"I'm shocked at where this is going..."
But, this terror that springs up in people's minds whenever someone dares to question a "charitable" action prevents us from making good decisions and most importantly, actually helping other people.
Before I continue, I want to make a few things clear. First, I am not necessarily opposed to all "raise awareness" campaigns, and I definitely believe in supporting any campaign that genuinely helps others. I just believe that rather than blindly accepting whatever politically correct charitable action is being blindly spouted on Facebook or Twitter, people should actually take a moment to honestly consider who they are helping.
It seems to me that most "raise awareness" campaigns center around wealthy people from Western nations going without something for a short period of time, like food or shoes. We eagerly prepare ourselves for our collective "sacrifice," post on all our favorite social networking sites how important it is for absolutely everyone to participate in our particular campaign of choice and how everyone who doesn't enjoys watching children starve, and go for usually a day without one particular luxury. Then, after the 24 hour culmination of our pious commitment to a cause we learned about yesterday, we...move on with our lives, content that we have done our part to help save the world.
In light of this, while I don't always oppose "raise awareness" campaigns, I feel like many of them do just and only that, raising awareness. I don't want to sound too cold or blunt, but I already knew there were countless poor people throughout the world who can't afford food, clean water, or shoes. Its terrible; I realize that, but does simply taking one day a year to casually remind everyone of poverty really help anyone from an impoverished country?
Honestly, any campaign that simply raises awareness to an issue is probably causing more harm than good. Let me take a second to assure you that you did not read that wrong, nor am I evil personified. Nevertheless, ANY CAMPAIGN THAT SIMPLY RAISES AWARENESS TO AN ISSUE IS PROBABLY CAUSING MORE HARM THAN GOOD. But how, you ask, could raising awareness ever be considered a bad thing?
Raising awareness isn't a bad thing; raising awareness can truly be a great thing, as long as that awareness inspires people to actually take action to help those who are suffering. Too often, I feel, wealthy people are driven by guilt rather than by an actual desire to help others. And quite frankly, if guilt drives us to commit small meaningless actions that do nothing to fulfill our responsibility to help others, than we need to get over ourselves.That's what makes awareness campaigns so dangerous; too often we feel like raising awareness to major issues (issues that have plagued us from the beginning of mankind for that matter) for one day fulfills our guilt driven mandate.
This being said, I don't entirely oppose the One Day Without Shoes campaign, and here's why. Although I feel that walking without shoes for one day is, by itself, a relatively meaningless action, some practical good has resulted from this campaign. For instance, Toms has stated that for every pair of shoes purchased, the company will donate one pair of shoes to a child who needs them. This is a truly awesome initiative that, provided the company plans to live up to its claims, will actually help suffering people.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same about many other awareness campaigns. While I'm certain that there are many awareness campaigns more devoted to relieving Western guilt than actually helping others, the epitome of such a pointless exercise can be found in Facebook's Change Your Profile Picture to a Cartoon Day. This "awareness" campaign, which involves people liking a group (there are currently two so you'd better like both, lest you be accused of not caring about children) and changing their profile pictures to a favorite cartoon for a day in order to end child abuse. What? End child abuse? Just how, dare I ask, can anyone possibly expect a bunch of people spending hours Googling favorite cartoon characters to help anyone?
Now, I don't want to question the intentions of everyone who participated in events like this. Making a real difference in the world can be hard, and sometimes seems impossible. I'm sure deep down we all like to believe that by manipulating a few images on the internet or going without shoes for a day, we could truly help suffering people. Unfortunately, our societal inability to question the effectiveness of "charitable" actions for fear of looking evil results in us blindly following any bland, vague and ineffectual method of charity that presents itself.
I'm going to be honest; I have no moral high ground here. I'm not really involved in any charities, and perhaps participating in an "awareness campaign" is better than nothing. But ultimately, the world doesn't need a bunch of wealthy and blessed people participating in one minuscule action a year in order to feel a little better about themselves. What the world does need, however, is determined individuals willing to make sacrifices (both of time and resources) in order to ensure a better tomorrow. I'm not trying to sound naive or idealistic. I'm not trying to inspire you to join the Peace Corps. I just want people to commit to charities that actually have a tangible, practical, and yes, financial benefit on those who are suffering. If you're in an awareness campaign that does that, then I support it wholeheartedly. If not, then maybe you and me both need to reconsider what we're doing to help the world.
