Nelson's Column
Charlie Nelson's Blog
The gap in gifts for good
Charitable organisations are having their Christmas gifts catalogs for good inserted into newspapers. Givers buy the gift, perhaps a goat for a poor family in Africa, and give a card recording the gift to a friend or relative for Christmas.
World Vision has a catalog called "Gifts that mean more" and Oxfam have "44 ways to look good this Christmas". Perhaps the latter should be "do good" rather than "look good". The Oxfam catalog is appallingly full of snappy names for their gifts - such as "Because you've been such a good egg, the gift of chicken". Their marketing department seems to have over-emphasised the sizzle and forgotten about the sausage.
But there is a yawning gap in these catalogs. It is a good thing to improve the lives of poor people, especially if it is in the form of a gift that helps them grow their own food or provides an income opportunity rather than just a meal for one day. Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish and he eats everyday - assuming that there is clean water and that fish stocks have not been depleted by too many people fishing.
The gap is the ability to reduce population growth so that less people are starving and that there is clean water and some fish left to catch.
None of the catalogs have a gift of condoms or an IUD or sterilisation. When such a gift is available I will certainly give it!
Charlie Nelson
December 2011