l gave an awful feeling

Am I very shallow to say that I do donate to DEC because it makes me feel a tiny bit better?
Of course I am but it is the only thing I CAN do.
As to decrying those who say charity begins at home!! I am presently in the fortunate position to be able to help one of my children and family who really need it as well as donating.
If it came to a choice my family would win every time.

A couple of years ago I found a leaflet which fell out of the Radio Times. I can't remember the charity but it was providing a food supplement called Plumpynut. I thought - what a good idea I will send them some money.
Then I read through the leaflet again. The family shown consisted of a man in his 60s together with four wives and NINETEEN CHILDREN. He was "too frail to work" but as three of the children were under the age of 3 he can't be that ruddy frail! This, in a country with very limited resources. Each of those nineteen children may well go on to have nineteen children themselves. How can anyone support this? Sheer breathtaking idiocy. Yes, it is their "culture" but I refuse to support it with my money.
I give to a small charity in Bangladesh which provides sewing machines so that the women can earn money to support themselves and their children. I will not support stupidity no matter which religious banner hangs over it.

When men believe that they will be cured of AIDS if they have sex with a very young virgin there is a long way to go.

I agree with katiemay. Although, because of their religion/culture/customs (delete as appropriate) education in family planning is unlikely to be effective.

As a nation we do give a large amount of our GDP in foreign aid. mcem criticises those who give to animal charities. I must stand up and be counted. I support a local wildlife hospital because I think they do an enormous amount of good work. Hardly a day passes that they don't get a call out to rescue a swan caught up in fishing lines, a fox cub tangled up in a football net, and don't even get me started on animals poisoned by anti-freeze, snares, illegal traps, you name it.

None of us has unlimited resources, but if we had? If I had that kind of resource, would it help if I assembled a team of family experts and went into the Sudan or Yemen? I can imagine just how far I'd get with that.

After the Irish potato famine it took a century for the population to recover numbers. In Somalia it took 20 years. One generation.

katiemay I agree.

I think that is one of the aims of the Gates Foundation and probably of other charities too.
You do see pictures of despairing mothers with starving children, some of whom may have died on the long walk to safety and think if only they had some way of limiting their families.
www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Development/How-have-contraceptives-changed-your-life

Money is more available to the RSPCA than it is to the RSPCC

I believe, that nature takes control at times, and when life becomes unsustainable for whatever reason, famine, earthquakes, tsunamis, plagues strike. The world is over populated. It isn't pretty or fair or any of the things that we want it to be but it is natural. The nature of man is bloodshed. The earth throws up famine, disease, pestilence, disasters.........we have been trying to help for as long as I can remember and I am not sure that we have been much help at all.

I wonder how many peope are alive and sufering now because we 'saved' their parents enough for them to be born and live lives of poverty. We can send food, and medicines, but we rely upon sweat shops making our nice stuff for us and modern slavery providing cheap IT options and we love a bargain holiday with sunshine and local colour, ride an elephant, hold hands with Orangutans, visit the Arctic. We don't really give it a second thought.

The truth is we don't care enough to change our ways, we are part of all the problems..........aid has reached the point where it perpetuates the problems, all those nice little kiddies we want to fatten up and care for, will be cannon fodder if they survive.

Maybe famine knows best. I have been watching these stories unfold for years and years, can lives be lived in places where nothing grows? Can we have unworn stuff in our wardrobes while others are naked, can we eat Quinoa without putting the price up for the locals?

When you have all you need and have fulfilled the heirarchy of needs, then you seek to have spiritual fulfillment.........just as celebrities do, we are wealthy enough now to want to be philanthropists, to take on causes and to vitue signal out views to other so that we can reflect them to ourselves.

But generally if it doesn't cost us anything we don't want to part with.

And why shoudn't animals have consideration and trees and and all other life forms...........we are all part of the same thing.

GillT57
Your post re the water reminded me of that episode of Call the Midwife where they were trying desperately to get a water pipe to the hospital across land belonging to a man who was determined not to allow it.
Fiction, I know, but probably based on fact.

