Why do you deliver the speech?

 

This speech is based on my experience in high school. When people contribute to charity, most of them don't think about people who they supported and are just satisfied with the fact that they did something good. However, don't you think it's nonsense? When I was the leader of the volunteer group, I realized that this attitude is wrong. I believe that we all should change this attitude, so I hope this speech will be a trigger for you to change the way of thinking about charity.

 

 

 

More than Charity

 

 

Imagine.  One evening, in a shopping center, you find a donation box after doing some shopping.  You decide to give money because you had some spare change in your pocket.  However, the moment you’ve finished contributing, you completely forget about the people you’ve just supported and switch to thinking about today’s dinner or something else trivial.  You are just satisfied with the fact that you’ve done something good.

 

This was how I viewed charity before, and I bet many of you see charity in this way.  According to research by the Cabinet Office, about 80% of people in Japan have donated to charity.  However, is this kind of charity really the best way to help people?  Actually, one experience made me realize that the attitude I held towards charity was completely wrong.  Today, I want to share one little tip that can change the quality of charity dramatically.  Here is my experience.

 

I was the leader of a volunteer group during my high school days.  There, I had a chance to collaborate with a stationery company for a project.  Our volunteer group asked our school’s students to bring stationery they wouldn’t use anymore and send it to an orphanage in the Philippines, to which the company had appointed a Japanese woman to assist in the process.  Many students supported this project, and they contributed a huge quantity of stationery.  Isn’t it wonderful? 

 

A few months later, I got a DVD from the orphanage.  To be honest, I thought there must be something wonderful in the video, such as the children showing their gratitude to us.  So I hurried to my house, put it into my computer, and pushed the start button.  It was only a 30-second video. All the orphans and the Japanese woman had gathered to say, “Thank you so much,” WITHOUT SMILING. 

 

I was confused.  I asked the Japanese woman what the matter was and why they weren’t excited.  She told me how they felt: “They were happy about having new stationery, but they were mostly confused.  They couldn’t understand why someone whom they had never met before would give them so much stationery even though it was still usable.  They were just confused.”

 

             From this experience, I found that sometimes our help doesn’t work as we expect.  Furthermore, I realized that this happened because my attitude towards this project was totally wrong.  Charity is not for us.  It’s for those who are in need.  However, looking back on what I had done, I didn’t care about how they felt.  I was just satisfied with the fact that I had sent stationary.  According to a study by Stanford University, most people contribute to charity for their own self-satisfaction and don’t truly care about the people they have supported so much.  Members of the audience, we need to reconsider what charity is.  According to the Japan Association of Charitable Organization, charity is defined as voluntary action to help the poor.  By this definition, I think the important thing is not what we do, but the fact that people who we support are helped.  However, because we so often think only of ourselves, sometimes this is not achieved.

 

              Some people may think that action is enough for charity, because action often directly connects to help.  However, there are many cases where our contribution doesn’t give the intended result, such as charity fraud, or ends up causing confusion or even anger like in my experience.  Let’s look at another case.  Nikkei medical reported that when the Great East Japan Earthquake happened, people in Tohoku sometimes had trouble with the support from other areas.  For example, frozen food was a little problematic because many of them didn’t have refrigerators.  Unwashed blankets also caused issues because people were appalled that they had received dirty blankets from complete strangers.  This “support” from other areas made them feel upset and even outraged. 

 

However, these cases including my own experience can be prevented if we really care about the people who we support and have consideration for.

 

Let’s go back to my experience.  In my case, they were confused because they got stationary from complete strangers, so I thought we should make a connection.  We wrote letters to bond with them.  We sent pictures to introduce ourselves.  We sent origami with cards that explained how to play with them, to let the children see us as closer, and it actually worked!  Unlike the previous time, the picture from them was full of their smiles.  Letters were full of their love.  I felt that I was able to take their confusion away.

 

I’m convinced that this attitude is what’s needed when you donate to a charity; not only making a contribution, but also employing compassion to help those in need in the best way.  If you think more, you can find so many ways to better a charity.  For example, when donating money, check how the organizations use your money, avoid charities which abuse their status as much as you can and choose the one that promotes the most happiness.  When you donate, you can add letters or something to lift their spirits like I did.  In addition, think about whether those whom you help will be offended or not.  Is it clean?  Is it really needed? 

 

Whatever you do, it’s best to truly care about the people whom you support.  Donating to charity is not enough.  We need to adopt this new attitude to help people in the best possible way.  So from now on, why don’t we all add our own little twist to improve the effect of charities?