Thank you very much for the recommendation! This was a nice surprise. And yes, I definitely agree with this post. After two years coming and going from Ukraine I think my top single piece of advice to people who think they ‘can’t do anything’ is to donate… *intelligently*. Almost everyone in the West is in a position to donate some money to charity, but if you want more than a sop to your conscience, identify a charity with provable achievements in the area you care about. Not just the ability to do a photoshoot and pay £££s for ads claiming that five pounds could feed a child for a week – yes, it could, but verify that this is what the charity will use it for. When it comes to donating to international aid work in particular, an hour’s deep dive googling could be the difference between your money getting into the hands of on-the-ground staff who will use it to help people or sitting in the bank account of an org that doesn’t even send people to the affected area because it’s considered too dangerous to visit.
A shift in behaviour arising from this awareness is probably the single biggest thing we as individuals with no influence over state and major corporate actors could do. (My personal recommendation to anyone who isn't confident finding a genuinely local organisation is World Central Kitchen, because I and other volunteers have personally seen their vans all over east Ukraine, and hopefully that applies in other conflict zones too.)
Thanks, Anna. Wise words (and thank you for reading to the end of my post!) I certainly find that I can be so bamboozled by the adverts and by not being able to tell whether my money would get where I intended it that I often end up doing nothing, so I'm really pleased to have that World Central Kitchen rec from you (I didn't even know about them.)
Most volunteers in Ukraine get round to having a discussion about this one: by warning people not to donate to the major players, are we putting off people from donating at all, as maybe money given to the International Red Cross or UNICEF is better than money not given at all. Nobody comes up with a conclusive answer. But WCK have a presence where the other aid agencies don't go (i.e. where they are actually needed). Best of all, though, is donating direct to small Ukrainian NGOs so if anyone ever wants to do that I know verified organisations that turn 100% of donated funds into locally-purchased vital supplies for destitute communities.
Thank you very much for the recommendation! This was a nice surprise. And yes, I definitely agree with this post. After two years coming and going from Ukraine I think my top single piece of advice to people who think they ‘can’t do anything’ is to donate… *intelligently*. Almost everyone in the West is in a position to donate some money to charity, but if you want more than a sop to your conscience, identify a charity with provable achievements in the area you care about. Not just the ability to do a photoshoot and pay £££s for ads claiming that five pounds could feed a child for a week – yes, it could, but verify that this is what the charity will use it for. When it comes to donating to international aid work in particular, an hour’s deep dive googling could be the difference between your money getting into the hands of on-the-ground staff who will use it to help people or sitting in the bank account of an org that doesn’t even send people to the affected area because it’s considered too dangerous to visit.
A shift in behaviour arising from this awareness is probably the single biggest thing we as individuals with no influence over state and major corporate actors could do. (My personal recommendation to anyone who isn't confident finding a genuinely local organisation is World Central Kitchen, because I and other volunteers have personally seen their vans all over east Ukraine, and hopefully that applies in other conflict zones too.)
Thanks, Anna. Wise words (and thank you for reading to the end of my post!) I certainly find that I can be so bamboozled by the adverts and by not being able to tell whether my money would get where I intended it that I often end up doing nothing, so I'm really pleased to have that World Central Kitchen rec from you (I didn't even know about them.)
Most volunteers in Ukraine get round to having a discussion about this one: by warning people not to donate to the major players, are we putting off people from donating at all, as maybe money given to the International Red Cross or UNICEF is better than money not given at all. Nobody comes up with a conclusive answer. But WCK have a presence where the other aid agencies don't go (i.e. where they are actually needed). Best of all, though, is donating direct to small Ukrainian NGOs so if anyone ever wants to do that I know verified organisations that turn 100% of donated funds into locally-purchased vital supplies for destitute communities.