Developmental impact starts on my home-payroll

With Jack and Tomoko

As my friends and colleagues know, in addition to the exciting work I’ve been chasing at World Bank Group these past 18 years, I’ve also been chasing six kids at home. And no, I don’t deserve the Soviet Mother-Hero medal, but I have been lucky to have wonderful helpers at home who certainly do deserve it. 

I don’t consider myself a high-earner, but hiring lots of helpers has always been a necessity in my life, even when they earned more than my after-tax income. We got started having kids when I was 20, and babysitters, all older than me, had to show me the ropes. At our craziest point in Kyiv, I counted 14 helpers on payroll. Bringing them into our family, from childbirths to Thanksgivings to guitar lessons, has multiplied our joy.

Ted and Dmytro improv in Kyiv

At WB, I could be uncertain about the impact of my work, but at home I never was. At work we could spend two years on a report that might sit on a central banker’s shelf, or prepare a project that would never be approved. Meantime, Negede sent five kids to college, Atey bought herself a motorbike and sent her sister to college, Nubia bought a house and fixed her husband’s teeth, Vera paid off her daughter’s mortgage, Lena bought a car, Dmytro renovated his kitchen, and Oksana bought a house. Our family’s colossal needs were a big part of that.

Vera and Sabina

For the best-networked helpers, finding the next job is a smooth operation, facilitated by word of mouth and expat social networks. But just as I am surprised time and again by the incredible skills and very low asking-prices in developing countries, I am surprised and embarrassed that the mechanisms for finding markets continue to be so ad hoc. A musician with PhD from Kyiv Conservatory scrapes by at a local institute, and drops by the international school looking for gigs. A graduate student in theoretical mathematics earning USD5/hour is lucky to be referred by a friend of a friend at church.

Can we do better?  #MOGwee #helpingpeopleearnmore

What comes from Am-I-making-a-difference? The story of MOGwee

My name is Colleen Mascenik. I’ve been a development economist for 17 years and a mom for 18. I have 6 kids, a noisy home, and little time to think. For nearly two decades at an international financial institution, developmental milestones have been an impersonal measure attached to impersonal projects. I wanted to have an impact, but my own contribution seemed a very small part of a very complex whole.

After chemo, December 2015--hair returning!

Then I got cancer. More accurately, I learned quite late that I had multiple, very extensive tumors in my right breast and lymph nodes, and would go through surgery, chemo and radiation. First, cancer shocks you with the possibility of death. Then, it shocks you with the reality of life. And getting off the radiation table on the last session in 2016, I had to line up priorities, who-am-I and what-am-I-doing, without the anchor of time. I might have 3 years. I might have 30.

So while I re-embraced my family, I began to re-assess my work. Am I making a difference? Is my work causing people to live better?

In May 2017 at American University of Central
Asia, with the future MOGwee girl-team

Day by day I felt less certain about giant institutional interventions, and more certain about the interventions we make personally in one another’s lives. I felt less convinced about the vagaries of development projects and more convinced of the positive impact of income and dignity to make people live better.

Creating the Tajikistan team with Zilberman
and Olim in Dushanbe, April 2017

 This is my story, but not only my story. MOGwee is my dream that people should earn more. I want to create a million jobs. MOGwee is also the story of people who are over-talented and under-compensated. It’s the story of people who don’t realize they’re on the edge of a completely new market.

Join us.