As I write this, actually I've just been handed a barrel load of envelopes that were clogging up the door and two birthday presents from my housemates. So, now I have two new shirts for the summer and a whole load of cash to spend on... rent and council tax. Lovely.
However, now that I have the money, I am able to do what I was unable to do a few nights ago, and that was donate to Comic Relief. I felt inredibly guilty as I was watching it on iPlayer that I wasn't giving, though I did have a valid reason. I was also pleased to see that the result was up by over £15 million from 2009, making up for the slightly less impressive Children in Need outcome for 2010. In between the bits I didn't want to watch (not the appeal videos, but the bits with the so-called comics or entertainers I can't stand, like that really camp dancer), I continued to think about how much infrastructure is important to these countries, infrastructure that they simply don't have. Whilst it is vitally imperative to get aid to the poor and malnourished on the African continent, I just wish that more of that money was being put towards larger, more long-term projects, like water pumps and pipelines, surgeries and equipment, hospitals, ambulances, larger housing projects and... well, I could go on, but I won't. I know that what Comic Relief does do is huge and incredible when you consider the size of the area and the number of people it is trying to save, though I must admit I was overcome emotionally with the video presented by Russell Brand, about mothers and daughters scavenging on a dump site in Kenya. It was wonderful to see the girls being rescued and sent to schools and growing up in a safe, clean environment - but it was all the more powerful when they returned to their mothers, who had been given the opportunity by the charity to start their own businesses, and that they now had a home to live in. Lenny Henry's story about orphans in slums was equally as emotional, who did not wait for the fundraisers to give one family their own home.
There are sceptics out in the big wide world who question the ability of Comic Relief to make real change, and I understand these concerns, in fact, I agree with them. Short term solutions can only go so far, and it's heart breaking to think that Seventy-Four Million Pounds only does so much year-on-year.
I'll admit something to you now. A deep, dark secret. I want to get a job that earns me lots of money. Millions a year, if possible. Then, and this is the real secret: I want to set up a charity foundation. But this foundation will not be about handouts, about aid packages and sending vaccinations out to the Third World. It will be about construction. Revitalisation. Africa still has some of richest farming land in the world, that is just not used to its full potential. This foundation will send people from the "First World" out to places like Tanzania, Mozambique, Kenya and Uganda, and help them build hospitals with fully-functioning equipment, ambulances, and vaccination centres, and train doctors and nurses who in turn will train other doctors and nurses. They will build schools and train teachers, who will not only teach literacy and numeracy to children, but also basic skills to a potential workforce who could work in their local community to improve it and continue the work the foundation starts. The initial workers will also build houses with indoor plumbing, put up safety nets and fences along newly lain train lines, and all sorts. This foundation will call on the help of not just the generous public in Western nations, but the support of wealthy individuals across the globe to fund these projects. It will also seek to find support within other organisations such as the United Nations to gain political prominence, and co-operate with First and Third World governments to help provide security and administrative support to the foundation.
Call me a dreamer, but is this too much to ask for? Is this so beyond the realms of reality that no one has thought of it before? If such an organisation already exists, why do they not receive the same amount of exposure as charities like Comic Relief, Save the Children, Amnesty International, or the Red Cross? When I watch things like Comic Relief, Sports Relief or Children in Need, above sadness and depression I feel infuriation. It makes me angry to think that there are people in this world - something brought to light especially recently with the economic crisis - who earn thousands to millions of pounds a year not just in salary but in bonuses, and who splash this cash on Lamborghinis, four houses and five holidays a year, and believe they are helping the world by donating a fiver to charity. Mark my words, if I ever find myself earning £10 million a year, here's how I'd divide it up (and bearing in mind if I was earning £10 million per annum, I'd be in the film industry - because, frankly, I'd put myself there):
£80,000 salary (woud pay for the house, nice car, family car, family holiday);
£2,500,000 investment for film projects (I like collaboration on these things);
£7,420,000 personal injection into foundation.
Yes, I know, it's easy for anybody to say they're incorruptible when they do not have the capacity to be corrupted, but I like to think I'm principled enough to actually plan my finances as such if I had the income. Of course, I may never know, but I don't like to think like that.
Let's say you won the lottery, and the jackpot was £75,000,000. How would you spend it? Be honest now.
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