How and who should be helped during the war

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Charity during the war sometimes takes on ugly forms. How and who should be helped, so as not to waste energy and avoid deception, tells our reader under the pseudonym Brother Rabbit, who spent three years on the territory of hostilities.

What kind of volunteers are there

1. Present

People who sincerely want to help those in need. They do not need photos for the report, they spend their own funds, and do not beg on social networks, and most importantly, they help without unnecessary noise and pretentious reports on Facebook.

2. Professional benefactors

People for whom this is the main source of income. Profession. The same as a supermarket clerk, designer or programmer. Such people help because they pay money for it. An honest, understandable scheme.

3. Lovers of extreme

When skydiving and mountaineering are already weak, and gasoline both ways to the front line is cheaper than a pair of good boots, people with an active lifestyle begin to arrange a personal attraction. They buy bread or the cheapest cereals, having previously collected funds through social networks, and go to feed the hungry. Do not forget to take selfies along the way against the background of destroyed houses and fall picturesquely at the sound of shots over the horizon.

The main goal is to get a dose of adrenaline and at the same time likes.

4. Face traders

Petty officials, politicians, artists, musicians, poets and other creative people known in narrow circles. In this case, emotions are secondary, it is much more important to get more photos, more likes, more hype.

5. Small business

Usually they are encouraged to purchase T-shirts and hoodies with various symbols, so that later on with part of the money you can buy something very necessary (tactical napkins, tactical combs, tactical knives, tactical forks and spoons) and take them to those who are in dire need of it. They appeal to a cup of coffee that you must give up for a good cause.

You are not helping. You are paying for the existence of someone's business.

6. Foundations and organizations

There are really transparent ones that provide tremendous assistance to a huge number of people. There are only a few of them. There are pocket funds, charitable organizations, communities and others, whose name is legion, which often exist for money laundering, throwing dust in the eyes and implementing shadow schemes.

How to help

1. Cooperate with the authorities

Don't be afraid to interact with officials. Yes, they are often scolded (and sometimes for the cause), but the most dishonest ones usually leave with the first shots.

Contact or go personally to the city council and tell how and to whom you want to help. Officials have up-to-date lists of people left in the city: orphans, large families, needy, bedridden patients, veterans, and so on. This is much more effective than acting at random or using lists from the Internet.

Example

On Christmas Eve, you and your friends collected a round amount of money, which is enough for 400 children's sets (a bag of sweets, pencils, paints, an album, brushes, an eraser, a sharpener, a coloring book). First, check which categories are not yet covered with gifts. Depending on whether the city is in the spotlight or the events in it are hushed up, there may be no gifts at all or there may be too many.

Based on the number of kits planned, select the categories you want. These can be certain years of birth (for example, from 2010 to 2012), so as not to bother with a different composition of sets and to facilitate the purchase (wholesale will be both cheaper and easier to deliver). Or, conversely, in the case of a small number of kits, you can make them different, but cover all ages in the same category, for example, children with disabilities.

One way or another, you must completely close a group so that those who are left without gifts (and there may not be enough resources for all of your resources) understand why this happened.

Don't give gifts to social workers. Immediately stipulate that you will handle the distribution yourself. It is best to do this in a targeted manner.

First, you will know that the gift has got to the right place, and not to the store for resale. Secondly, the real undisguised joy of gifts (and it is exactly that when children are not overwhelmed with them under the camera lenses) is worth any money and effort.

An exception can be made in the case of organizing a special matinee or concert for children. But remember that if the situation aggravates, all your efforts will be in vain: the event will be banned.

2. Approach the question systematically

Make detailed lists. It doesn’t matter if it’s gifts for children, food packages or medicines, a mass distribution or helping a few people. Write everything down. Ideally, create a table in Google Docs, which will contain all the data you need: name, address, phone number, age, date of receipt, special notes.

Example

You have 100 addresses of retired war veterans and over 80 years of age in need, with a pension below X, and 100 pre-packaged food kits. Two weekends in which you can allocate no more than two hours, and three cars ready to help friends. Having a table of addresses in hand, you can scatter them into separate lists so that each of the cars covers a certain area, and does not randomly wander around the city.

