As I write this post, I’m sitting in an office in Dublin, Ireland. 
The weather is miserable outside… but we’re warm and protected indoors. The bad weather means that it’s really dark, even early in the day… but we fix this by switching on the lights. Even looking out the window makes me shiver… so I pull my comfy sweater a little closer around me. If I feel thirsty… I can help myself to a drink from the fridge. When lunchtime comes, we will all make our way down to the canteen for some food to keep us going for the few hours until we head home for dinner.
In recent weeks I have found myself worrying about my bank account, my savings, my mortgage, my job…
My mind has been filled with thoughts about unemployment, repossessions, stock markets plummeting, banks going bust… As more & more bad news hit the headlines I began to wonder… can this get any worse?
Then it hit me… Yes.
Despite the financial turmoil, despite the credit crisis, despite house prices falling, despite everything… I AM one of the lucky ones.
- I don’t have to worry about feeding my family tonight.
- I don’t wonder where my next meal will come from.
- I don’t worry about my baby drinking dirty water.
- I don’t have to sleep outdoors tonight or any night.
I have access to food, shelter and warm clothing. I have clean water on tap. I can visit a doctor if I need to. I have access to heat and electricity at the flick of a switch. I have access to education and training. I have job opportunities and leisure time. I even have the privilege of having some savings to worry about in these economic times…while many people don’t have even enough money to survive, never mind save.
At the moment many of us are cutting our spending… this is leading to a fall in charitable donations… there is a real fear that this may result in many of the world’s poorest people suffering even more than they already do.
So, despite the economic downturn, I have decided to make a small but determined effort in favor of those much less fortunate than me. Out goes the weekly treat of Hot Chocolate with extra marshmallows & whipped cream… in comes an extra weekly donation to charity. It may not be much, but it’s a start. If you think about it, by foregoing one tall latte, you could contribute $3 to someone in dire circumstances.
As a part of our contribution to Blog Action Day 2008, StatCounter has decided to sponsor a child via the charity Plan Ireland.
Plan is an international development agency which works to implement programs at a grassroots level in health, education, water and sanitation. Children are at the heart of all Plan activities and their projects directly support more than 1,500,000 children and their families.
By becoming a sponsor with Plan, StatCounter, together with thousands of other donors worldwide will help to improve the quality of life of children living in poverty.
Plan’s active support for child development over a long period of time aims to improve the healthy development of children from before birth, through to an adulthood in which they can be valuable and productive members of their community.
If you would like more information about Plan, please click here. To sign up as a sponsor follow this link, or click here to make a single donation to Plan. Remember – every cent counts and every donation is appreciated.
Togo is a small country in West Africa. Annual income per head is just $350 and the mortality rate for children under 5 is over 10%.
Plan is currently working on various projects in this area including:
- erecting clean water points
- training teachers
- building and modernising schools
- establishing voluntarily manned crèches to release younger girls from the responsibilities of child minding so as they can attend school
Plan are also working to tackle the stigma and discrimination associated with disability by establishing and equipping community based rehabilitation centers. It is hoped that, following this project, disabled children will no longer be locked away in homes, but instead be given the opportunity to be active participants in society with the opportunity to live their lives to their maximum potential.
Positive results are already emerging as communities are beginning to recognise that disabled children have an important role to play. As one community leader put it ‘this project has helped us re-find our children’.
I lived in Tullamore for a year so I know Dublin well. If you can change your life come why not come in live in Costa del Sol where prices are the lowest they have been in a very long time. Andalucia is Ireland with Sunshine.
Anyone who wants to know more about Spanish property please get in touch.
Quite right. I recently lost my job, and have kept myself upbeat by saying “well, at least I’m not in Kabul”.
On a separate note, may I say how much the names of the contributors on this thread make me smile? If I received a comment from someone called Making Gift Baskets for Fun or Profit! or free dating I would assume it was trackback spam. But here, I see they are genuine comments.
The credit crisis will affect all people in the world, the poorer will suffer than usual. Your post will change someone mind about helping people.
I will try to help the poor in my country, too.
God Bless You!
I’m the webmaster of a Catholic web site and I’m very happy to read these words. We have to say we are human not money. We are the true wealth of this world so just stop worrying about sole economy and start taking care of us as persons.
Thank you.
Samuele
Italy
Out here from Ecuador I just registered few days ago to Statscount and feel very confortable even more now reading this. Great to know you are people consciuos about the REAL WORLD…
ONe thing I will like to add is that ONLY $ 3 BUCKS (EUROS, USD, POUNDS, OR YENS, ETC) is A LOT OF MONEY FOR POOR FAMILIES IN AFRICA, SOUTHAMERICA OR ANY 3RD TO 4TH WORLD AREAS.
So dont subestimate what you can do donating any cause with say $1 or cents a DAY..this could be live death situation for many kids, moms in the world. They are the future.
I will make a suggestion I am implementing myself here in Ecuador and can be implemented anywhere in world where there is a Large Beer Brewing Factory (pretty much anywhere). Beer process produces something called “Brewers Yeast”. Maybe you know already. A sour tasting powder when dry. This is so powerful and so cheap. Work with your local brewery and ask for it. try it yourself and feel the power of this natural food. If many people can get this powder to be given to poor kids around the globe, beer drinkers can help save many lives. Just ask any doctor or training sportman, helth advisor, etc, about this product. Or read specs label in Health Food Store.
We should talk to big Beer Companies to get this product for free to the poor as a nutrient complement.
