A question, regarding the floods in Pakistan.

[Asiel]

I don't know if it's Donor Fatigue but I've stopped giving till I'm blue in the face. When I look around and see how our government treats our homeless and elderly it sickens me. If they spent half the money they send to every country in need in our own country we wouldn't have homeless starving people sleeping on the streets. Charity begins at home.
When school starts it will be a never ending parade of kids ringing the doorbell wanting donations for everything from hockey games to travelling abroad to expand their horizons, etc etc. When we were in school and wanted something we earned the money, we didn't get it going from door to door.

[Laura's Babies]

What chaps my hide is how everyone, including big name stars jumped in for Haiti and all that money flowed in for relief there.. Yet, nothing is being done there with all that money! People are still living in tents. The only help they are getting are from organizations that take stuff there on their own.. Where is that money that was donated there? It makes you stop and think about where you donate your money.. Why are they sitting on it? Why isn't it being used to help the people it was donated to help?

That is MY problem in donating to Pakistan. I feel so sorry for those people, no matter what religion or where they are. My heat breaks for them and what has happened to their lives.

I am sure I am not the only one who wonders what happened to all the donations in Haiti and questions donating so quickly anywhere else.

[kitten645]

"what happened to all the donations"

There is NO accountablity for any aid given anywhere. The US gives Pakistan one BILLION dollars of aid a year! WAY before the floods. What was all that money used for? A billion goes a long way in a third world country. Just sayin.

[sana]

Hey, I know, you're right the government is doing this. Its best you give it to somebody who you know is a friend of somebody in Pakistan. Its best you do it that way. Send the money or post it to some foundations which are collecting money for this. You can mail the money? I don't actually know how to send money to another country.

[sana]

T guess they are using money for their own self. I don't know but I say its bestyou post the money. My dad was also collecting money for the refugees. Gotta go, bye. Mom is teeling me to help her find my glasses. Oey! Can't see properly. GLASSES LOST!!! My eyes are like this blue guys here.

[Miss Z]

Thanks for the responses. Perhaps after taking in some of the attitudes from other threads, I jumped the gun on this topic.

I can understand donor fatigue, and the 'charity begins at home' philosophy. Still rather sad at the donor to non-donor ratio of the poll, but it is right for people to follow their principles with regards to their finances.

I've always believed that the best charity is action rather than hand-outs, and if opportunity allowed I'd be straight out to Pakistan helping with the aid efforts. Charitable fatigue is never an issue when you become directly involved, I have found. But of course when direct involvement is not possible, the only help we can often give is through money, and I can affirm it is not nearly as gratifying.

There was a speaker for the DEC on television a couple of days back who described the disaster as 'on the scale of Haiti and the 2004 tsunami, but with the complexity of the Middle East.' I'm still pondering what entirely she meant by that.

Freedom and Laura's Babies, the publicity issue is very interesting. So many celebrities jumped on the Haiti bandwagon - who can forget that god-awful rehash of 'Everybody Hurts'? - and for Pakistan? So far I've seen David Suchet in a very typical, Oxfam-style advertisement appeal, and nothing else.

[Lady's Human]

There's a major difference between Haiti and Pakistan.

Pakistan chose to use enormous resources to develop nuclear weapons rather than pull the people in the rural areas out of the 7th century.

Haiti has not had a functional government for decades.