July 22, 2011 at 1:51 pm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/apr/25/humanitarian-aid-war-linda-polman
I read Linda Polman’s ‘War Games’ earlier this year, a disturbing look at how donated aid can serve to perpetrate the cycles of war and and dependency, with reference to African nations, chiefly. And that book has very much been in my mind with the emergency/famine in the Horn of Africa.
As has my membership (there, interest [...]
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December 22, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Am i just capricious or are there others out there who change their priorities as to which charities are deserving of their largesse? These past few months i have definitely had a change of heart, and that will be reflected in my giving in 2011. This change by the way has certainly not arisen because [...]
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August 10, 2010 at 2:12 pm
As ever, last week, just after payday, settled to write my usual quota of charity cheques. As i try to send them out on a rota, when i looked through my charity folder there were no envelopes for charities for which i had not given to in the last 3 months.
So i consulted my notebook [...]
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June 24, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Reading the book itself must awaits the next wodge of Book Tokens i have trained my nearest & dearest to give me for birthdays, but i read a review recently of a book called ‘War Games: The Story of Aid & War in Modern Times’ by Linda Polman. Sounds just my type of book, will [...]
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April 16, 2010 at 10:18 pm
I read a few weeks back there are 166000 charities in the UK. Probably a few more by now, breeding like wire hangers in the back of the wardrobe.
Clearly a legal activity in this country, to set up a charity, but why do we need so many? If i came across a situation where i felt charitable donations could be very useful [...]
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March 11, 2010 at 3:04 pm
A few weeks ago i read a story in in everyone’s favorite free daily paper, reporting on a Metro Harris poll around the governments decision to increase overseas aid by £2.3bn. The poll showed
50% think the UK government is giving too much in overseas aid
49% think foreign aid for developing countries is a a bad [...]
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February 24, 2010 at 10:37 am
I didn’t give to the latest disaster, ie the earthquake in Haiti, same as i didn’t give to the tsunami some years ago. My reasoning being that plenty of people who are not regular givers to charity (apart from loose change in a charity tin waved in their face) who will dig deep when the need is so obvious [...]
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February 14, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Can’t find the post where i suggested as much, but i was delighted to read a few days back that Help the Aged and Age Concern are shortly to merge to become Age UK. So now i will not have to haver over which one deserves my dosh when i am in the giving mood. I dare say if i [...]
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December 16, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Stille tag too, to judge by the lighter burden charities placed on my ’postie’ this December. I don’t have records to show but i am positive i have had considerably less charity mailshots this past month.
Then i read a piece in the London Metro last week highlighting how much harder fundraising is across the charity sector [...]
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November 3, 2009 at 3:03 pm
The latest appeal from Crisis should shift some money into their coffers anyway. What came through my door was round, a plate of food, and i was impresssed the plate had an underside too. It was the trad Christmas meal which was presented – trad for indigeneous Brits anyway – and well-designed to catch the attention [...]
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