Keep up the good work for the poor
Happy Statcounter customer
Ricardo Nuñez C
Ecuador
galapagosurf.net
A fantastic blog, I really appreciate this perspective very much and find that this view is very much overlooked in favour of greed/panic/gullibility in believing media hype. Well done!!
Actually, be grateful for having the essentials of life is nice, but I hope it doesn’t take the place of the outrage the middle class people should have toward the banks, the governments and the big businesses that managed to create this fiasco. As resources inevitably become tighter, the rich and powerful will squeeze us all further. Next, utility prices will go through the roof, and they’ll say “Oops, sorry, mistake, need a bailout”. Then food prices will skyrocket, and they’ll say “Oops, sorry. mistake, need a bailout”. And it each step will we say “at least we don’t live in Africa”? Fact is Africa’s a mess because the big companies have ruined the lives of people there to a large extent. Eventually, you won’t have to move to Africa, its coming to you.
Great Post from StatCounter Team! The idea of donating the proceeds could really be a good contribution. Definitely! one should look at a different perspective in this difficult time.
Very noble idea to do such a great thing. Wish u guys luck.
man, and i thought statcounter was just a rad free service… now i realize that it’s actually a socially conscious organization of deep thinkers. couldn’t agree more with the blog about the ‘credit crisis’. i’ve had this very thought myself, and whenever i find that i’m getting bogged down in the prefab generalized anxiety created by the media about this whole debacle i remind myself that i am actually one of the most privileged, lucky people on earth, living in the most privileged societies in the world. thanks for posting this, and for all that you do.
It is a shame that we are in a state of financial decline and worse financial dependence, a world without money at all would be a beautiful one. Lets face it, money gives power to a few, while it enslaves the rest of us. To live from paycheck to paycheck, one mortgage payment or credit card bill to the next, prevents humanity from discovering its true potential. While at the same time, it allows those who control all the money to control all of us.
Despite the complacency of a roof over your head or food in our stomaches, and the contrast to much of the world who live outside, hungry and helpless, you should demand reform, abandon the money system, the government, who really only makes rules that manipulate us all into submission and slavery. Then instead of working to make your employer and your government money, you could work to make the standard of living for all human beings better, that includes those less fortunate. Using your money to sponsor the less fortunate, is a capitalist solution to to a humanist problem. Think of the skills and beliefs that you have, and how a world without money would allow them to flourish and grow into ways in which you can help others, and help yourself at the same time.
Support humanity, abandon the money system, adopt the advancement of mankind, join the zeitgeist movement.
It will be a really marvelous world if we can remember that we are all humans and we all come from the same source… People will feel so much elevated once they rediscover the power of helping other people.. spreading love… Money is not the ultimate power love is but we have forgotten this to our path to success… and success is not happiness.. love is happiness
Love and light to you all!
Hi best blog ive read in quite awhile,
500 euros on its way to plan from us,
nice to focus on something other than the in’s and out’s of making money,
Best regards Marco
Good to read so much genuine goodwill and true philanthropy. Restores my faith in the goodness of most of mankind. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I have tended to support just one charity, The CF Trust, I have a son who suffers from Cystic Fibrosis, but I will make a point of supporting this.
Well done Statcounter.
What a shame we have such terrible people attracted to become politicians and bankers, while the rest of us just do our best for ourselves and those around us.
Excellent post my friend. I have traveled the world as a Merchant Marine and have seen all sorts of tragedy in my time. I too have feel back into my chair having similar thoughts. I too feel the exact same thing you do. I agree if most of could only make a small cut in our lives and give to others the world would be a better place. However my emotions run deep in this area. I mean we have the poor here in my country as well as you do. I often wonder why we can’t help our own people and then wonder how can we help others when we can’t help our own. Nevertheless some people do and that pleases me. Meanwhile remembering the times I believed grain to poor countries to watch the bandits come and haul most of it away and never reaching the ones whom need it most. Anyway I am ranbling on here. Thanks for the read and God Bless!
BobM
It is all great helping othe people in a bad situation but some charity workers can have wages of up to €50.000, I dont know about the charity you support but I know many other of the big ones that pay that to their workers.
I think it is obscene that an organisation that calls itself non for profit can have fat cat wages, that money come from donations, most of them from people who are low waged themselves, and meanwhile those charities keep claiming “not for profit”, yeah right, not in stockmarket investment but they get lots of benefits out of the organisation, like for example having a job, if the charity you work for goes bust you are out the door.
So I accuse big charities of hypocrites, save 3 Euros not going to Starbucks to pay for a malaria vaccine, but in the process 2 Euroes goes towards feeding fat cat wages too.
No thank you
One day will become normal again… hope soon!!!
Now is the time for us to make the links between what is happening in the City of London and on Wall Street today, and what has been happening to developing countries for years.
Writing to local or national papers is one of the best ways to do this, as well as commenting on web forums and news websites, and talking to your friends.
Here are some points you could make:
* The current financial crisis is the result of reckless lending by private banks, just as the ongoing developing country debt crisis was the result of reckless lending by the rich world in past decades. People all round the world are suffering because of the lack of a fair system for dealing with debts.
* The total debt of all developing countries is $2.9 trillion – around the same amount as has been pledged by rich country governments to bailout the banks in recent weeks.
* It would take only $375 billion – with the cost spread out over many years – to cancel 100% of the debts of the world’s 49 poorest countries.
* Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, has faced four hurricanes in a month and continues to suffer the effects of the global food crisis. But the World Bank and IMF have announced that its debt cancellation has been delayed by six months.