[Sparkle-san]

There's a lot of value in helping out locally as well.

I don't have as much lived experience of someone in Vietnam as I do someone in my community. Nor do I understand the language or the culture. There's more overhead in making it happen and there will likely be a lot of things I'll never take into account or understand. On the other hand, I know what it's like living in a HCOL state where many jobs don't pay enough for a family to survive and have struggled in my own past. Could my money have more purchasing power elsewhere? Sure. And they're still people in my community struggling and I have the power to help them and a greater understanding of what they're facing. Community seems to get discounted a lot in the discussion around effective altruism and I think that's unfortunate.

[evanjrowley]

What I know for sure is, if I could, I would invest my money into clean drinking water infrastructure for both communities. Helping families pay the water company to distribute jugs of filtered drinking water is great, but infrastructure that's not contaminated would be so much better for everyone.