Ashalayam

The place where I work, 'Anon LLP', nominated it's new charity for the year yesterday. Happily my proposed charity was chosen and I am unashamedly happy and proud about this. Anon LLP will now be raising money for children the street childfren including 'The Railway Children' of Calcutta and I am hoping to persuade those in power that a heroes and heroines charity fancy dress Ball is an excellent idea. I have plenty other excellent ideas but none so excellent that wuld permit me to dress up as Scarlett O'Hara (again.) (Designed my 21st around this hankering and held a Corset and Crinolette fancy dress party. We played croquet and had a finger buffet. It was great. I was the only one who thought so I think. Everyone else just thought it was odd. It was, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Now I'm just running on. 'Running on'. How very Alan Bennett. Oooo lemon wedge.)

So I thought I'd give a link to the charity in case anyone is doing a 10 km run and wants an excellent organisation to do it for. I think that supporting smaller charities is in many ways a lot more advantageous to those the charity is there to assist in comparison with their national or international cousins. I know of course all charities need money and even those well-known charities such as The Samaritans have had to take to the streets with collection boxes to pay for electricity etc. to keep their services going but I can't but be disheartened by charities that plough 65% of their funds into advertising. I know there is the circular argument about how else do they raise lots of money without expending lots etc. etc. but to a charity like the Railway Children, £2000 can provide for a quarter of their yearly budget and importantly, goes straight to the source where needed. None is taken out for admin etc.

There is also the consideration that the larger a charity gets, unfortunately, the more distanced it becomes from it's target. Take the charities surrounding the tsunami. Many of them still have sizeable funds unallocated. How can this be? Funds were crucial in the immediate aftermath, years have passed and how is the reconstruction effort being encouraged by such a delay. What are they waiting for? Much of the assistance given wasn't the assistance required either and this is where becoming too removed from your target through bureaucracy etc becomes a real issue. Many charities were sending over school books, pens, pencils, food bags etc. when there were no schools for kids to be taught in and no crockery for food to be cooked in. It was the on-the-ground independent charities and ones that developed in situ in response to the tsunami that understood what was required were tools, cement mixers, hammers etc. to help people start the rebuilding effort.

Anyway, here's the link of you would like to check it out. there are more street children throughout the world than the British population one and a half times over. Calcutta/Kolkata suffers from notorious problems of poverty and I have visited this station myself. The charity has a permanent presence there and addresses the full range of issues raised by these kids situations, education, health, personal safety and emotional well-being.

http://www.ashalayam.org