members: Jacques Pelman, Rozhin Zahrouni, Nathaly Rodriguez, Ami Yoshimura

Ethical Decision-Making

Step 1: Determine the facts in the situation-obtain all of the unbiased facts possible. Clearly state the ethical issue.

• 35% of children have stunted growth
• The research group received a grant 
• The longer the mothers breastfeed the more likely the babies are to be exposed to HIV/AIDS
  • After 6 months almost guaranteed to be infected
  • Few women are tested for the virus 
• 500 women interested in cooperative 
• The food may contain pesticides which may transfer in the breastfeeding process
• Crops are grown in the area 
• Mothers are concerned about the health effects of pesticides 
• There is a taste testing that the mothers will take part in

Step 2&3: Define the problem and the stakeholders – those with a vested interest in the outcome & their personal/professional motivations

• Mother
  • Highly believe that the gruel is beneficial for their children
  • Can’t easily trust foreigners who say they are supposed experts on telling the mothers what to feed their children
• Kids
  • Want good tasting food, may reject food if tastes bad
  • Want/Need to eat 
  • Don’t want potential adverse health complications 
• Researchers
  • Want to make the cooperative succeed
  • Want to gain publicity and build up their credibility.
  • Want to help the children from being stunted from eating non-nutritious gruel
  • Want to give the kids a nutritious porridge
  • The ingredients of the porridge may give potential adverse health complications as a result of the pesticide, but the porridge would still be healthier than the gruel
  • Want to convince the mothers that the porridge is more nutritious for their children

Secondary Stakeholders:

• Government (Secondary)
  • Want to improve the livelihood of those in East Africa 
• Donors (Secondary)
  • Want their investments to be fruitful
• Men (secondary)
  • May take money from the women
  • May want their children to be healthy

        

Ethical Problem:

• Children being infected by HIV/ AIDs through breast milk vs being infected by pesticides 

Step 4: Formulate (at least three) alternative solutions – based on information available, to have a win-win situation for your relationship and your venture.

1. Having an educational portion led by respected members that guide mothers through wean process 

• • Ethical code: consequence-based thinking this would help most people even if they do not buy our product
  • Pros: 
    •  Fosters community and healthier children
  • Cons:  
    • May cost way more money to compensate the respected members more than they already are
    • Incredibly time-consuming 
    • Less likely to scale 

1. Create a gruel additive that will nutritionally enhance the gruel with packaging 

• • Ethical code: virtue-based because a person who is a professional would try to create a product to solve the solution
  • Pros: 
    • Adding more food ingredients by enhancing the original gruel recipe
    • Healthier children
    • The packaging would have an education component about nutrition and suggestions on how to use the product
  • Cons:
    • Very small amounts of social change to change the current formula

1. Continue with breast milk until the babies are 4 months old instead of 2 months

• • Ethical code: duty-based thinking model because this would be our recommendation along with the WHO on how to prevent potential HIV transmission
  • Pros:
    • Reducing the risk of HIV/AIDS
    • Receive more nutritional 
    • More diversity 
  • Cons:
    • The potential risk of health effects from pesticides earlier than usual 
    • Families and children may be reluctant to use it

Step 5: Seek additional assistance, as appropriate – previous cases, peers, reliance on personal experience, inner reflection

• Use alternative home-made made milk powder that is cost-effective and natural
• Thought leaders and those experienced in operating successful cooperatives 

    Peers and the Professor helped us optimize our rough ideas into a more polished solution.  

    Personal experience about how babies work.

Step 6: Select the best course of action-that which satisfies the highest core ethical values. Explain reasoning and justify it. Discuss Your stance vis-a-vis other approaches discussed in the class.

• The best course of action is options 2 and 3.
• This solution is also ideal and is better than including option 1 because it will ultimately scale better, which is a huge component of this situation and problem. Having an educational component is not only incredibly time-intensive but also extremely expensive. 
• All stakeholders will be somewhat satisfied with the solution, with this consensus

Step 7: List the sequence of actions you will take to implement your solution.

1. We would create and perfect our product and packaging and test the tastes and convenience of it with children and mothers.
2. Next, we would create the packaging and what exactly it would say and make it easy to understand. After this, we would mass-produce the product. The information on the package would include when exactly to start weaning the baby onto the formula. 
3. Lastly, we would make sure the product is at an adequate price that is available to most if not all mothers. An extra step would be to continue to take customer surveys to help improve the product.

