Tsunami Disaster Relief

Tsunami Disaster Relief

I'm sure by now everybody should have at least donated some money to some charity that would be donating to the above cause. The most well-known agency collecting aid for this cause would be the Red Cross Society of Singapore. We can see their tin cans everywhere, adverts on all newspapers and magazines, one newspaper has even tied up with that agency to collect donations.

But this girl here, our dearest Joan, hasn't donated a single cent to any organisation yet.

Why?

The reason to Joan is very simple. Like other charity donation drives which Joan scoffs at, she absolutely has no intention of donating money that contributes to some rich official's coffers.

Red Cross had said right from the start of their donation drive that they only want money. No food, no clothes, no nothing except money. Well, I think donations shouldn't be like that. Even though we've seen in other donation drives some people donated things like bikinis, hats and god knows what for the Relief, it'd be damning to just ask for money that ultimately would be used to acquire clothes and food which could be donated by us. So why money? According to Red Cross, they said that it would be logistically more viable for them to purchase these goods. Then again, here's the big question:

Where are they going to buy those relief stuff from?

According to Red Cross, the money that we Singaporeans had donated will be sent over to their Red Cross headquarters in London, then from there the London Red Cross would then decide how they'd like to allocated the money to the various afflicted nations. Hence, it would most likely be that the relief items would be bought in London, or Europe. Imagine millions of dollars just flowing out of our little economy into the already fat pockets of the European Union, not a very pretty sight ain't it?

If we were to donate in kind or to an agency based in Singapore, at least those relief items would be purchased in our homeland and our economy would remain in equilibrium. Okay, I might sound a bit overtly nationalistic but I always believe that we must have the might to sustain ourselves before we do out part and help others.

Back to my main point, before anybody accuses me of being unfeeling towards the disaster victims, I feel pained for them just like everyone else. I also think that they would need our aid, it's just the operations of Red Cross that I distrust. As a newpaper had reported, there are fears that up to 25% of the donations would end up as operation costs for the Red Cross. Is that what we had wanted?! Had we donated money so that it could be spent on such?! To me, I'd think that it's a pure waste of money! Hence my boycott of the Society.

I would everyone else who don't want their money used other purposes than relief do so too!

If you really don't mind your money used for other Red Cross purposes, really, I'm not stopping you from donating money to them, after all, it's your money. haha...

But then again, would all the other 75% of the donations end up aiding the disaster victims?

I don't think so. A big portion of that money would somehow find it's way into the coffers of some local big shot official. Maybe not so much for these Red Cross funds, but definitely so for those funds contributed by the various nations in the name of reconstructing South Asia. This would be especially so bearing in mind that those countries afflicted by the disaster are all pretty corrupt countries. Who can cross their hearts and say that India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand is not corrupt you are either ignorant or very ignorant.

This whole Red Cross affair reminds me of one particular local charity organisation that Joan absolutely detests. NKF.

We all know that 25% of NKF funds goes to some obscure cause other than helping needy patients and we know that the NKF building is VERY nicely furnished and lots of people are still donating during their charity shows as they want to win a condo or a car or god knows what.

Is that still charity?

Joan doesn't think so. yup... And as such, Joan is hugely ANTI-NKF.

But please don't think that I'm just another selfish brat. Cos I ain't. Perhaps is what I deem as charity and helping others is different from other people.