Do you like Coldplay? Then you can buy their CD Viva La Vida on www.amazon.com for $ 11.88. Or you can give the money to Vakoka Vakiteny, who can produce and print 4.8 books for it.
If you use makeup, you probably have an eye shadow brush from the Body Shop for $ 18.00. That makes 7,4 Vakoka Vakiteny boos for Malagasy children.
For one pair of converse from www.converse.com you have to spend $ 50.00. Vakoka Vakiteny spends the same money for producing and printing 20.5 books.
If you have bought a Canon PowerShot SX200 digital camera, you probably spent $ 329.99. That makes Ariary 679,647, which means that we could have produced and printed 135.9 books for the same amount.
Or perhaps you plan to go to Christina Aguilera’s concert in Uncasville, CT on July 15. The lowest price for tickets from www.ticketmaster.com is $ 495.00. That makes no less than 203.9 books for Malagasy children through Vakoka Vakiteny.
It takes so little to make a difference! Use your old Converse one more season or listen to Coldplay on YouTube – and spend the money on books through Vakoka Vakiteny's association in Germany. Scroll down this page or press here to see how.
Thank you!
Hi.
ReplyDeleteYou can not argue like this. First of all; We need some things in life like clothing and shoes. We might not need the 5. or 10. pair of shoes, but we need some.
Secondly; human beings need some comfort. We have the need to feel that we are worthy, feel that we look good or whatever one needs. I might have the need of one thing, and somebody else something else. You could argue for moderation, like in your coffee advertisement and I would certainly agree with you. I guess that if I'd always live like you would like, I would end up naked and Vakoka-Vakiteny would get all the little money I have now, but thats not sustainability.
My idea of saving money for a good purposes is having a percentage, like 5 or 10 %. Every time I use money for my own pleasure (cinema, CD holiday or whatever) i would give 10 % of the used money to Vakoka-Vakitieny. (100 kr. for a CD = 10 kr. for V-V). In this way I would help other people by "helping myself". How high the percentage would be, would be decided by my income. As a student probably 3% and as a good earning doctor 20 or 50%.
Hi Hans.
ReplyDeleteYou are right that humans need clothing and hobbies. But the aim of this article is not to tell you never to buy anything for yourself, but to put things in perspective and show how little of our wealth is needed to make a difference.
And I know that people have many pairs of shoes they don't use, so don't tell me they wouldn't have shoes to wear if they gave money to Vakoka Vakiteny.
Of course you can do like you suggested - give a percentage. This article only shows that helping children in Madagascar is as easy as buying yourself a new CD.
I hope this sorted things out a bit for you.
Have a nice day,
Sophie