NaTakallam – High-quality language services and courses delivered by refugees | Hacker News Reader

NaTakallam – High-quality language services and courses delivered by refugees

natakallam.com

They recently made this thread to gauge interest in courses in Ukrainian and Russian delivered by people displaced by recent events in Ukraine and Russia:

https://twitter.com/NaTakallam/status/1498773296548044803

Webform direct link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScVH8m2ymfJGJB5kzyc...

This is a terrific idea. In my experience with refugee communities, they (a) often carry significant formal and informal knowledge that others would find fascinating, but (b) are often limited to the most predatory labor arrangements since they are isolated and vulnerable. This program seems like a great way to both value their specialized knowledge and reduce their isolation.

One thing I didn't see: how would someone from or working with a displaced community engage to offer services?

According to the FAQ, at the 16$/hr bundle rate, tutors are only seeing about 10. Italki takes about a 15% cut, so I'm curious what the justification for the over double commission rate is, especially given the vulnerable population.

Yeah, 6 out of 16 dollars... 37.5% cut.

But it seems like that's the best possible cut.

Also from FAQ:

>Our pricing of $25/hour, which goes down to $16 USD/hour when you purchase a bundle of 10 hour sessions, is split as follows:

>$10, regardless of the package, goes straight to our CPs.

and

> $25/hour if you purchase 1 hour

> $19/hour if you purchase 5 hours

> $16/hour if you purchase 10 hours

So a 60% cut or a 47% cut (!!!)

First thing people are going to do: Cut out the middleman. That is to say: Use the platform to find a teacher. Then exchange contact info and pay them directly for all subsequent sessions.

I'm pretty sure that those "Got it" cookie consent popups achieve less than nothing. Not only do they not comply with GDPR but the also piss off users where the GDPR doesn't apply.

Also the CSS for the popup seems broken the button isn't properly visible.

I generally think of obtrusive cookie consent popups as a kind of #maliciouscompliance revenge from villains who are sore about GDPR protections.

"never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance"

This is a US based org so they probably have no idea what they are doing around PII data other than what's required by US law and even then.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com