25 May 2008

Myanmar Cyclone and Chinese Earthquake

Last month I calculated my net worth to be $32,746. Right now with the improvement in global stock markets that would probably be around $33,000 or $34,000 if I'm lucky. I have given about $350 to charity so far this year.

Giving to charity for me is a difficult thing and I have mixed feelings about it. I would love to be able to give more of both my time and money but I do realize that at this stage in my life I need to save up.

The charity I would most like to give to is the World Food Programme since I consider starvation to be the worst pain that could be inflicted on a human. However, WPF is a non-Australian organization and as a result there is complexity of whether my donation is tax deductable. To get around this, I donate instead to Unicef Australia. I hate to be superficial but I really don't like Unicef Australia's website. In my opinion, the humanitarian organizations that operate in Australia that have nice-looking websites are Care Australia, Oxfam Australia, and World Vision Australia. Of all these Australian humanitarian organizations only World Vision offers child sponsorship. Australians collectively sponsor 400,000 children. What I like about child sponsorship is that donors have the ability to one day visit their sponsor child, which allows them to see first-hand whether the child is treated well by the aid organization.

Hopefully in the future I might get an opportunity to actually volunteer my time to worthy causes. This may not be a waste of time since I will be able to put such an experience on my resume.

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