And so to January’s Charity of the Month and, indeed, to the first Charity of the Month of 2011. Last year we gave to Care International, Kiva, Vision Aid Overseas, WaterAid, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, the DEC appeal for the Pakistan floods, Schools for Africa, the Poppy Appeal and the Vegetarian Society. As a result of the high profile publicity that comes from being Charity of the Month, each of these organisations probably saw a rise in donations of between 0 and 5,000%. Quite where on the scale they were is anybody’s guess.
The problem is that the more charities we choose, the fewer remain for the future. We have, with our donations from last year, already solved the problems of the developing world, water poverty, human rights abuses, environmental outrages, flooding and under-education, supported veterans from the World Wars and converted the world to vegetarianism. We’re running out of issues. We are dangerously close to picking Burt Ward’s Great Dane sanctuary.
Fortunately the large corporations of the world are still doing great evil, so this month we’re going for Baby Milk Action. I’ve spent the past few days knee deep in the Nestlé boycott section of the site and Baby Milk Action have been a useful source. By which I mean I nicked most of it from them. They’re a small organisation taking on huge corporations that aggressively market breast milk substitute in countries where its use, when mixed with lousy water, can kill. It’s full on David and Goliath stuff.
As a campaigning organisation they’re not able to register with the Charity Commission so we can’t check up on how they spend our money but God knows they’re not frittering it away on web design. Let’s take the risk and donate here, helping them highlight the arsehole things these companies are doing to make a few quid.
In the meantime, somebody start a war or something. Much as I like animals I really don’t want to give next month’s money to a bunch of Robin’s dogs.
Photo credit: Baby Milk Action