Grassroots Diplomacy Strategy

Step 1: Determine the facts in the situation-obtain all of the unbiased facts possible

• 35% of children have stunted growth
• The research group received a grant 
• The longer the mothers breastfeed the more likely the babies are to be exposed to HIV/AIDS
  • After 6 months almost guaranteed to be infected
  • Few women are tested for the virus 
• 500 women interested in cooperative 
• The food may contain pesticides which may transfer in the breastfeeding process
• Crops are grown in the area 
• Mothers are concerned about the health effects of pesticides 
• There is a taste testing that the mothers will take part in
• The women work for about nine hours every day and earn KES 300 (about $3).
• They are not necessarily opposed to the men taking away their money but are upset that their hard-earned money is not used to feed their children.
• Cooperative lets them grow their money, unlike banks that take away money to save money 
  • Men are less likely to take money away from women when its a larger sum that has been saved up 

Step 2&3: Define the problem and the stakeholders-those with a vested interest in the outcome

• Mother
  • Personal:
    • Highly believe that the gruel is beneficial for their children
    • Can’t easily trust foreigners who say they are supposed experts on telling the mothers what to feed their children
  • Profesional 
    • Want a source of income and keeping their income for essentials
• Kids
  • Personal:
    • Want good tasting food, may reject food if tastes bad
    • Want/Need to eat 
    • Don’t want potential adverse health complications 

• Researchers
  • Personal:
    • Want to gain acknowledgment and build their resume by working in this project
  • Profesional: 
    • Want to give the kids a nutritious porridge
    • The ingredients of the porridge may give potential adverse health complications as a result of the pesticide, but the porridge would still be healthier than the gruel
    • Want to convince the mothers that the porridge is more nutritious for their children 

Secondary Stakeholders:

• Government (Secondary)
  • Want to improve the livelihood of those in East Africa 
• Donors (Secondary)
  • Want their investments to be fruitful
• Men (secondary)
  • May take money from the women
  • May want their children to be healthy

Step 4: Formulate (at least three) alternative solutions-based on information available

Solution 1: Give choice between food and other essentials as payment instead of money

• How does it solve the problem?
  •  Pros:
    • Prevents husbands from taking extra money in certain situations Children are more likely to be more well-fed.
  • Cons: 
    • May take the extra money away from the mothers

•  How does it save face of those involved?
  • It saves the face of the coop. from having to tell the patriarchal side of the families how to use their money. This way the woman can use their work profits in the way that they want to spend it – on their children and household instead of alcohol and other things that their patriarch could spend the woman’s work income on. This choice would grant the woman the liberty to not have to give up their money to their male counterparts to use on stuff that does not bring the family any benefits or food. 

• Implications on the venture
  • Short-term
    • The woman would be able to choose to receive food in place of their money income, which will mean that those families will be able to eat better food without having to worry about unnecessarily spending the money
    • The men of the family may tell the women working in the family to receive the money instead of the food, so the women may not be able to have the individual choice in the matter.
    • They can choose between money and food in case an emergency comes up where they need money (e.g. hospital bills, debt, etc).
  • Long-term
    • The families that we’re able to get food instead of money can give their kids and other family members nutritious meals.
    • The families that constantly choose money instead of food, may still come across the same problem of not being able to use their money for food and other beneficial things for the family as they would have to give up their money to their male counterparts.

Solution 2: Give food and other home essentials such as diaper or clothes

• How does it solve the problem?  
  • Pros: 
    • Prevents husbands from taking extra money
    • Children are more likely to be more well-fed. 
  • Cons:
    • Takes the extra money away from the mothers
    • Potential for conflict between women and men, especially since women did not have an issue giving them the money
      • Can give a negative light to the cooperative that leads to losing workers 
• How does it save face of those involved?
  • It saves face on the Co-op by making sure the social goal is achieved. It saves the face of the women by still bringing home goods by working and improving the lives of the children. Stops the men from using their money on booze and other nonessentials entirely. However, this may anger the men because they won’t have extra money for the nonessentials. 

• Implications on relationships
  • Short-term
    • Solves the issue of women wanting the children to have their essentials
  • Long-term
    • Men can still take the items and sell them for booze if they are that desperate for money
    • Can create distrust in relationships since the women have been receiving some sum of money already so if it suddenly stops that can lead to issues. 

Solution 3: Giving a smaller portion (⅓) of money earned to women for their usage (that can and may likely be taken by men), but keeping a larger majority (⅔) inequity within the Co-op, while also providing small servings of porridge every day. 

