Last week I wrote about the 6 charities I support which support nature. I then told you that I do not only support charities which support nature, I also support organizations which help people and animals. This makes for 3 categories. Next week I’ll tell you about the charities I support which help animals. This week I’ll tell you about the 7 charities I support which help people.
3 categories
As I said, I divide my support for charities into 3 categories. Nature, people and animals. Within these 3 categories I set goals. These goals should either help nature, people or animals. Last week I wrote about the goals which I set to help nature. We should eat plant-based, have clean energy and preserve nature. I then wrote about the 7 charities I support which support those goals.
Goals for People
Today I’ll tell you about the goals which I have set up in order to help people. There are more goals I have set for people than for nature. I don’t know why, I don’t see people as more important than nature. Maybe we just have more issues. Anyway, here are the goals I have set for people. In total there are way more, but in my opinion these other problems which I did not list are just underlying issues of these bigger issues I’ve listed here.
1. Eradicate poverty
2. Stop war
3. Cure diseases
4. End racism*
5. End Sexism*
I guess these goals don’t need much more explanation. I mean, everybody wants these things, right? However, when listing the charities I support to support these goals I’ll tell you a little bit more about the goals too. Here are the 7 charities I donate to, which support people.
Eradicate Poverty
What do poor people lack? Right, money. And so I believe the way to help them is to simply give them money. People know what they need and we don’t need to dictate that for them. This is also been confirmed by research. The best way to help poor people is to give them money. I’ve read about a lot of charity projects going wrong because the charity thinks that they know what’s best for poor people. And so, they spend the money from donations the wrong way. Buying school books to make kids go to school, when the real problem is period poverty or something else. This is just inefficient and very arrogant too. I donate to these charities because the money goes directly to the people in need.
Poverty is the base of many other problems. People dying of curable diseases, children not going to school, homelessness, crime, etc. That’s why I don’t think we should donate to organizations which help with these problems, but we should tackle poverty because that’s the underlying cause in the end. I think donating money is a good solution to make people self-sufficient in the long term.
Of course I question the capitalist system we live in and whether we’re able to lift everyone from poverty in this system. I have to admit that capitalism has done quite well to eradicate poverty so far. Economic growth lifts people from poverty. And since I don’t know any alternative, I try to combat poverty within this system. And that’s by directly donating money to poor people. Usually, I try to look at the Netherlands first, but I don’t think we have people living in extreme poverty in the Netherlands since we have a social security system.
Stop War
This charity is just a patch for the bleeding to be honest. We need to end war. However, I don’t think individuals donating to charity have an influence on this matter. It’s usually stupid powerful who start a war (like Putin in 2022, starting the war between Russia and Ukraine). But what do we do about it as individuals? I don’t know how to tackle the core problem of war. However, I do think it’s important to donate to charities which help the people affected by war, even if it’s not the core solution. That’s why I donate to this charity listed above. Artsen Zonder Grenzen (Doctors Without Boundaries) is a charity which give medical care to people in warzones. And very importantly, 80% of their employees are local people from the crisis areas. No white saviorism.
Cure Diseases
1 ?
This is another field where humans are doing very well. In the 20th century we’ve developed cures for a big share of lethal diseases. This medical care is available for everybody in rich countries, but not for everybody living in poorer countries. However, the medicine not being available is not the problem there, poverty is (which brings me back to the first goal I listed). Therefore, I only want to donate to organizations which develop cures for diseases which are still lethal today.
But I have not listed one charity above. Why? Because I could not find any charity which develops cures without testing on animals. And that’s where my priorities conflict. In theory, these priorities do not have to conflict, because there are several ways to avoid animal testing and search for cures at the same time. The European Union is working very hard on that as well. So, I guess I still have to wait. When there’s a organization which tries to cure lethal diseases but does not test on animals I will list it (or them, preferable) here.
End Racism
2 Stichting Control Alt Delete
Racism is unfortunately still a big issue today. And with all these goals I have set up, I tend to look at myself first. When someone announces that racism still exists in Dutch society today, most Dutch people reply with denial and say something like: ‘But it’s by far not as bad as the United States’. This is wrong. We cannot judge other parts of the world without fixing ourselves first. We first have to eradicate racism from the Dutch society and only then we can say anything at all about foreign countries. And so, the charities I listed today are charities that try to do something about racism in the Netherlands.
Nederland Wordt Beter (Netherlands Gets Better) has three very concrete goals and wants to reach those in 2025. 1. They want our colonial and slavery-past to be part of the curriculum at schools. 2. They want a ban on Zwarte Piet, a racists character used during a Dutch holiday. 3. They want the 1st of July to be a national day of memorial and celebration, since slavery was abolished in the Netherlands on the 1st of July 1863. Control Alt Delete is an organization that wants to end ethnic profiling at the Dutch police and do something about the excessive police violence in the Netherlands.
Other great organizations are The Black Archives, Kick Out Zwarte Piet, EXIT-Deutschland (an anti-nazi charity) BIJ1 (which is a political party which you can vote for).
End Sexism
Sexism is also something very real today, the Netherlands is on place 31st on the Gender Gap Index. Sometimes I feel like people think we’re already there, just because women are able to work in the Netherlands. Soon I will dedicate a full post on all the reasons why we still need feminist (just like I will for racism). Once way to improve the position of women is through law and justice. That’s why I support bureau Clara Wichmann. They start strategical lawsuits to do so (one example is that they are fighting for free contraception) and also give juridical advice to women. Women INC is an organizations that fights for women in another way, mostly by providing information to people. They campaign and give trainings and advice to organizations (not individuals, because they feel the system should change).
Other great options are Women on Waves and Ava.
These were the 7 charities which I support to support people. Do you donate to any of these 7 charities to support people?
Yours sincerely,
Romee
*For everything in this list accounts: donating is not enough. I hope that’s very clear, because with this post I don’t want anyone to think that they can buy of their guilt. We should all be explicitly anti-racist and anti-sexist in our daily lives too. It’s not or. It’s and. We should donate and actively be anti-racist.
**There are actually a sixth goal and seventh goal. The sixth is to end ableism. However, I have not been able to find any good charities which combat the core of ableism. If you have any recommendations, please let me know. Then the seventh goal, end LHBTQI+ rejection. I believe that if I support organizations which fight for women’s rights, this will also be the result of that. Women INC and Bureau Clara Wichmann fight for more people than just cis-gender hetero women. But who knows, maybe I’ll change my mind. What do you think about that?
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