Oh! Colombo 

Contributing to charity is a wonderful gesture. There are many amongst us who are so selfless that they sacrifice their needs to help others, especially strangers, who are more in need than they would ever be.  It makes one wonder whether such people are for real. Yes, they are and some of these good samaritans shy away from publicity and never talk of their deeds.

Then there are the others amongst us. Those who wish to be known about their charitable deeds, photographed, put on social media and publicized in many other ways as long as the world knows of their contributions to charity. Birthdays are a great social occasion where the well to do feel that they must feed the poor, the orphans and provide meals to the disadvantaged. Yes, this is certainly a good deed but are they discreet about it? Most certainly not; photographs recording such events with the food laid out and some packed gifts are splashed across social media. Obviously they want to show the entire world and their friends how charitable they are forgetting that most of these recipients are in dire circumstances.

Chatting to a woman who was discreetly sourcing wheelchairs for the disabled, I was amazed to learn how difficult she found to collect funds. It would seem that when Colombo’s society types are approached for contributions they eagerly pledge funds for not one but many wheelchairs. But once vendor runs the invoice for the pledged wheelchairs and attempts to contact these persons the phone never seems to be picked up and they begin to avoid the person they agreed to contribute the funds to. The lady in charge also happens to be quite attractive and once when she approached a businessman to seek funding for a couple of wheel chairs, she was invited to his office and to her horror found out that all he wanted was to make a play at her and attempted to grope her. When she rejected the advances, he refused point blank to contribute even a nail towards the project. Then there are the multi-millionaires, who after going through all the documentation would make a very tiny contribution. Even this is not scoffed but added to the funding since they believe any contribution is better than no contribution.

A simple polite no would be quite okay.

Lots of funds are needed to  support the many charities that are all around us. When one reads of the large scale wars and other not so nice things happening around the world I am sure that it would be better to help the needy instead of contributing to the terror and horror around us. A lot has to be done I guess. Blessed are those who give happily and, most of all, discreetly.