• How does it solve the problem?
  • Pros: 
    • Allows the moms to not cause strain on their relationships while still getting some money.
    • Creates a good and convenient way of saving money.
    • Still allows the children to have a better quality of life
    • Equity stake in the Co-op will exponentially increase as it scales, which means the money that they might cash out in the future will be much higher than when started and men will be much less likely to use it for other things.
    • Still provides some “beer money” for men, while the money in equity can’t be taken away immediately 
    • Still will be able to have food due to the small servings of porridge that is provided. 
  •  Cons:
    • Men still have the opportunity to take all the money
    • If women don’t trust the Co-op entirely they may be skeptical about saving their money there.
    • If an emergency happens the women may not be able to easily withdrawal their savings 

• How does it save face of those involved?
  • It saves face on the Co-op by making sure the social goal is achieved. It saves the face of the women by still bringing home goods by working and improving the lives of the children. Discourages the men from using their money on booze and other nonessentials entirely.

• Implications on the relationship
  • Short-term:
    • Both men and women are happy since they are both getting what they want
  • Long-term:
    • A potential issue is when men see that women receive the other sum of money, they may try to cash out all the equity and use it for themselves

Step 5: Seek additional assistance, as appropriate-engineering codes of ethics, previous cases, peers, reliance on personal experience, inner reflection

• Thought leaders and those experienced in operating successful cooperatives 
• Peers and the Professor helped us optimize our rough ideas into a more polished solution.  
• Personal experience about how babies function, e.g. what nutrition they need to grow and what they normally consume.

Step 6: Select the best course of action that solves the problem, saves face, and has the best short-term and long-term implications for your relationship and venture. Explain reasoning and discuss your solution vis-a-vis other approaches discussed in class. 

• The best course of action would be solution 3 because it creates a situation where you are still providing money when it is needed for the women in the area of big cash withdrawals. You satisfy the men by the small income. There is still some food being given to the women and their families which allows the children’s quality of life to improve.
• In comparison, the other ideas fall short in terms of not being able to facilitate a stable relationship where in the second option the men may get mad at the women and it wouldn’t allow the women to buy things that they need cash for. The first idea falls short because the men will have full opportunity to take the money.

Step 7: (If applicable)What are the implications of your solution on the venture. Explain the impact of your proposed solution on the venture’s technology, economic, social, and environmental aspects.

• Technology:
  • Giving them access to a system on a computer that allows them to see how much has gone to the men vs how much is being saved in their account. It can be as simple as an excel spreadsheet or more high tech depending on budget 

• Economic:
  • Create an ability for the family to save up money for large purchases like weddings, home improvements, and funerals. Doing all this while still providing them with healthy food to give to their children. 

• Social: 
  • It would create more agreement between the relationship of the women and the male figures in their lives as this would give the men their needed money to spend frivolously and the women the credits and food to support their family otherwise.

• Environmental:
  • If there are no conflicts between women and men in terms of money, cooperation is more likely to continue running. This means that the land will continue to be used for agriculture. 

Step 1: Determine the facts in the situation – obtain all of the unbiased facts possible

• An international donor organization sent gifts for children under the age of 14 to a youth center in Kenya
• Jack has spent five months at this youth center
• Jack was asked to hand out the gifts and the children believed that Jack gave them the gifts 
• The gift-giving occurred in a more grand fashion 
• There were not enough gifts for all the children, which caused four children to receive a substantially less important type of gift in a less grand fashion 
• Assumption: Four of the children blame Jack for not receiving a gift 
  • One child made a face at Jack, indicating he blames Jack for not receiving a gift. 
• The staff does not think there is an issue with the four children not receiving gifts. 
• Black hat has a negative stigma attached to it.

Step 2: Define the problem and the stakeholders – those with a vested interest in the outcome

• The children 
• Jack 
• The youth center workers
• Kenya Youth Center 
• The international donor organization 

Problem: How should Jack do the right thing while not putting his relationships with other stakeholders at risk of degrading. 

Step 3: Determine and distinguish between the personal and professional motivations of the stakeholders.

• The children 
  • Personal: increased happiness and well being, they may tease the kids who did not receive presents. 
• The four children who did not receive the gift
  • Feeling as special as the rest of the children who received a present ceremoniously. 
• Jack 
  • Personal: To make sure all the kids are happy
  • Professional: Maintaining positive relationships with children and staff to achieve a successful social venture. 
• The youth center workers
  • Personal: Altruistically, make the children happy. 
  • Professional: To continue positive operations. 
• Kenya Youth Center
  • Personal: Pride in their kids’ happiness. 
  • Professional: make sure there is no tension between the employees. 
• The international donor organization
  • Professional: Increased philanthropic reputation
  • Personal: to give back to the impoverished communities 

    Lehigh 

        Professional: Have a successful venture

        Personal: various people in Lehigh with various personal motivations. Two common motivations that many people might share is to do good and to give back to developing communities.

