ActionAid

Warning - serious post follows. For those of an unfailingly humourous disposition, please look away now...


Many of you will already know of the wonderful work carried out by ActionAid, but I thought I'd explain why it's the charity I've chosen to support.

I first came across ActionAid when I was about 8. My parents committed to sponsor a little boy in Kenya - named Chelimo - who was of a similar age to me. ActionAid had decided to personalise charitable support, encouraging people to commit to providing a steady stream of funding over a number of years by identifying the child who would benefit from that commitment.

Chelimo sent me letters illustrated with pictures of mud huts and elephants. I, no doubt, sent ones bedecked with cats and ballet shoes. I think we carried on the sponsorship until he was about 13 or 14 - he went out to work from that age on. I have no knowledge of what happened to him after that, but I am sure that the access to education, clean water and healthcare, provided to him and his fellow villagers by ActionAid, gave him a better start in life than he might otherwise have expected. Certainly, the contact I had with someone living in such different circumstances from myself helped broaden my perspective on life.

When I was about 10, ActionAid set up a children's branch to build upon the contacts already being made between children who were being sponsored and the children of their sponsors. I was an early member of this branch which resulted in a trip to Broadcasting House for an interview on BBC radio to extol its merits. Unfortunately for posterity the interview was never broadcast and so is unlikely to exist in the archives. As I recall it went something like:

Jeremy Paxman (or suchlike): So why has ActionAid set up this branch for children?
Ruth: Er...
Jeremy: And what made you join?
Ruth: Er...
Jeremy: What would you say to other children listening to help them understand what makes ActionAid such an important organisation?
Ruth: Um...

I really can't imagine why they cut it...

I've spent the intervening years being relatively parsimonious with charitable donations, looking out for my own needs first of all. But recently I've come back to ActionAid and recognised how vital its work is with some of the poorest people in the world. I am now sponsoring a 4-year-old boy in Nigeria and I feel privileged to be able to help even in such a small way.

If you don't want to sponsor me - perhaps your principles prevent you from funding deliberate deprivation! - please consider funding a child through ActionAid instead. Take a look at the details - it costs just 50p a day to change a life.

ActionAid is working in over 40 countries, including India, the Andamans, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Thailand - it will be helping children made destitute by the Tsunami Disaster as part of the sponsorship programme. See here for some of the other work they are doing for the victims of this most recent horror.

Alternatively, for a shorter term commitment, take a look at ActionAid's LottoAid. For £1 a week you have the chance of winning a lump sum of up to c.£1,300 while benefiting charity. Can't be bad (and I bet the odds are much much better than with that other lottery)!