Monday 24 March 2014

Charity Choices

The 'charity' word seems to be a daily occurrence these days. Turn on your Tv set and you're greeted by adverts asking you to donate to a whole multitude of charities and institutions. Walk through town and usually you'll notice someone with a collection tin or more often than not these days a clipboard who wants you to part with money or donate it via monthly direct debit. Retire to your home or the local pub and there's still no respite, a Tv application on my ipad now has charity appeal adverts before the app starts and pubs often have charity tins or events. Basically charity appeals are everywhere.

As a nation the British are very generous, we give millions unquestioningly away every year to countless charities. Many are very just causes and we all identify with different charities because of how life has shaped us whether it be having lost a friend or family member to cancer or a love of wildlife and pets. I don't have a problem with people giving to a charity but I certainly do object to how in your face charities are these days from the above examples to 'chuggers' (slang for charity muggers) chasing your through a town centre to coerce you using simple psychology or fake bonhomie to part with your cash. Charity is big business nowadays, high streets are lined with their shops staffed by wage free volunteers with our second hand items marked up at a handsome price. Such shops even get tax breaks and incentives so invariably profits rise. I'm not knocking charity shops, I've bagged many a bargain in them but a recent radio debate about them highlighted just how they are making it pay with prices comparable to some high street chains.

How many billions have we given to charity to save malnourished or diseased Africans over the decades and yet the suffering still goes on. Many questions boil down to ethics. Are we actually solving matters at the root of the problem or just stemming the tide? The moral philosopher Peter Singer once said;

'The interests of all persons ought to count equally, and geographic location and citizenship make no intrinsic difference to the rights and obligations of individuals'.

As I mentioned earlier its not unreasonable to question peoples reasons for giving but do we always give to causes in the greatest needs? And how can we with so many? There's other ethical reasons like should we give to charity as it can interfere with the autonomy and self determination of the recipient or they may live in a country who has a questionable regime?

Dr Neil Levy argued that charity can be self defeating if it allows the state to escape its responsibilities. Another good argument by Reinhold Niebuhr in his work 'Moral Man and Immoral Society' raises the point that negro schools (back in the 20s/30s) were good at addressing self realisation and learning but no good at solving social injustices negro's suffered at the time.

Moving on from heavy ethical or utilitarianism arguments to me charity has to be something tangible, I need to see or at least feel that my money is making a difference. An example? Well last week I was asked to donate to Sport Aid and politely refused. Although there were incentives such as a raffled prizes I often feel such circumstances that I'm not really sure where my money is going. Later that day I donated a small amount to a local bird sanctuary that often displays the wild birds it cares for on my local market place. The point being in donating to the latter I can see the birds are being cared for, I can readily see where my money is going. Lastly I'd like to add regarding Sport Aid that how many top earning football stars donated a weeks wages for it?

Returning to the Africa subject. I once had a chat with a civil engineer guy who was working out there and had been responsible for installing water wells in remote villages. They instructed the tribes people to use the water when needed and not leave the well tap running. On returning a few days later they found the well almost bereft of water and more alarmingly noticed people drinking water from the ground of the partly flooded village, even worse on turning a corner they noticed a man defecating nonchalantly just yards from where children were drinking water from the ground. This goes back to the earlier point of solving the root of the problem or just stemming it.

Ironically we can send money to distant African nations to seemingly apathetic people we see on the tv screens yet we vilify our own poor, many of whom are having to go to food banks because of financial hardship or economic circumstance. 

My grandmother always used to say the phrase 'Charity begins at home' which is derived more from John Wycliffe and John Fletcher than as some claim - The Bible. In these times of austerity and economic hardship I feel that more than ever we need to stop and think where our money is actually going and what exactly its being use for. I do empathise with people in the third world, in fact I like to think I empathise with people the world over but I won't be cajoled or made to feel I have to give to charity just because others around me are, for me its about an informed choice and a personal one.



No comments:

Post a Comment