Step 4: Formulate (at least three) alternative solutions – based on information available, to have a win-win situation for your relationship and your venture.

• Potential Solution: Leave the situation as it is.
• How does it solve the problem?
  • Pros: 
    • Make sure there is no tension between him and the staff.
  • Cons: 
    • Jack doesn’t make all the children happy
• How does it save face of those involved?
  • Jack does not come off as an activist which is perceived poorly from the staff
• Implications on relationships
  • Short-term
    • Keep a positive attitude with the staff.
    • A quick fix to move on in the day to day progress of the center
    • Doesn’t create any tension in the relationships with that staff that can manifest in the long term
    • The 4 children will be unhappy with Jack.
  • Long-term
    • Could cause unresolved tension over how to handle future donations 
    • Could cause the same situation to be repeated.
    • Could foster tension between the children—those who received gifts versus those who did not. 
• Implications on the venture
  • Short-term 
    • Could cause Jack to want to end his five months stay sooner than expected if he feels unwanted 
    • It could make the organization hesitate in choosing Lehigh or other organizations to help them or allow them to do studies
  • Long-term
    • Could cause Jack to not participate in another social venture in-country 
    • Could cause the venture to reconsider sending anyone again if Jack felt unwelcome.

• Potential Solution: Help the kids decorate their black hats with available arts and crafts tools.
• How does it solve the problem?
  • Pros
    • Allows those four children to feel special 
    • Turns their lower quality gift into something better and more valued 
    • Helps to rebuild (and strengthen) the relationship between Jack and the kids
  • Cons
    • May cause other kids to be jealous.
    • The staff may see this tactic as activism.
    • May set the expectation of what Jack would do for the kids too high and lead the staff members to overload him with work. 
    • Jack would have to take money out of his budget to pay for art supplies. 
• How does it save face of those involved?
  • It protects Jack from facing backlash from the children, saving his face. 
• Implications on relationships
  • Short-term
    • Aims to fix an issue in the relationship 
    • Allows the four children to feel as valued as the rest of the children 
  • Long-term
    • May cause the children to believe that they will get something special each time which they may not necessarily receive 
    • Kids might still see their friends playing with their gifts and get jealous.
• Implications on the venture
  • Short-term 
    • Jack would have a good experience (from a good relationship with the staff and kids), so the venture would send more people.
  • Long-term
    • More and more people will be sent and the venture will be optimistic about sending volunteers like Jack.

• Potential Solution: Offering each of the kids a chocolate bar (along with a short talk to comfort them)
• How does it solve the problem?
  • Pros:
    • Makes the kids feel special
    • Allows the kids to fully understand the situation with the gift
  • Cons
    • Eating the chocolate will provide temporary satisfaction; once they see the other children playing with their gifts, they may feel left out again. 
    • Extra costs on Jack.
• How does it save face of those involved?
  • It protects Jack from facing backlash from the children, saving his face. 
• Implications on relationships
  • Short-term
    • The kids will enjoy the chocolate and forget about the gifts.
    • Their relationship with Jack will be stronger.
  • Long-term
    • Kids might still see their friends playing with their gifts and get jealous.
    • The children may take advantage of Jack’s feeling of guilt in the future. In other words, they make him feel guilty for him to provide them with chocolate or another type of gift. 
• Implications on the venture
  • Short-term 
    • Jack would have a good experience (from a good relationship with the staff and kids), so the venture would send more people.
  • Long-term
    • May cause the venture to have added costs to bring in extra supplies to avoid conflicts like this in the future 
    • More and more people will be sent and the venture will be optimistic about sending volunteers like Jack.
• Alternative solutions (group discussion)
  • Make an activity out of hats – have them use hats in the skit b/c they were chosen. 
  • Convince children to share their presents. 

• Step 5: Seek additional assistance, as appropriate – previous cases, peers, reliance on personal experience, inner reflection
  • Seek program Mentor
  • Ask previous American volunteers.
  • The experience about previous situations that you were in as a child and how it made you feel
  • Situations similar to this where you were an adult and had to deal with unfairness with immature people
• Step 6: Select the best course of action – that solves the problem, saves face, and has the best short- term and long-term implications for your relationship and venture. Explain reasoning and discuss your solution vis-a-vis other approaches discussed in class.
  • Arts and crafts solution
  • This allows the four children to feel special and to understand that they were not forgotten about, and turns their bad gift into a better one, especially with the memory entailed with it. 
  • Teaches the children indirectly how to make the best of unfortunate circumstances. 
  • Avoids the dissatisfaction once they see the other children playing with their gifts, they may feel left out again. 
  • However, this solution may cause other kids to be jealous of those 4 kids and may also put Jack in danger of being used by the staff (exploited) given they will see a western activist nature in him. The other children may also feel jealous about how Jack spent extra time with them.
  • Jack may have to use his own money to purchase art supplies if the center doesn’t have its supplies
• Step 7: List the sequence of actions you will take to implement your solution.
• Derived from an abridged version (6-step) of the 9-Step Process from “Applied Ethics Case of the Month Club”; adapted from a methodology developed by Andy Lau @ Penn State.

