Well-off people in Bangladesh are seen donating clothes, cash, foods and other goods among the poor on religious occasions such as the holy month of Ramadan and the Eids. Charities during religious occasions and at other times have a role in helping the poor. But the charitable goods are mainly of a consumptive nature. Therefore, one is inclined to thinking whether the poor would be benefited greater and in a long lasting way if the resources spent on disparate individual charities could be pooled together for systematic poverty alleviation.
Institutionally, different organisations can mop up individual contributions and then utilise the same in a planned manner on behalf of the poor. For example, one organisation can spend charitable resources to set up a school for the children of the poor, another can establish a vocational institution so that the poor can receive training and find jobs and add to human resources, another institution can set up a medical centre devoted exclusively to the poor and so on. Perhaps such institutional charities-- catering to the longer term needs of the poor --can play a more useful role in wider and sustainable improvement in their conditions than the present scattered acts of individual charities that satisfy mainly basic consumption needs.
Shireen Haque
Maghbazar, Dhaka
Institutional charity
FE Team | Published: September 16, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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