It's a shitty world... :(

[Nikolas]

I just found out about this: http://www.globefordarfur.org/dfd4.html (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict)

Then I thought of http://www.oxfam.org.uk/ and then http://www.unicef.org/ and then http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/ and then http://www.bigissue.com/ and then http://www.greenpeace.org/international/ and then I stoped googling charities or orgs. on firefox!

WTF? ? ?

There are xillions of different orgs and charities about pretty much everything... And while I like to do "my bid" and help here and there (a card for Xmas from unicef, buy whenever I see from the big issue, etc), I still can't think of what I'm not doing... And I feel ashamed I really do. I know that somehow I need to prioritise and I know that noone will blame me if I can't find all charities to help but still... I recently found out about a charity, dealing with deactivating bombs in the (former) Yougoslavia region or something... Same with everything else...

I just can't help to feel:

A. Lucky. 2 beds, 2 kids, enough food to... basically throw away
B. incompetent: I can't do anything to help
C. Guilty... With everything in my life.

Yes, I know it's phychological, but still I just can't believe that there is nothing to do for all those innocent people out there... I'm no saint, nor I plan to sell my (non existant house) to help others. But somehow I don't sleep well at night.

Really sorry for this. Just had to get it out.

[ManicMatt]

I used to send money to Action Aid. It was £5 a month. Once a month I'd receive a fully coloured booklet and photos. I'm sorry, I thought I was funding a good cause, not a publication!

That's really bugging me Nik, it would be "shitty" not "shity", if it's even an actual word!

[Radiant]

This is indeed a weird world we're living in.

There are way too many charities, in that it's hard at times to make sense of which is doing what. Worse, there are some that are misguided, or ineffectual, or even fraudulent (for instance, there's a Dutch lottery that makes a big show out of being a charity, even though it is rather obviously a commercial gambling effort).

What can one do... the easiest is to pick a good, solid charity (Oxfam is one, as is MCF / DWB) to donate to. Taking care where you shop can make somewhat of a difference as well. Other than that, it depends on how much spare time you have left. Most charities are always happy to have volunteers, if only to raise awareness of the issue.

Of special mention is Amnesty International; they don't really want your money all that much, but they do want your voice. Amnesty works by persuading governments, and this is most persuasive if they can say they speak for two million people worldwide.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Nikolas, you're falling right into the trap that some of the charities make! They guilt you into doing something.

Why else should they flaunt such graphic evidence so many times and for so long? Why else should they keep on repeating how bad things are?

Granted, that's only one side of the coin - yes, those people do need help. Yes, charities are good. But the thing is, we all have problems. If we can spare something, enough to help other people, then we should do so.

But as you've seen, there are SO MANY charities out there, you can't possibly feel the same about all of them. It'll drive you mad. It'll make you feel guilty about having a good life! A good life is what we're all trying to achieve! Feeling guilty about it is so counter-productive, it's stupid (in the sense that you hurt yourself needlessly).

We do what we can. The people at the charities have volunteered their lives to do this. They're asking other people to do the same. The problem starts when they give the impression that people SHOULD and are BAD PEOPLE if they don't - and most major charities I've come across, the really big and important ones, don't do this, thankfully.

Put it like this - it's like a mother saying to the kid, "Eat up! Think of all the children who are starving, and here you are wasting food!". Great, mom. Instill guilt on the kid, making him think that if he ate more food he's actually help reduce world hunger. Maybe if he's guilty he'll eat more. Oh wait, isn't the opposite often true?

Don't sweat it, Nik. It's really not worth it. It says a lot about you that you can feel guilty about it, and feel sad, and etc., and what it says is all good, but if you try and carry it all on your shoulders (which, by figuring "I should be helping more and more and more and more", you are), you'll make yourself miserable, thus making everything you've achieved for yourself useless.

[Tuomas]

If you really feel like you can't affect by giving money to charity then I think you shouldn't. However if you still want to, there are way of doing it, that everone can. And I know some people are pessimistic on this, but that's just one of the biggest things that is making our efforts difficult.