1. Realize that talking with the staff is a waste of time and think of another solution
2. Realize if he needs to earn the children’s children’s trust and wants to make amends. He also doesn’t want the children to have temporary satisfaction.
3. Next Jack comes up with the arts and crafts plan. 
4. Jack goes to the store to pick up the extra supplies that may be needed.  
5. He pulls the four kids to the side and asks if they want to decorate their hats
6. After the children decorate their hats he apologies for not getting them a gift.
7. If the staff asks about it then try to limit the conflict.

 

Jacques Pelman Cinq387 9/3/20

Step1: Facts

Lesotho is a small developing country

You are a group of 10 researchers

You have 2 weeks to conduct research

You are looking for pathogens in the water sources

Your team requires community assistance to locate water sources

Your goal is to produce publications

Chemical additives may be produced as a result of your publications

Ethical issue: Is your current research plan ethical?

It is ethical but there are solutions to make it fairer to the Lesotho communities

 

Step2&3: Stakeholders and Motivations

Researchers: want the best possible outcome of their study, efficiently find participants, make study ethical, identify and study all pathogens

Participants in the study: offer assistance to a project that could positively impact their community, potential for safe drinking water

Funders: results, return on investment, maintain reputation, stay within the timeline

People of Lesotho:

want their water to be safe to drink, protect water as one of their main natural resources, and want something out of participating in the study

University: Care about reputation and return on investment. Would like the study to stay within budget

(Lesotho)Government: keep the people safe and benefit long and short term for the people, improvement in the society/community long and short term, protect natural resources (water)

 

Step4: Solutions

 

1. Pay the people with money

Pros: communities will be eager to help, gives them purchasing power for items they need, your team gets the help they need, many people will be likely to volunteer

Cons: unknown how much the community will want, does the community want the money(similar to taxes for public goods) or the individual people, cannot guarantee they will spend the money to help themselves, they are still susceptible to the pathogen, may cause issues within the community is some members receive monetary incentives while others are left out, increase amount needed from University/Funding Agents

2. Don’t pay the people

Pros: save money which will please the funders and university, what “most” researchers do

Cons: communities may lack enthusiasm and may be uneasy about the research; some areas might not help you at all (waste of resources), no delays to publication

3. Provide incentives (other than money) and education

Pros: almost Guarantees to help the people with the water issue specifically, maybe be cheaper than giving a large number of people cash, education may allow the researchers to bridge social/cultural differences

Cons: Will cost some amount of money more than just the bare minimum, may cause the researcher to take longer thereby delaying the publication, increase amount needed from University/Funding Agents and increase time needed due to added educational aspect

 

Step5: Additional Assistance

 

 

The main source of water for parts of eastern South Africa

Very vulnerable to political disputes in South Africa

Droughts are common

Water is distributed through the Lesotho Highlands Water Project

Waterborne diseases are common and the infant mortality rate is high because of them.

 

 

Step6: Best Course of Action

Option 3: Provide incentives (other than money) and education

 

Incentives will promote communities to help us locate water sources but the information we provide to them will also increase their knowledge about water safety. We will get the data we need but the communities will benefit in a way greater than monetarily. Education costs us nothing but time to provide and will help the Lesotho people in their development. I would focus on a small number of incentives and only give incentives to the people who help us. This will keep the cost down and only allow a small amount of inequality between the community. I would want to focus on education since it can be spread and helps to equalize the population.

 

Monetary incentives might be more enticing and ensure we get the support we need in the research, but it does not have a sustainable long term result. The Lesotho people will still be susceptible to the pathogens in the water.

 

No incentives at all only benefit us as we will get our research completed although we might miss out on some communities not willing to engage with us.

 

 

 

Step7: Implications

 

By educating the locals about their water issues but also solutions to protect themselves from these pathogens almost guarantees to help the people with the water issue specifically, Lesotho can continue progressing their water safety and spread their knowledge to the other regions that they supply water to. This as a whole aids in the development of their country into a safer and more stable region. Education may allow current and future researchers to bridge social/cultural differences to more easily complete research with less interference. Although this option will help most people with the least economic cost it will delay the publication.