You love your lil' girl? What if you and your wife die tonight in a car accident, and your girl back home keeps crying and waiting through the night? Unfed and tired of crying, she lulls into sleep, and wakes up at six in the morning. Mommy’s never coming back. Ditto for daddy.
Nightmare, isn’t it? You want to wake up, so that it ends – the nightmare. Except it doesn’t... for some. Some of us do die, and leave our little ones behind in this sick world, for dogs to feed on.
If reading these words makes you feel gloomy, just think of something else, mate; the gloom goes away. It does for most of us. Just stop reading further and snapshots of orphans will fade away. Your child is alright anyway.
But that should make you think, shouldn’t it? Does something like this happening to someone else’s child make it any less poignant? It’s so typical of us to be selfless to our own and yet be so oblivious to others’ orphans’ suffering. Now, I’m not saying that everyone should give part of their income to some orphanage (though one should). If you don’t have spare dollars, you can’t give. My issue is with those who do have spare dollars.
Lemme address most of you rich guys now. All that money sitting in your bank account is not laying any eggs. Well, it is, sorta, but it’ll get you bigger eggs, more fulfilling ones, if you donate some. No matter what the world tells you, amassing money doesn’t make you superior; giving it away does. So think out of the box, ye animal! Have some heart. Give it away.
And there’s no dearth of orphans, mind you. If you don’t see them around, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Go to an orphanage and get enlightened. According to the 2002 UNICEF/UNAIDS report "Children on the Brink 2002: A Joint Report on Orphan Estimates and Program Strategies", 7.6 percent of total kids in the world were orphans at the time. Of course, the report talked of 2001 figures, still it gives us a fair idea. This means for every 92 happy kids, nearly eight don’t have anyone to throw tantrums at. The report had projected the orphans worldwide to reach 44 million by 2010.
To make sure your money is going into the right hands, if you decide to take the plunge that is, what I suggest you rich fellas do is this: Get one of your underlings to float and manage a non-profit subsidiary-cum-orphanage. Pump some money (just a tiny fraction of your revenues at the most) into it and supervise the tender-hearted underling the orphanage is deputed to. It wouldn’t hurt ya! I mean, if your net worth is, say, $100 million, how much will it pinch you to spare just one percent (a million should cover it) of your net worth and one hour every week in the supervision of that orphanage?
If you are interested just a lil' bit, lemme run down the list of benefits you’re lookin' at. By spending just one percent of your millions, you will earn: People instead of money, tons of praise, emotional fulfillment, and a real sense of self–worth. And there’s loads to save too. You’ll save huge lots of suffering to those unfortunate kids, and yourself some “pangs of conscience”.
Next, you can take it as your shot at “playing God”, something you’d always wanted to do. Taking a few hundred parentless kids off the streets, providing them food, shelter and education (and affection, most of all), and turning them into successful, high self-esteem individuals is quite a feat. Something that puts you up there, in a league of your own.
And if you play your cards right, opening an orphanage could be your ticket to political power too. Like I said before, this philanthropic activity will earn people, instead of dollars, for you. You’ll be known as a good fella. Now cry out loud about your philanthropy, and there you are; up with the masses. There’s a lot those poor kids bring to the table, now don’t they?
If you still have difficulty feeling for the orphans, rich fella, just imagine if your little girl becomes one of them.
By Harpreet Bhagrath
The writer is the Chief Editor at themoneytimes.com and can be contacted at [email protected] Or [email protected]
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