I don't have money, I don't have shit. I'm a month late on my rent and don't have money for uni books, but I still try and do everything I can. Well, not everything, but within reason. Right this year our organisation launche a campign only to raise awareness and then send a plea for the government to act like something was to be done. Because worrying about things at home only makes you and the ones you worry about feel worse. But I like to believe there's a wa you can help more than by just paying money for merchandise, which still is for the best asit does raise awareness and it does show the organisations that there still is someone who cares and so their work is worthwile. And I don't listen to people who say one man can't do anything. Shit man, with £5 per month you'll do a lot, you'd be surprised. Even though you can't eat at Mcdonalds that one day.

Althought I agree t's not easy with the 80% of the funds in this world are against all of this. About Sudan, I'm not surprised it's the first time you heard about that, but the whole issue is pretty simple. But I won't go explaining it here. It's not just some random tribal wars, it goes way deeper.

[fred]

Nikolas, I felt just like you a while ago, and when I asked about it on these forums, luckily someone was around to calm me down a bit. In fact that person was you 

Just take a look at >this thread<. I'm going to quote you and just give you your own advice back: "the answer is to just do the best you can". I appreciated your advice back then, because I was feeling very guilty, like you are now, not realizing that I was in fact doing the best I could, which of course isn't very much, but it still might make a difference for a few people.

I think the feelings of guilt and incompetence is what makes it very easy for people to scorn (or just forget about) these issues. It's much more comfortable. On the contrary, flooding the poor areas with cash is not a good idea, because improving life conditions also requires a change in mentality which can only occur gradually, which is why I think supporting some of the larger relief agencies is a good idea, because they have coordinated strategies that take the political climates in the recipient countries into account, whereas the smaller organizations may be limited to operating in areas and with people they know, regardless of other factors, such as political reliances.

Not that it isn't difficult to find out which relief agency to donate to. I suggest doing a bit of reading on their sites - most of them have case studies and in-depth articles on what's going on - if they contain some observations that you find truly relevant, go for it and donate something, if you can. If you can't, it doesn't make you a bad person, imo. You know how you feel, and just raising your kids with that sense of responsibility will be a kind of improvement.

Well, I hope you can take your own advice, I know I did

[InCreator]

I don't quite understand your guilt.
I don't.

So, yes, there's millions of people suffering from hunger, diseases, lack of even minimum quality of life, etc.
It's everywhere. People like this wander at your home city streets, not only in distant lands.
It's not your fault. You don't have to tear yourself apart just because they are unlucky... or stupid.

There are countries/areas in the world that will always have trouble. Like Middle East. Like Africa.
Especially Africa. Weird, it feels like there wasn't a single day of peace on this continent, never.

And yet, by popular theories, we all come from Africa. So, people there are oldest. Their fight and their culture is most ancient.
Don't they ever learn? There's mostly a prosperous nature, full with natural resources and enough room for everyone.

Yet we see skinny, hungry kids wielding AK-47's at TV news camera every day. 
Kind of symbolizing violent roots of human being...

Yeh, it's a shitty world. But on a individual level, I don't think we could do much.
So, you make a donation.
So, few hungry kids get few days of food.
So, they live another month.
What changes? They're still living in their nightmare. The fighting goes on. If one conflict ends, another starts.
You cannot donate brains. And it's not kids who need them, but warlords. Then again, some of the kids become new warlords one day...

It takes a superpower to restore order and peace, and it should be done with mutual effort by all countries in the world. A final, decisive war, with no commercial interests included.
Definetly not what's going on in Iraq right now.
Am I talking about World War III?

Maybe. After WWII, large portion of Europe was under Soviet rule. Even though for many countries, it was a national nightmare, including mine.
Truth is that next 50 years there was no war. Many cities got built up, and there was food for everyone.

Strange idea: if you want world to be a better place, don't pay taxes. How many weapons has government produced from all the tax money you have paid? How many killers were trained? You have already donated, but not into peace...

Feeding a long chain of fat charity workers with sad eyes doesn't sound like much of help to me.

