l have enjoyed watching Comic Relief - and seeing all the work that goes into raising all that money - This year an amazing 48 million. Watching the children in Africa - all the poor orphans who work all day on the rubbish tips picking out plastic bottles to sell for about 10p a day. They sleep rough - risk having all the bottles they have found - stolen off them by the bigger kids.
When interviewed - they all crave an education. Desperate to be able to go to school. And all seem to have aspirations to be teachers/doctors/lawyers etc. There command of English language is incredible.
Then this morning l watch the news - and see that the UK spent £80 million this last year on clearing up take-away containers/rubbish and fly tipping. Most of this is dropped by ‘yobbos’ who have never wanted a decent education. Seeing the state of city streets after these youngsters have had a night out on the booze - then finished off with a take-away. Dropping the cartons and wrappers in the street.
Pity we can’t do a swap - send our hooligans out to Africa and see how they manage without parents- money and benefits.
The worlds gone crazy. The charities are helping all they can in third world countries. And they are very grateful - and must think life in UK to be ‘perfect’- when we have an element of our population who do not take responsibility for their own actions, and make life a misery for hardworking decent folk.
2 out of every 3 children in Africa dying from malaria. The mosquito nets are said to be £2-50 each. l am sure China could supply the nets for a fraction of that price - so again someone’s making money out of the unfortunate.
Would making people pay a returnable deposit on all take-away cartons/wrappers work. l suppose not - as most are dropped by people who are inebriated and not really in a fit enough state to know what they are doing.
Most days - l pick up wrappers/bottles/cans etc that have been thrown out of cars in the lanes around this village. l always wear gloves and use a grabber - carry it all back on my scooter. Mattresses/fridges/builders rubbish l leave to the council. We have found actual addresses/bank statements etc amongst the rubbish. But the council and police do not seem to fine the people. All they have to say is that they ‘paid’ someone to take it away! And if we were to ‘tip’ it back at their address we would be in trouble with the law [which is an ass].
My first floor flat in bonny Bridlington looks down on the street. Nearby we have the guest houses.
Weekenders come all year round. You see them going out all dressed up and walking a straight line, then later some come back worse for wear. Which is their business but it does anger me when you see some wobbling along with their fish and chips, pizzas etc, then just dropping the containers on the floor or over a wall.
Had one too many myself over the years but always managed to see the bins that are available.
I really admire Comic Relief and other fundraising events in raising money to help vulnerable children and adults not only in Africa but all round the world.
We have a lot of children/adults in this country who are living in squalid, sad environments. The problem is getting worse with all the cuts made to council’s budgets, which fund social workers.
Well done Comic Relief. I don’t understand how after 30 years of actively fundraising the situation is still as bad as it is. Afterall, £1 billion has been raised over the years.
It seems that the list of things urgently wanted has stayed the same, ie vaccinations, pure running water etc. Surely the poor people and little ones should have this set up already by funds raised in years gone by or am I being thick?
i watched it last night and the one that brought me to tears was a young father talking to john bishop.
he had young children with him and john asked him how many children he had. he said the number but not the same as the number of children who were with him. they were all girls. john asked if he had any sons. the grief on that man’s face. his sons were buried in his back yard. he took john bishop to see and the poor man was patting the earth over his 13 yr old and 18 yr old sons.
i’m choking up now writing this. his boys died because they didn’t have any mosquito nets.
then a cover band called no direction singing a one direction song and doing the moves came on.
johnny vegas, vic reeves and 3 others but i can’t remember who now.
they made me laugh whilst i was still crying.
what an emotional show.
it is an outrage that children die for want of a mosquito net.
l think the biggest ‘disease’ in the world is corruption. All the funds that have been sent to these countries over the years should have solved the problems of running water/sanitation/schools/housing/hospitals - but it hasn’t. Someone is getting fat on it though.
Do you remember the Anneka Rice tv series. She was helping to build orphanages etc in Romania. Most of these were ransacked and stripped of all the fittings/plumbing/beds etc not long after the programme was aired.
For the first time this year I have not contributed. I just thought that they should be spending the money, not investing it for years. Panorama were making a programme in 2013, an excerpt from the Telegraph about the documentary -
The documentary is understood to examine how the charity allegedly invested £150 million of its funds for up to eight years, before handing the money to the causes for which it had been raised.
Some of the money was allegedly invested in tobacco firms and an arms company.
By the end of last year, the charity was allegedly sitting on £261million in a mixture of shares, bonds and cash.
The six-month investigation also explores how staffing costs at Comic Relief have allegedly almost doubled from £7.1million a year in 2008 to £13.5 million by 2012.
nauseating to think anyone could use charity as a platform to get rich but it must happen, mores the pity. as an old hippy i believe people are inherently good and want to help, especially the massive-hearted folks who donate billions to charity over every year.
i suppose that aside from the ransacking, excessive wage bill, misappropriation of funds, etc. a proportion of the essential resources are consumable therefore require an increased investment year-on-year. although i contribute to charity in many ways i understand and respect why people don’t, when there are some ‘agents of society’ who plainly take the p***.
lets face it, if:
governments of these countries receipt of significant charitable donation (definitely including the UK) used a more realistic percentage of their tax income, and supported their societies in a proper economic manner instead of leaving it to independent charities to do this job;
most charities gave a more ethical and proportionate percentage of their fundraising total to the causes they are in place to support (ie no excessive ‘administration costs’);
we all consumed less food and energy;
there would be much less poverty and hunger
right, apologies for that, and i am now exchanging the soapbox for a mattress xx