CHARITY DOESN'T HAVE TO BEGIN AT HOME
Children in Need has been and gone again, for another year. Thank God. I don’t like it at all. I realise that childhood is supposed to be a time of innocence and happiness, before any real anxieties, hardships and responsibilities kick in. Also, that a childhood which is not innocent, happy, or free from anxiety, hardship or responsibility, can mess up the rest of a person’s life to greater and lesser degrees. Still, I have a real problem with it, and the format of the television doesn’t help to win me over. My understanding is that the money raised under the umbrella charity “Children in Need” is then disseminated to other worthy charities (national ones, I think, rather than international causes?). But you never really know where the money goes… Presumably to Barnados, to help children who are caring for disabled parents, to buy holidays for children who are terminally ill, etc. Many of these causes are exceptionally worthy and you can’t really pick holes in the examples I cited, but are all the destinations for the money as valid? I suppose if I sat through the telethon I’d find out... It’s just that children, because they are supposed to be innocent and happy, etc, are a very obvious target for charity. Call me hard-hearted, but it’s my opinion that there are enough children’s charities engaged in fundraising already. I can hear the voice of a woman I used to know, all simpering and mawkish, exclaiming “Oh! but what about the children…?” This kind of person puts me in a bad mood just thinking about it. It’s hard to argue with concerned hand wringing people worrying about “The Children”, as though there could be no other cause under the sun more worthy of money or concern. But the fact remains - there are a thousand and one charities for children already. I’m sure that a charity with ‘Children’ in its title must immediately have a huge head start over a charity that doesn’t. And isn’t it possible that children’s causes, being, as I said, such an easy, soft target for fundraising, are easily hi-jacked by people with other agendas to promote, and noone dare wonder if these people are attaching themselves to so obvious a cause for ulterior motives, for fear of themselves being accused of monstrous inhumanity. Exactly like the sixth-form girls who wandered around school last Friday dressed in pyjamas (control yourselves, boys!), I’m sure many of the people on TV who get involved with the show just want to be looked at.
It shouldn’t annoy me that children’s charities get such a high profile, but it does. Why? Because it displays a certain lack of imagination. Like a lottery winner, asked what he spent the money on, replying, “Well, I bought a Bentley, a sports car, a Range Rover, a convertible…”. (Why do you need four cars? Have some imagination!). That’s what I think about people who always, year in and year out, pledge their charitable donations to children’s causes. People who pledge all their money and inheritances to animal charities are even worse.
Anyway, here are my top choices, not that I’m particularly in a position to give money away…
A really important charity carries out straightforward operations to restore bladder control to women who should’ve had caesareans but didn’t. Yes, the governments of these countries should pay, but they don’t. Or won’t. And I can’t help feeling that someone should. As if three, four, sometimes five days of unassisted labour without any kind of pain relief or even a hot bath isn’t bad enough to begin with, the women are then permanently incontinent. Not the kind that results from urgency, or coughing, but a relentless, drip, drip, drip, all day every day for the rest of their lives. The women can’t afford to buy proper sanitary products for absorbance so they use rags. A tearjerking fact: after the operation has been carried out, the charity gives the women a new dress and the bus fare home. I wish this charity had half the status and limelight as Children in Need - I suppose the general public prefer not to engage with the messier problems that some people in this world have to put up with.
Here’s another, helping people who have been injured by burns, and raising funds to research the care of wounds.
And another, very important charity that I’ve always felt strongly about. (Not just because of a recent high-profile case).
And yet another!
Children in Need indeed. Bollocks to it. (I know, I know – what a thing to say!).
Children in Need has been and gone again, for another year. Thank God. I don’t like it at all. I realise that childhood is supposed to be a time of innocence and happiness, before any real anxieties, hardships and responsibilities kick in. Also, that a childhood which is not innocent, happy, or free from anxiety, hardship or responsibility, can mess up the rest of a person’s life to greater and lesser degrees. Still, I have a real problem with it, and the format of the television doesn’t help to win me over. My understanding is that the money raised under the umbrella charity “Children in Need” is then disseminated to other worthy charities (national ones, I think, rather than international causes?). But you never really know where the money goes… Presumably to Barnados, to help children who are caring for disabled parents, to buy holidays for children who are terminally ill, etc. Many of these causes are exceptionally worthy and you can’t really pick holes in the examples I cited, but are all the destinations for the money as valid? I suppose if I sat through the telethon I’d find out... It’s just that children, because they are supposed to be innocent and happy, etc, are a very obvious target for charity. Call me hard-hearted, but it’s my opinion that there are enough children’s charities engaged in fundraising already. I can hear the voice of a woman I used to know, all simpering and mawkish, exclaiming “Oh! but what about the children…?” This kind of person puts me in a bad mood just thinking about it. It’s hard to argue with concerned hand wringing people worrying about “The Children”, as though there could be no other cause under the sun more worthy of money or concern. But the fact remains - there are a thousand and one charities for children already. I’m sure that a charity with ‘Children’ in its title must immediately have a huge head start over a charity that doesn’t. And isn’t it possible that children’s causes, being, as I said, such an easy, soft target for fundraising, are easily hi-jacked by people with other agendas to promote, and noone dare wonder if these people are attaching themselves to so obvious a cause for ulterior motives, for fear of themselves being accused of monstrous inhumanity. Exactly like the sixth-form girls who wandered around school last Friday dressed in pyjamas (control yourselves, boys!), I’m sure many of the people on TV who get involved with the show just want to be looked at.
It shouldn’t annoy me that children’s charities get such a high profile, but it does. Why? Because it displays a certain lack of imagination. Like a lottery winner, asked what he spent the money on, replying, “Well, I bought a Bentley, a sports car, a Range Rover, a convertible…”. (Why do you need four cars? Have some imagination!). That’s what I think about people who always, year in and year out, pledge their charitable donations to children’s causes. People who pledge all their money and inheritances to animal charities are even worse.
Anyway, here are my top choices, not that I’m particularly in a position to give money away…
A really important charity carries out straightforward operations to restore bladder control to women who should’ve had caesareans but didn’t. Yes, the governments of these countries should pay, but they don’t. Or won’t. And I can’t help feeling that someone should. As if three, four, sometimes five days of unassisted labour without any kind of pain relief or even a hot bath isn’t bad enough to begin with, the women are then permanently incontinent. Not the kind that results from urgency, or coughing, but a relentless, drip, drip, drip, all day every day for the rest of their lives. The women can’t afford to buy proper sanitary products for absorbance so they use rags. A tearjerking fact: after the operation has been carried out, the charity gives the women a new dress and the bus fare home. I wish this charity had half the status and limelight as Children in Need - I suppose the general public prefer not to engage with the messier problems that some people in this world have to put up with.
Here’s another, helping people who have been injured by burns, and raising funds to research the care of wounds.
And another, very important charity that I’ve always felt strongly about. (Not just because of a recent high-profile case).
And yet another!
Children in Need indeed. Bollocks to it. (I know, I know – what a thing to say!).