[voh]

I could worry every waking moment about the horrors somebody elsewhere on this earth is facing. I could worry every waking moment about a child not being able to eat even a reasonable amount of food somewhere on this earth.

I choose not to. I've got enough around me to work on, and I refuse to give in to this feeling of "guilt" and "responsibility" the charities try to instill in me. I'm not heartless, I feel for the people of this world who are less fortunate than I am, but I honestly can't be bothered to pay off my guilt with a measly couple of bucks, thrown into the sea that is called "charity expenses".

If you see how much of the money donated for the victims of the tsunamis actually ended up being used to help them, you'll see that most charities are mostly bullcrap.

Sure there's good ones around, but do I then, in addition to feeling the guilt and responsibility of leading such a comfortable life, have to spend time figuring out which charities aren't doing the work they're supposed to?

Fucked if I will. Kids in Africa are going to keep starving, people in Darfur will continue to be shafted.

And my life will still be the same.

You can call me an egotistical bastard, but I prefer the term "realist".

Charities are a way of paying off your guilt. That's how I see them and I won't do that. I have no guilt, I feel no responsibility.

edit: I do like Oxfam and Amnesty though. They're not the bloodsucking weasels some charities are.

[Nikolas]

Thanks guys

Now to put some things straight. I have little doubt that the few well known charities are doing a well job (oxfam, unicef, amnesty international (which I failed to mention), and a few others).

I also need to mention that, yes, I feel somehow guilty. When you see "people dying next to you", shouldn't you raise your hand to help? What if this "...next to you", is slightly further away? or on a different continent?

Of course I'm falling for the trap, but I did say that I'm not saint, nor I plan on selling my house, to pay of my guilt, I'm not insane...

But, from a very theoritical POV, I fail to just give up and say "yeah, I'm a realist, nothing can be done, let them fuck themselves, or die, or be killed, or whatever". Somehow I need to think that there is something to be done. Mainly because the tons and tons of waste thrown away in the USA and Europe (and Asia partly), could be used to save (at least) from hunger millions of people. Or not?

[lo_res_man]

now I know it is slow, but world poverty is actully down significantly. But I don't quite agree with the 'Millions of tons of stuff, lets give it to africa" approach. I think it is better to teach a man to fish rather then simply give a man one and leave it at that. Yes These places need help and they could definatly use more, but I think it is also important to not create a culture of dependancy, help the people build up there industies and make them thiers, not just give hand outs.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

You're still in the extremes, Nikolas. You're still seeing is as a coin with two sides - either donate all or let them **** themselves.

The answer, as everyone has pointed out, is a middle ground. You don't have to be a super-human.

If you see something you think you can fix, or help to fix, you go ahead and do it. But go on with your life as well.

Have you ever thought that by composing you might be making the world that extra bit better? We're all here for a reason. I'm not religious, so I don't think it's a divine reason, or fate - I just think we each have a unique drive within us. Yours is music. So what YOU can do to help might be composing! Two facts: music won't feed the body, and the body can die... and a steak won't feed the soul, and if the soul dies, the body's just a lump of meat.

Sure, priorities - the body has to be fed BEFORE the soul. But if you're here to feed souls, if you try to feed too many bodies you'll just get distracted. Music is motivational, uplifting, touching... you can even use it to raise awareness, if you really want that. Give the people a good heartfelt song, and they'll follow you till the end of the earth, or close enough.

Bottom line - do what you can for other people. But if you don't think of yourself first, you won't *have* anything to give to, or do for, other people.

[Stupot]

I'm sure you've heard the term "that's my good deed for the day".

I think that's all that can realistically be expected of any of us.  If you get the chance every day to do one selfless act, no matter how small, then take it. It's no skin off your nose and it might bring a smile to someone else's face.  Buy a Big Issue, drop a few coins into a charity box, whatever happens.

If you want to do something a little more proactive, why not compose a charity CD for one of your favourite causes?

[Tuomas]

If you want to do something a little more proactive, why not compose a charity CD for one of your favourite causes?

Now there's an idea worth thinking. I'd love to contribute on one of those.