More useful charity

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THE well-off in Bangladesh often donate clothes, cash, foods and other goods among the poor on religious occasions like the holy month of Ramadan and the Eids. Charities during religious occasions and at other times do help the poor. But the charitable goods are mainly of a consumptive nature. Therefore, one is inclined to ask whether it really benefits the poor in a lasting way. But the resources, distributed in this fashion, could be pooled together for a systematic poverty alleviation.

Organisations can be there to mop up individual contributions to utilise them in a planned manner on behalf of the poor. For example, an organisation can spend charitable resources to set up schools for the children of the poor, another can establish a vocational institution so that the poor can train themselves and find jobs and add to human resources. Another institution can set up a medical centre devoted exclusively to treat the poor and so on.

Perhaps, institutional arrangements can better catering to the longer term needs of the poor. They can play a more useful role to improve their conditions on a sustainable basis than the scattered acts of individual charity that satisfies mainly basic consumption needs.

Shireen Haque

Maghbazar, Dhaka.