In the same place, in the table, it will be possible to indicate who really needed this help, and next time bring it again, and who already has whole deposits of this food. Perhaps someone will ask you to get a certain medicine or contact relatives and ask for help. Enter all the data in a general list. They will come in handy.

3. Act with awareness

The more time passes, the more terrible events unfold around, the faster you burn out, become more callous and indifferent. This happens for two reasons. First, by virtue of experience, you already see where you can do something, and where your help will be in vain. Secondly, you will not be able to pass everything through yourself indefinitely. At some point, the filter will turn on, and you simply stop responding.

The less emotion and energy you spend on unnecessary help, the more you have left for really important things.

Don't act at random. Ask the people you want to help what they need the most.

Example

They sent you a list of people in dire need and tearfully ask you to help them with food. Before you agree, find out in detail where this data comes from and how relevant it is. Most often, impressionable aunties, languishing from idleness, who want to do their bit, but are not ready to take their butts off the chair, collect such stupid lists via the Internet.

There is, however, one thing. During periods when someone is in dire need of food, there is no longer a normal connection and, moreover, the Internet in the city. And some of this information has long been out of date.

4. Don't plan

Don't set idiotic goals like doing one good thing every day. By doing this, you will only burn your resources for nothing. Help only when you really need it. When you clearly understand who, why and how you are helping. It doesn't matter if it will be daily for a certain period or once a month. Help is not a job.

5. Don't ask

If you want to help - help personally. Do not shift your good desires onto someone else's shoulders and wallets. This is good once or twice, but not when you call your friends, acquaintances and relatives daily to save the next kitten, child or lion cub. Only reposts of someone else's begging look more disgusting.

Example

During the next shelling, someone's house was destroyed nearby. You want to help. Take a tool, go and help. There is no need to tell others about the universal injustice and call for help from those who are not indifferent on the Internet. Just go and do it.

6. Check information

Before responding to someone's call for help, make sure you really need it. Very often people, and especially volunteers, lie, wishful thinking or trite mistakes.

If you are in the city - check in person, if outside - ask one of your friends to clarify the information. Most often, truly catastrophic situations hide the first time and give out information after the fact. Hysterical reports from "needy" cities, the presence of journalists with cameras and politicians mean one thing: everything is fine there.

Example

You have read on the Internet a request to bring drinking water to the city, since the main water supply has been interrupted and people are dying of thirst.

No need to rush to the store for water and rush there headlong. Even if you were shown crying children who greedily drink a certain brand of water. Contact someone from the city administration or local residents (if you don't know anyone, check the information through social networks). Find out the real situation.

Even the most run-down village has wells and wells, and cities with a population of 10,000 or more have their own station for the purification and sale of drinking water. It is wiser to buy water on the spot and deliver it according to pre-prepared lists. For example, families with newborns, bedridden patients, pensioners over a certain age, and others. It is stupid and expensive to carry water from afar.

7. Remember your family

Even if your family supports your volunteer endeavors, they shouldn't suffer from your undue kindness. Children should eat fruit, go on vacation with you, and the wife should wear warm boots and please herself with pleasant little things.

Do not sacrifice the welfare of those for whom you are responsible for the sake of your own philanthropy. Otherwise, at some point, the boat of family happiness will crack.

Example

You promised your wife to go with her for groceries, fix the tap and generally spend the weekend in joint household chores. Suddenly your name is urgently to save the world: to take porridge to the grandmothers dying of hunger. Refuse. Or offer to postpone everything to another day. The usefulness of such events is greatly exaggerated by their initiators, it is quite tolerable for a day or two.

8. Give thanks to those who work with you

It doesn't matter who helps you help.:) These are friends, relatives or just strangers. Always try to thank them. Above all, don't turn teamwork into piecework.

Example

You have a ton of food on hand: cereals, flour, canned food and butter. To collect the necessary 100 sets from this, you call your friends for help. They spend their free time and energy with you, and in 3-4 hours you pack the food in packages in a crowd, with jokes and jokes. Offer them to take something from the products for themselves or give it yourself. It doesn't matter if they need it or not.

