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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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My wife's school, like many schools, embraces good causes. They are sending to "Africa" (no region specified) items that they are collecting.
I am interested to know whether the items they are collecting will be of real use.
They are collecting.......
Toiletries
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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For a people that have nothing then I suppose they would value anything they received. However, minty fresh breathe may not be terribly important to someone dying of starvation. But then again, when you send food it just ends up on the black market and never seems to reach the victims. If they want to gather something meaningful, how about signatures to have the U.N. stop the atrocities being committed there? The world needs to grow a backbone.
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
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I think almost anything that can be sent will be welcomed. In my travels in the third world one thing that amazed me was that there would almost always be a competition for the garbage we had on board ship, depending on where we docked and access to the general public.
Strangely enough one thing that was always in demand was soap for personal use, for body or cloths.
Personally I would stick with anything basic; we in the first world seldom have any real concept of just how little the majority of the rest of the world has that we take for granted.
The only thing that gives me pause about anything like this is that very little of it trickles down to the people that need it. In the case of money being sent to poor countries by first world governments over time it seems that most of that money ends up in a Swiss bank account. This seems to be the case with aid too; a war lord or an official gets their hands on a load of aid and ends up selling it and pocketing the money. In other words from what I’ve seen it’s best to put what ever is collected into the hands of an organization that has someone on the ground where ever it’s sent so there is some assurance that it will indeed get to the people that need it.
People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
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Well, there's nothing wrong as such with sending non-essentials: it's important to help people with things that they can aspire to, things that are life-enriching, activities that set us apart from non-human animals and affirm our essential shared humanity. There has been some excellent arts-based development stuff done, for example. I'm not terribly sure that I'd put cosmetics and toiletries at the top of my list, however ... I rather doubt that any of the reputable aid agencies would, either.
A word of warning. There have been several instances of goods being collected "for africa", which have gone out in boxes laden with bibles and religious tracts of a rather unpleasant and fundamentalist kind: the "aid goods" effectively being a bribe to get the recipients to listen to "missionaries".
The appalling and terrifying "Operation Christmas Child" a few years ago - the "Samaritan's Purse" project - worked largely through schools: see http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1081349,00.html for example.
I would urge that the bonafides of whatever organisation is coordinating the project that your wife's school is participating in are very thoroughly investigated!
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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prolly not..... although common bar soap, alchohol, peroxide, bandages, asprin, things of that nature would be greatly appreciated by the refugee camps.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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jack
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Likes it here |
Location: England
Registered: September 2006
Messages: 304
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I would have thought old clothes would be more practical, people do need protection from the sun.
it is a case of a little of everything. no money should be given because of the political situation in some countries of Africa
My heart bleeds for these people so education is one of the important issues. .Then medical help and sexual health education, so as to control Aids etc.
sorry i have gone of the track yes a little of everything including toiletries at least they can trade them if they have little need.
life is to enjoy.
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I think from what I remember about the unit we had on Africa in world history that we're about fifty years now from the independence movement there, and the time when Great Britain and France and the other colonial nations pulled out. The African people are way worse off now it seems than they ever were under colonial government. Maybe Britain and France and Portugal should go back and finish the job of creating stable governments. My Dad has said that the problem with colonialism wasn't that it existed but that it didn't last long enough.
If you want a case study on African politics and government look at the progression from Southern Rhodesia to Rhodesia to the cess pool called Zimbabwe.
If I were you I would spend my money on local charities there in the United Kingdom. Here we have enough poverty to go around and we don't need to send our money ten thousand miles away. What's the old mantra? Charity begins at home?
I wish this English class wasn't so freakin' boring!
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