There I was, at the lab, thinking I had earned myself 10 Pounds, and in the next instant I had only 2.5 pounds. “How did that happen?”, you ask?..or maybe not. But I will tell you anyway:)
I volunteered to participate in a behavioral research study analysing abilities like concentration, memory and accuracy, with a final minor part about a charity donation (quite unrelated to the former part of the study). The compensation awarded for participation was 10 pounds. I did really well in all the tests and was quite proud of my performance (it doesn’t take much to make me feel happy).
Thirty minutes later, when I was finally done with all the pattern solving, word games and so on, the final page of the study advertised a charity called the Suffolk Wildlife Conservation Society. The advert said that they were raising funds for the conservation of a particular threatened migratory butterfly species by putting in place safe habitats for winter. Details were given about why conservation interventions were needed. I was then asked how much of I would donate from my compensation towards this charity. At that moment, I thought to myself “Are these guys seriously going to take my money away if I answered that I wanted to make a donation? After all this is a study, so I should get my full compensation anyway”. I answered that I was sympathetic to the cause (I really was) and would donate 7.5 pounds towards the charity. I was prepared to be given just 2.5 pounds for all the time I had spent there. And that is exactly what happened, I was asked to meet the researcher who saw the amount I quoted and gave me 2.5 pounds and a copy of the debrief of the study in a ‘matter of fact’ way.
When I walked away, I thought about the Masala Dosa and Mysore Bonda I just had for lunch which cost me 4 pounds, and I asked myself, “Dude, you’re a student. Are you in a position to be making donations when you think twice to eat a masala dosa after 2 months of abstinence?”. It was then that I thought again about the wonderful conversations that I had with a friend who is doing post-doctoral research at the University at Reading. I had recently been on an excursion to the English countryside with her, and a conversation on pollinators and their role in ecosystems were inevitable. She does research on exactly that topic. Butterflies as you may know are also important pollinators, but she works on bees. She mentioned about the importance of hedgerows and how they had helped in increasing bee populations in many areas, which had in turn improved agricultural productivity.
When I read about the butterflies in the charity advertisement, I knew that I would have to part with my money. It was without doubt a worthwhile cause. When I eventually walked out the lab door, I was left with a lingering feeling of uneasiness. More so because I saw the payslips of other volunteers who had come in for the study, and almost everyone had taken back 10 pounds with them, and it was only I who left with 2.5 pounds (the logic behind the 2.5 pounds is that it would cost me that much for transportation to and from the lab. I, however, walked it). But I was soon at ease again when I read the debrief of the study. While they mentioned that the charity didn’t actually exist, the money I donated would be delivered to a similar real charity in the UK. One thing is for sure, I wouldn’t normally have made a donation during my time here, but this was a special situation. I had to option of just taking less money for the time I gave and that didn’t hurt at all. I think this is the first bit of overt environmental action I had taken since coming here. For what its worth, it was a good feeling.
