Saturday Links

Here is my dilemma regarding donations to Haiti,… or any other disaster-fundraiser:

According to a list of certified, hopefully bona-fide, relief agencies accepting donations for disaster relief in Haiti, there are some 22 agencies, including The Canadian Red Cross, The Salvation Army, Unicef, The Samaritans Purse. If the latest news flash is to be believed, The Canadian Red Cross alone has received $22 MILLION. That is not taking into consideration any of the other organizations, and nor does it include the Canadian government’s pledge to match donations dollar for dollar up to $50 million, (which may be increased according to our Minister for Foreign Affairs.)

Let’s not go into the percentage of donations that are syphoned off for “Administration Fees,” but I wonder how much of the remaining money actually goes to the relief of the people for whom it was intended? As mentioned in the above link, that is a question worth consideration.

Here, as far as I am concerned is another:
I realize that not all of the agencies are going to collect the same or even similar amounts of money. But, not taking into account that the costs of repairing/replacing the damaged infrastructures, – which I acknowledge will be HUGE and take considerable time, – I am struck by the fact that the population of Haiti is approximately 9.5 million people. So let’s just take the amount received so far by The Red Cross, add the matching amount from the Canadian Government, and we come up with $44 Million. That is 4.6 million dollars per person! Just from this one agency and the “matching” pledge from Canada.

Hmm. Why don’t we just skip the middle-men and give the money directly to the people? Would that not solve the problem of poverty in Haiti? I believe, as cynical as it may sound, that “relief agencies” are more interested in justifying their own existence than legitimately helping the people they are purportedly there to assist.

Kind of like some of the Foundations for Medical Research. If they actually did find a cure for Cancer, MS, Liver Disease,.. et al, there would be so many researchers out of work the unemployment line would stretch from here to the moon.

Heartless, aren’t I?

Sorry. I realized much later that I had mis-spoken. My Math doesn’t add up.
What I meant to say was that, if the Canadian Red Cross can receive $25m alone, it is conceivable that ALL the other agencies could receive similar amounts from WORLD-WIDE donations equaling some 4 HUNDRED and forty million dollars, plus whatever the governments have pledged. THAT divided by 9.5 million people would equal enough money to take care of any poverty in Haiti.

Either way, I am more cynical than even I like to admit.

I’m not so sure that you or we should be too hard on you, Art. It does seem perplexing to many people that the persistent ills afflicting humanity, don’t seem for the most part, to be suffering for an overall lack of money or resources, but rather the way in which our resources are (mis?) applied. That you are uncomfortable with this type of assertion, if it does speak of cynicism; it also speaks of humanity.

Perhaps useful to our understanding are the folowing quotes from Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 encyclical letter, “Deus Caritas Est” (God is Love)

…”Saint Paul, in his hymn to charity (cf. 1 Cor 13), teaches us that it is always more than activity alone: “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing” (v. 3). This hymn must be the Magna Carta of all ecclesial service; it sums up all the reflections on love which I have offered throughout this Encyclical Letter. Practical activity will always be insufficient, unless it visibly expresses a love for man, a love nourished by an encounter with Christ. My deep personal sharing in the needs and sufferings of others becomes a sharing of my very self with them: if my gift is not to prove a source of humiliation, I must give to others not only something that is my own, but my very self; I must be personally present in my gift.”…

…”There are times when the burden of need and our own limitations might tempt us to become discouraged. But precisely then we are helped by the knowledge that, in the end, we are only instruments in the Lord’s hands; and this knowledge frees us from the presumption of thinking that we alone are personally responsible for building a better world. In all humility we will do what we can, and in all humility we will entrust the rest to the Lord. It is God who governs the world, not we. We offer him our service only to the extent that we can, and for as long as he grants us the strength. To do all we can with what strength we have, however, is the task which keeps the good servant of Jesus Christ always at work: “The love of Christ urges us on” (2 Cor 5:14).”…