Citizenship - report on my sponsored fast for charity.

The activity affected me and Louis in multiple ways. We both had to survive without food for a day, give up our time to gather sponsors, collect the money and do the activity itself. But in return for this we are given subject matter to base our GCSE Citizenship coursework around and the gratification of knowing something we did is helping those in need thousands of miles away.

During my activity I collected evidence to prove that I did the activity. I have 4 pieces of evidence. The first is the sponsor form, this accounts for the money collected and shows where it all came from. The second is a photo taken to prove we where there, showing us both together not eating. I also have a signed statement from my mother, backing up our claim that we did not eat from 8am-8pm. She has been able to sign the statement because she witnessed us fasting all day. The final piece of evidence is the email from the British Red Cross to show that the money was donated, verifying the amount, cause and charity. All of these pieces of evidence can be found enclosed.

(B) Explanation and Interpretation of Evidence

My chosen charity (The British Red Cross) is trying to aid the recovery of parts of Pakistan and India that have been hit by a recent earthquake. Because I am and active citizen of the UK and indeed the world this concerns me and I felt I had to do something to help my fellow human beings.

The charity does many types of work, however it mainly concentrates on humanitarian matters, which basically means helping those who have been injured or cannot function properly due to illness. The charity has over 35,000 volunteers from around the UK and trains over 150,000 first aiders a year. The Red Cross aims to help everyone equally, regardless of gender, religion, ethnicity or nationality, anyone whom we share this planet with.

The Red Cross carry out work all over the world in collaboration with it’s sister charity the Red Crescent (Other countries versions of the red cross). The Red Cross are a global charity and most of it’s money is deployed overseas, especially this year as there has also been the Asian Tsunami near the beginning of the year.

In order to find out peoples knowledge and opinions of the Red Cross’ work I compiled a survey with the help of my partner Louis. This gives me a better idea of peoples opinions to the charity and charity work in general. The questionnaire consisted of 5 questions and was handed out to 30 people. From the results I can see that the Red Cross is a very well known and respected charity, whether people donate to the British Red Cross and how many people are prepared to donate to the Asian Earthquake Appeal. All of this helps to cement our choice of the British Red Cross as a charity to donate through.

The charity raised and spent millions of pounds last year on supplying aid, training and emergency services to people all over the world. The money comes from independent donations such as mine, large fundraising events laid on by the charity itself and legacies that are left by those that have died and wish to leave some of their money to a good cause.

Two of the other major contributors to the relief effort are our government and the UN. Our government has pledged over £12 million due to pressure from Britain’s high Muslim population. The USA have also done their up most to help the relief effort, donating 8 helicopters that were formerly based in nearby Afghanistan to help the aid with it’s deliveries to hard to reach areas. The main relief effort from the Western world is the United Nations. The UN are aiming to raise over £150 million to assist the relief effort over the next 6 months, aiming to provide tents, blankets and shelter to those who’s homes were flattened and most importantly to provide a means of transportation to the hard to reach areas.

The relief effort has been in the main co-ordinated by the Pakistani government. Because the Pakistani government has the most man power and knowledge of the area so they are best suited to organise the relief. The army are concentrating on setting up distribution points to ensure the aid is shared equally amongst those that need it. However the Pakistan government has encountered many problems and come in for criticism from various sections of the media, with people claiming that the airport in Islamabad where most of the international aid is being received is far too small and the air traffic coming in is being poorly organised, with some plans even having to turn back. Some people also feel that the government were too slow to mobilise the relief effort, with it being over 24 hours being the relief effort began. Since then the government have appointed Major-General Mohammed Farooq as the head of the Federal Relief Commission to co-ordinate the relief effort of both the Pakistan army and foreign relief organisations.  

My evidence has helped me in various ways; it’s helped me to understand what people were interested in seeing me doing for charity, what people wanted me to donate to and how they wanted me to donate. I have also learned a lot about charity work and what goes on in places thousands of miles away when disaster situations hit. I have included 8 different pieces of evidence which I have analysed in the part of my coursework marked “Evidence”.

Overall I would say that my Citizenship activity has been hugely successful, I raised over £80 to help the British Red Cross with their relief effort in Asia following the earthquake, enticing 22 different people to sponsor me. I have also learnt a lot during the project about charity work, the British Red Cross, the Asian Earthquake but also about myself. During the activity I learnt a lot about my different strengths and weaknesses and how I react in new situations. I have also enjoyed the whole process from start to finish, finding out bits of interesting new information and enjoying helping others.