After Bob Geldolf fed Africa..the population exploded, there are only so many resources in the world, I too am affected by seeing these images on TV, I am not heartless, but.....Africa has always been feast and famine, but by helping these countries and not educating them in family planning, the situation will only get worse and worse. We need to help, but we also need to educate.
Why do some people help animal charities, because animals are affected by us and our situations, they can't help themselves, as people we can do what we like, we choose, animals don't!

There is a real famine, but as someone has already said the main problem is men fighting.
I even heard a report this morning that in (I think) Sudan aid agencies have to pay to get their workers in.

Mary's Meals is a wonderful charity and such a simple idea. The problem with water does seem daft when we can get men on the moon etc., but according to a report which i read in The Economist, often the water source is owned by a particular family or tribe and wholesale use of their water supply is sometimes only available after a considerable payment ( talking £1000s here)is made by the charity seeking to install the water pipes. So, this the dilemma, do they line a despot's pockets in order to provide clean water for hundreds of others? I am heartbroken by the reports, and shall donate to DEC but can't help feeling here we go again, these particular famines are acknowledged to be man made, not due to adverse climate conditions, and I am angered that a country can find money for arms but not for food. To be blunt, I do not see any improvement over the many years in which I have been donating to similar appeals. Yes, some children will hopefully survive this, but in a few years time, it will start over again. Yes, I will donate, but no, I don't think the situation will change in parts of Africa, and no., I don't know what the answer is. All terribly depressing

Bluebelle - first i'd point out that this accusation was published in the DM and secondly you've misinterpreted even that report.
Take a closer look at the published tables of the charities' expenditure.
My charity cash goes primarily to Mary's Meals where over 93% of their income goes directly to the 'front line'.
It's too easy to pick up and quote misleading headlines meaning that many have an excuse to walk away and criticise instead of putting hands in pockets.

I think this is a bigger crisis than anything we have seen before, or for many years, and it is going to take more than donations from the public however generous everyone can be.
It is wonderful how people do respond when there is an appeal, though,and I don't think people donate just to animal charities and not to charities that help humankind.
The British are very generous on the whole with regular donations to their chosen charities and to appeals for crises like these.

It does with Action Aid.

Medicines des frontiers is one of the few that seem to use their money for what it's intended

Unfortunately most of the charities take such big cuts that halve the money given doesn't ever reach its targets

www.actionaid.org.uk

If we could put men on the moon all those years ago, people circling the earth on a space station, why can't we pipe water to areas that need it so desperately? We can pipe oil, gas, across continents, why not water?

It does cause despair - and I am with mcem on the animal charities issue.

I had a leaflet through from Medicins sans Frontieres and they do seem to direct most of their donations to the front line.

Bloody fighting men - putting all their energy into aggression and just watching as children fall by the wayside. I have no idea whatsoever what can be done.

There is famine, yes, but most of the problems seem to be caused by terrorists and fighting.
Aid cannot get through, because of these militants.

Whatever we do, will it ever change? I remember similar stories since I was a child; taking money to Sunday school for the starving in Africa and India, Blue Peter appeals, Bob Geldof, Red Nose, which appeal to everyone's generosity as well as the World Food Programme, all the main and smaller charities trying to help.

I despair.

Countries ( ie us through money) and charities working together will do all they can for the starving in those countries you mention Morgana. It never ends, wars and famines, awful.

missed out 'was redirected' !

Why are they fighting in Sudan? That civil war seems to have gone on for ages. If the effort, energy and determination that is put into fighting then they would find out how to cope with natural disasters. I'm not saying we shouldn't help the starving victims just that I'd like to give all those stupid militant men a good shaking!!

Agree jane but current problems have more to do with natural disaster. Admittedly if resources were directed into infrastructure that would perhaps go some way to managing drought. Meantime in my opinion the DEC is the way to help immediately and effectively.

If men would just stop fighting things would be so much better. Nigeria is a rich country but its not shared and there are super rich families. Resources are taken up with fighting Bokoharam. More Islamic fundamentalism leading to lost lives.