Sport 'Relief'

So the United Kingdom kindly donated over £50 million for the 2012 Sport Relief. Congratulations to the organisers and a big thank you to all who so generously gave some of their hard earned cash to a worthy cause.

Or is it?

I can’t help feeling a touch of deja vu with all this though.

Back in 1983 Bob Geldof et al visited a remote area of Ethiopia to witness first hand what famine and poverty looked like. The images replayed time and again on the television had the British public digging into their pockets even before Geldof rather rudely ordered them to.

But here we are some thirty years on and the same issues are still rife amongst the so patronisingly named “Developing’ nations. But why?

Every year the UK public alone donates hundreds of millions of pounds to the same cause and yet nothing seems to change year after year. There are many a sceptic out there who believe the money isn’t going to the right place and corruption within the organised charities means that the bulk of the money lines the pockets and accounts of those in charge of its distribution, but I believe the problem begins way before Davina and Dermot get the call.

I watched, through sceptic coloured lenses the other night as endless ‘celebrities’ donned their best suits and dresses and were welcomed on to the stage before images of distressed or anguished parents and families from these under-privileged countries. We were then shown a short film about their time in Africa or India witnessing these people’s hardship and suffering during adverse circumstances. 

We saw a family in Bangladesh who had lost a son when torrential rains had washed him away during severe floods; another single mum from Africa who had lost her daughter when floods had brought the sewage system up to their ‘window’ and the girl had drunk some during the night, dying a few days later; and just before I turned off, the tragic tale of a kid in Nairobi who lived under a plastic sheet in the middle of the road.

I was moved. How couldn’t you be? The ‘celebrities’ were pleading for aid to help prevent this from happening again and asking for measly sums like £3 to help a child learn to swim; and £30 to help build a new sewer etc but are these really the issues that need addressing immediately?

I can’t help thinking that if education had been put in place thirty years ago we wouldn’t be sat on our comfy sofas opening our wallets yet again to help these kids who shouldn’t have been born in the first place.

I realise it's not always possible to plan ahead for these things but surely having a child whilst having no fixed abode or even a roof above their head isn’t perhaps the best thing for the child?

One of the women in the film had three different children from three different fathers none of whom were anywhere to be seen within the confines of the slurry filled shack. This isn’t unheard of I know - turn on Jeremy Kyle of a morning and you’ll see this scenario on a daily basis.

Is it not time we started implementing methods to reduce the vast numbers of children being born around the world into families who can barely afford to feed themselves let alone a child? Rather than rinsing those wise enough to have thought about it first for every penny that ought to be going to their own kids?

Rant over.

CK