A Glimpse at Motivation... The Reason We Do What We Do

Starvation. Aid. Need. Help. Death. Life.

Why do people starve and die?

Why do people help and try?


In the Introduction section to the book "Banker to the Poor", Muhammad Yunus sums um the motivation of humanitarian aid and the reason why these things are happening and the reason why people help in the midst of overwhelming odds. Here is what was written...

"In the year 1974 Bangladesh fell into the grip of famine. The university where I taught and served as head of the Economics Department was located in the southeastern extremity of the country, and at first we did not pay much attention to the newspaper stories of death and starvation in the remote villages of the north. But then skeleton-like people began showing up in the railway stations and bus stations of the capital, Dhaka. Soon this trickle became a flood. Hungry people were everywhere. Often they sat so still that one could not be sure whether they were alive or dead. They all looked alike: men, women, children. Old people looked like children, and children looked like old people.
The government opened gruel kitchens. But every new gruel kitchen ran out of rice. Newspaper reporters tried to warn the nation of the extent of the famine. Research instituations collected statistics on the sources and causes of the sudden migration to the cities. Religious organizations mobilized groups to pick up the dead bodies from the streets and bury them with the proper rites. But soon the simple act of collecting the dead became a larger task then these groups were equipped to handle.
The starving people did not chant any slogans. They did not demand anything from us well-fed city folk. They simply lay down very quietly on our doorsteps and waited to die.
There are many ways for people to die, but somehow dying of starvation is the most unacceptable of all. It happens in slow motion. Second by second, the distance between life and death becomes smaller and smaller, until the two are in such close proximity that one can hardly tell the difference. Like sleep, death by starvation happens so quietly, so inexorably, one does not even sense it happening. And all for lack of a handful of rice at each meal. In this world of plenty, a tiny baby, who does not yet understand the mystery of the world, is allowed to cry and cry and finally fall asleep without the milk she needs to survive. The next day she may not have the strength to continue living.
I used to feel a thrill at teaching my students the elegant economic theories thhat could supposedly cure societal problems of all types. But in 1974, I started to dread my own lectures. What good were all of my complex theories when people were dying of starvation on the sidewalks and porches across from my lecture hall? My lessons were like the American movies where the good guys always win. But when I emerged from the comfort of the classroom, I was faced with the reality of the city streets. Here good guys were mercilessly beaten and trampled. Daily life was getting worse, and the poor were growing even poorer.
Nothing in the economic theories I taught reflected the life around me. How could I go on telling my students make believe stories in the name of economics? I wanted to become a fugitive from academic life. I needed to run away from these theories and form my textbooks and discover the real-life economics of a poor person's existence.
My repeated trips to the villages around the Chittagong University campus led me to discoveries that were essential to establishing my life's work. The poor taught me an entirely new economics. I learned about the problems that they face from their own perspective. I tried a great number of things. Some worked. Others did not. I was only trying to relieve my guilt and satisfy my desire to be useful to a few starving human beings. But it did not stop with a few people. Those who survived would not let it. And after a while, neither would I."

Starvation Situations

Starvation is not a social justice issue that is unknown or comes at us from unawares. It is something that we should and can predict, and it is something that we desperately need to predict. There are several starvation situations that we can identify beforehand, prepare for beforehand, and hopefully weather during it.

Drought. When many African countries do not have rain for long stretches of time, this becomes a massive problem. Drought kills the ability for people to raise crops, feed their livestock, have clean or unclean water, and be able to make a living. Whether the drought ruins the ability for people to earn money or inhibits the ability for people to raise food - it simply is a life-stopper. It stops people from eating. It stops people from buying and selling. It just stops people. But we should be able to identify where droughts will happen. With all of the meteorology abilities that we have - we should be able to identify the area where a drought will happen. In order to help these people, we need to identify where droughts are most likely to happen.

Natural Disasters. Our meteorology abilities should be able to help us better prepare for natural disasters, as well. We live in an age with too much innovation, technology, and effectiveness to keep having these natural disasters surprise developing countries and devostate their people. So many people starve to death in all of the rucus from natural disasters. We can better help them if we can better prepare beforehand for these disasters. These are things that we have to identify before they happen so that we can adequately prepare for the people to survive these disasters.

Violence, War, Etc. Many people die from starvation when their lives are torn apart by violence and war. These are also things that we can identify with some warning so that we can prepare to help people. When wars and violence break out, we can see the warning signs beforehand. We can identify these dangerous situations so that we can prepare to sustain through them.


Starvation happens when people who are hanging onto life by a single thread have something catastrophic happen to break that string. Drought, natural disasters, wars and violence - these are the things that disrupt people's lives so much that there is no more room left for error. We have to identify these situations beforehand so that we can better prepare to help these struggling individuals.


We have the ability. Now we have to have the mindset. No more starvation.