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Charity & Volunteering

Moby

Steffen Iversen
O/T from my normal posts:

I’m feeling more and more like I need to help people and do good things. I’m wanting to give some decent sums of expendable income to worthy causes, but as ever want to make sure it’s going to the right place - otherwise I may as well just help out the homeless in Leicester with cash, which sadly ain’t going to be spent wisely... :-(

I’m really interested in hearing what others have found and would welcome any (sensible) suggestions and recommendations please.

Children’s charities resonate highly with me, being a newish dad of two little darlings. This also makes me want to make sure they have a decent world to live in after I’m gone.

I’m also interested in the state of the planet, how we’re killing the lungs of the world in the rainforests, then pumping the depleted system full of atmosphere warming gases....

The state of animal extinction bothers me too.

The wife had set up a direct debit with a forestry agency to plant an acre of trees per annum, which seems good. And she’s sponsored some endangered penguins on behalf of our children, who will then get the updates and hopefully grow up conscious of preservation.

My dad has battled bladder cancer over the last 3 years which has been a mountain to climb for him, and my gran finally succumbed to Alzheimer’s related issues last September. But although those charities therefore seem obvious, weirdly I’m not sure I’m ‘feeling’ them....

We've also agreed we want to do some volunteering (child care permitting). Has anyone done this before and if so any tips please? I think this is a really interesting area to contribute and become more deeply aware of the issues those who aren’t as lucky as most of us, suffer. I’m hoping time spent in a suitable environment could then spin off and develop into other areas of giving.

Following last Sunday’s chat on here about mental fragility of today’s youth, I’ve noticed we have mental health helpers/volunteers assigned at work, so I’ve signed up with an enquiry to look to get trained up.

Thanks in advance team!

(and apologies for the momentary dropping of the usual posting facade. Promise I’ll make a shagging gag involving Tom Jones and custard very soon)
 
Malaria prevention is generally considered the best bang for buck, for want of a better term.

I find a split between the time and money I donate works out better. I seem to recall you were fairly senior in your previous job, have you considered becoming a school governor? It's quite a time committment but you can make quite a difference and it's usually fairly visible too.
 
Well this was disappointing content from you!!:D;)

I went through something similar after my son was born, made me want to give more back for those less fortunate and my work although well paid is not rewarding in the other sense.

I tried to do a couple of thing locally, via the local authority but in the end I became frustrated as I was the one making all the effort for it to happen and the whole process was frustratingly poorly administered.
Then I had a chance of circs so I didn’t have the same / a definite amount of time free so I gave up.

now the little one is at school I’m going to echo Scara’s sentiment regarding becoming a governor as it’s something I think I can add a lot of value but also hopefully see some tangible results short and long term. The other thing I’ve thought about was becoming a magistrate as I recently got called for jury service and that also twigged something in me about helping out locally.
Look forward to hearing about what you end up doing!
 
Thanks guys will have a proper read through later and respond properly anon!
x
 
As a student many years back, the student organisation I was part of, sponsored an orphanage in northern Thailand, through another non profit organisation.

I went there with a bunch of other students once. Meeting the kids, getting to know the people who run the orphanage and seeing the positive effects of the organisation's work, really made an impression. I've been supporting the non profit organisation monthly since then, for 15 years or so.

I find that having some sort of personal relation or connection to the case, makes it feel more worthwhile. When my kids grow older, I hope to bring them to visir the orphanage too, to provide a bit of perspective to their sheltered lives.

I also sponsor cancer research - again from a personal experience, after I lost two friends to cancer in two weeks a few years ago. It just felt like the right thing to do.

I haven't really done much research about which organisation to support, but I tend to generally (though not naively) trust the credibility of the bigger, well known organisations like the Red Cross, Doctors without border, etc. The Red Cross is very active and reknowned for their volunteer work here in Norway, by the way - maybe they're an alternative in the UK too?

Anyways, perhaps not very much good advice here, but good luck finding the right charity/organisation!
 
My wife did a lot of stuff with the school, organising the school fete, the Christmas Fair, book days, various money raising events with KESA... she is throttling back though, time for someone else to get involved. Most of the parents at the school just take it for granted, so you end up spending a load of your own free time doing stuff for nothing... mug's game. Let someone else do their share.
 
Also, I found out that my dad changed his will to give half his money to the World Wildlife Fund.
This despite him never owning a pet, never liking any animals, never touching an animal, never mentioning an animal ever...

There goes my inheritance. Thanks a bunch dad.
 
You say helping out the local homeless on a way that’s beneficial for them is helpful.

I wrote my dissertation at uni on foodbanks and volunteered for one in London for 6 months.

Was a great experience and very eye opening. All kinds of people from different walks of life use them. A lot are homeless people who have managed to get a temporary address to enable them to get a food bank referral. A few were Syrian refugees who were temporarily stationed in London before they get shipped of to Glasgow because they are not allowed to settle in London (Crazy I know!) and some because of the area were people who were asset rich but cash poor and who pwned their own houses but couldn’t bring themselves to part with them.

Most though were just people between jobs having to use the food banks or starve because of the many problems with UC which was just beginning to be rolled out across the country.

The one I volunteered at run a drop in in the morning where they cooked food for them and sold it to them at a price so well subsidised it’s virtually free (50 p for a cooked breakfast so they only have to find that in a day for them to be guaranteed a hot meal etc...) and offered loads of other stuff as well - so you’d never be short of opportunities for volunteering if you could find a community centre that involves a food bank within it.

I would still be volunteering at one if there was any me near me. Amazes me that in a town of 20,000 that serves many other nearby villages as well the nearest food a kitchen is 15 miles away. Would be good to set one up but I’m nowhere near enough experienced/ capable of pulling off the logistics of it all and lack the necessary connections.

Edit: Should also add that if you decide to go for a Trussell Trust foodbank as I did there is a religious element to it as they are a Christian charity but it’s certainly not in your face. I didn’t have anyone to to convert me or care that I’m an atheist and everyone recognised they’ve gone from a Christian charitable movement to a freebie extension of the welfare state that serves thousands of irreligious people.
 
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