2018-06-22Staff Report 2 As much as this hurts me to the core, I should take the lead and be the first to admit that people do not respond to charity winter drives anymore. Results of winter drives have been so poor across the board that the negative phenomena has analysts like myself scratching our heads. Charity winter drives usually involve you donating old clothing, blankets and any non-perishable food to the under privileged through targeted interventions. The initiatives are always seen as good tools toward fulfilling and meeting corporate social responsibility obligations. However, responses from the general public has been poor to most of the charity winter drives. So much that organisations, companies and private persons are contemplating doing away with the Namibian way of Ubuntu. I always thought that there could never be too many charity winter drives, but I may have to reconsider my stance. In the past, the more charity winter drives, the better. However, it now seems that people are downright fatigue of being asked to help with old clothes, blankets and non-perishable items that they simply shut off when such requests come in. From radio, TV and print, people are uninterested to take note and respond accordingly. I could argue that charity winter drives lack innovation. But I don’t understand why a charity winter drive should be overzealous with innovation. It’s a charity winter drive for goodness sake! Why do you need special motivation to help the underprivileged? If you have clothes that you do not use anymore, donate! If you have blankets that are just taking up the space in your flat, donate! If you have that beef tin that has been in your kitchen for more than a month, donate! Why do you need some grand innovative ways to convince you to donate and help the next Namibian? Have we moved to a point as a society that we need some sort of special reason to help each other? Nobody is trying to sell you anything. Nobody is trying to convince you to do something that is not in your grand life plan. All a charity winter drive is doing is reminding you of your civic duty as a Namibian. Another factor that may also be contributing to poor responses from people to donate may be something we all know as “hand downs”. Hand downs are, well in this case clothing that passes down in succession from generation to the next (father to son…etc.). However hand downs has been a Namibian family feature for decades. Why would it affect charity winter drives in 2018? This simply boils down to us being ignorant again. Ignorance has dangerously become a Namibian norm in the last five years, or so. I don’t understand how ignorance could’ve become the new cool in the information age the world finds itself in. See which charity winter drive resonates with you and get involved. Donate what you can. Stop being ignorant. You don’t need a huge marketing budget to convince you to help the next Namibian. It’s your civic duty. Every citizen has a civic duty. Don’t sleep on yours! Until the next loop, we say “GMTM”! NSK is a professional MC. For bookings, email naobebsekind@gmail.com @naobebsekind (twitter) 2018-06-22Staff Report 2