Another example: you have hosted an event for children with a giveaway and a concert. After it, set the table (not necessarily chic, even tea and cake or beer with fish will be enough) for everyone who participated, and sit and talk. This will allow you to find like-minded people and bring people together. Any friendship is based on three pillars: joint work, food and rest.

9. Watch for quality

Treat the target audience of your help as your loved ones. There is no need to buy medicines with an almost expired shelf life, spoiled groceries or rancid oil just because they are half the price. Of course, they will thank you, but with a high degree of probability, all this will end up in the trash can or in the dog's bowls. You don't have to take something very expensive, just high-quality is enough.

If you are acting as a hub that accepts, distributes and delivers such packages to those in need, toughly filter out those who abuse garbage.

Getting rid of unnecessary things by giving them to the poor is probably the most common type of charity. Convenient mercy.

Expired food, moldy home preserves, frozen and rotten potatoes, spoiled bacon and lard. The list could be endless.

Example

You have collected a pile of things to send to the city affected by the shelling. Make sure they are all washed. The place where you are sending the cargo will most likely not have water and electricity. Make sure your clothes are free of ballast, such as torn dirty socks, leaky underpants and trampled slippers. Sometimes kind-hearted citizens heap up such junk 90% of the total mass.

10. Pay special attention to logistics

Use passing vehicles for delivery and choose the cheapest carriers. Do not hesitate to tell what, why and where you are taking. Perhaps someone will help you with delivery for free or make a substantial discount.

Consider weather conditions, loading and unloading times. Be sure to consider the likelihood of a situation when it will not be possible to quickly unload the car due to shelling.

Example

You brought flour and cereals in a truck without an awning and left without unloading in the city in the rain. All this, of course, will be handed out to people for show. Only you will receive nothing but contempt and curses against you, and the products will then end up in a landfill. The exception is a situation similar to hungry Leningrad, but I have never encountered such a situation.

11. Don't keep all your eggs in one basket

If you do not have the opportunity to bring and distribute help yourself and you decide to act through someone - do not rush. Do not entrust large consignments of cargo to one person at once. Even if you lose partially on delivery. Make sure everything is done as it should, and your help reaches the addressee. Feel free to ask people or come in person without warning. Large volumes only add to the temptation.

12. Don't be afraid to refuse

Volunteering for various reasons (PR, money laundering, the ability to import and export goods without checks) attracts a lot of dishonest people: scammers, sectarians, politicians, foundations and societies. If you just want to help, without commitments and requirements in the future, do not contact them. Sooner or later you will be asked for a reciprocal service, and it is not a fact that it will be within the framework of the law and conscience.

13. Less pathos

The widespread social exhibitionism, forcing people to dump their personal lives on Facebook, in the case of volunteering, takes on especially ugly forms.

Deliberate escalation of the situation, pretentious stories about the horrors of the situation, dozens of stupid photographs and overflowing emotions.

Reading all this from the scene, you cannot even understand how this feverish delirium is born in the heads of capable adults, which has nothing to do with reality, and how you can waste your energy, time and resources in such a bad way. Carrying loaves of bread hundreds of kilometers away, when the city has its own shops and bakeries, driving cars with water when there are wells, dumping food in neighboring villages for fear of shelling and reporting that they were given out where necessary. Lies and madness in full length, endless length.

14. Give people a fishing rod, not a fish

The best help you can give in a war is not necessarily food, medicine, clothing, or building materials. The main thing is to give people a goal and the opportunity to earn their own bread. This could be a machine, a pump and water purification system, a mini-bakery, a plastic window collection workshop, a sewing workshop, and hundreds of other options.

It is much more expensive, more complicated and risky than just buying a couple of quintals of porridge. But the benefits will be incomparably greater. Real, not sucked out of the finger.

P. S. It was the heaviest material in the series and was rewritten over and over again. I wanted to make it as useful as possible, but each time everything slipped into an endless story of deception and stupidity. I am grateful to everyone who, regardless of their views, provides all possible assistance to people living in the war zone. If this text somehow offended you - forgive me.