Posts Tagged ‘charity’
Banned film about Save the Children charity gets rare airing
Corporate headquarters in Westport, Connecticut
A 1969 documentary by Ken Loach, made for and later banned by Save the Children, has been shown to an audience of critics and colleagues in London. The untitled film will have its public premiere on 1 September and forms part of a major retrospective of the British director’s work at BFI Southbank.
The film took a critical view of the charity’s work in the UK and Kenya that its backers felt subverted its aims.
“There was a showing and not much was said,” the 75-year-old Loach remembers. “People left the room, and then we heard from the lawyers.”
The 53-minute film was co-funded by Save the Children, then celebrating its 50th anniversary, and London Weekend Television. “We assumed LWT would support the independence of a critical eye,” said Loach on Monday. “But they just backed away.”
As a result, the piece was consigned to the British Film Institute’s National Archive “and the key thrown away”.
That’s the version the Brits get to deal with. During my years in performing arts in among other places – Fairfield County in Connecticut – there were several happenings like this in the same time period.
One involved staff from Save the Children quitting their world headquarters over the “cost of doing business” which had a surprisingly smaller percentage of charity donations than perceived actually passing through to the children supposedly being saved. I knew a few of those folks and they worked for salaries considered nothing more than standard for the market. Yet, the managers of the charity took big chunks for themselves. Perhaps that’s changed?
Of course, films can be strange beasts. I saw the first cut of “Carry it On” and Joan Baez liked to have a fit on the spot with so much portrayed of her hubby, David, walking away from pacifism after he spent serious time in prison with folks from mean streets. The version that made it to nicey-nicey film festivals had lots of changes.
Madonna’s charity wasted millions – none on the kids
The managers of Madonna’s charity in Malawi have been ousted after they squandered $3.8m on a school that will never be built…The damning audit came as Raising Malawi confirmed that it has scrapped plans for a $15m elite academy for girls.
The charity’s executive director, Philippe van den Bossche, the partner of Madonna’s former personal trainer, left in October after criticism of his management style and spending at the school, according to the New York Times.
“These included what auditors described as outlandish expenditures on salaries, cars, office space and golf course membership, free housing and a car and driver for the school’s director,” the paper said.
In a shakeup at the charity, the board of directors has been removed and replaced by a caretaker board that includes the 52-year-old singer and her manager, it added.
The abandonment of the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls – backed by prominent Hollywood figures and Madonna’s associates in Kabbalah – was announced in January. This caught the Malawian government by surprise and caused anger among villagers who had surrendered their homes to make way for a 117-acre construction site near the capital, Lilongwe…
Trevor Neilson, a founder of the group, said $3.8m had been spent on the unbuilt school, much of it on architects, salaries and two cars for employees who had not yet been appointed.
“Despite [this outlay], the project has not broken ground, there was no title to the land and there was, overall, a startling lack of accountability on the part of the management team in Malawi and the management team in the United States,” he was quoted as saying.
RTFA for a cautionary tale about trophy charities and celebrities who seem to need more attention than the “beneficiaries” of the charity.
Michelle Obama writing garden book – proceeds go to charity
Michelle Obama is to follow in her husband’s footsteps by writing a book about the organic garden she started at the White House and her efforts to promote healthy eating.
The as yet untitled book will be published in April 2012, and will see the US First Lady describing how she was inspired to plant the first edible garden on the White House’s South Lawn since Eleanor Roosevelt’s World War Two era “victory garden”.
She will also share some of her family’s favourite healthy recipes, said Crown, an imprint of Random House publishers. Mrs Obama received no advance and would donate the proceeds to a charity to be determined later.
Explaining her reasons for writing the book, she said: “We’ve gotten food out of the garden, and we can eat it and it’s good. So we wanted to share the story with the rest of the nation and perhaps with the rest of the world, because we get so many questions about the garden: how did we do it? Why did we do it? How do I do this in my own home or community?” The book will include photos of Mrs Obama’s White House garden as well as other community, urban and school gardens around the United States.
The first lady has been a strong advocate of healthy eating and exercise and in February 2010 launched her “Let’s Move!” initiative aimed at beating child obesity and improving the quality of food in US schools.
Now, how many ways do you think the reactionaries of America will hate this book?
Republicans can whine about an attack on the profits of agribusiness, the subversive nature of organic gardening. Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman will try to outdo each other in ignorance, assuming advice on diet and nutrition is something Americans need never consider.
The leading populists of our time, the KoolAid Party only needs to remind their obedient followers that Michelle Obama is well-educated – and Black.
Green Giftmas Presents
NRDC $35 or more
Even though we’ve won back their endangered species protection, wolves in Greater Yellowstone and across the Northern Rockies are once again facing government plans to kill them on a mass scale. Under one proposed plan, hundreds of wolves could be shot and wolf pups gassed in their dens.
Your gift will help us come to their defense and fight for a recovery plan that ensures wolves have a healthy future in the Northern Rockies.
Woman busted for faking son’s cancer
A Warren [Michigan] woman accused of telling her 12-year-old son he had cancer and holding fundraisers to bilk people was formally arraigned in 39th District Court.
Carol Lynn Schnuphase, 47, is charged with second-degree child abuse and two counts of taking money under false pretenses. The child abuse charge carries a penalty of four years in prison and the false pretense charges are five-year felonies…
“She shaved her son’s head and eyebrows every other week,” said Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith. “She crushed tablets and put them in his applesauce to make him appear lethargic and as if he was going through chemotherapy.
“We’ve never seen anything like it.”
Smith said Schuphrase, who is unemployed, used money from the fund-raisers to pay bills and everyday expenses. When authorities removed her son from her home this summer, she told people that he died and that she needed money for his funeral, Smith said…
Local churches held fundraisers for the boy, officials said. One event, held at St. Thomas Church in Eastpointe, raised more than $7,000. Schnuphase allegedly accepted the donations as a check in her name.
Every day, some scumball figures out how to make crime just a little sleazier.
Celebrity cereal box lists phone-sex line instead of charity
The telephone number pasted on boxes of cereal named for Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco was supposed to be for a charity — but mistakenly directed callers to a sex line, the player’s agent said on Thursday.
“The wrong number was given by the Feed the Children charity,” Ochocinco’s agent Robert Bailey said. “It’s a shame because it’s a good cause.”
The outspoken Ochocinco said he was confident the mistake — an 800 area code was substituted for 888 — would be corrected by PBL Sports, the marketing company behind “Ochocincos” cereal.
A portion of the $5 price of each box goes to the Feed The Children organization, according to PBL’s website.
In a tweet, the football player had directed fans to his own website and urged them to order his cereal, adding, “Start your day with a lil suga!!!”
That’s a genuine HAR!
Gates, Buffett say China charity meeting a success
The mansion where the private banquet was held
After a night of wining and dining 50 of China’s richest people in the name of promoting philanthropy, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates told a horde of journalists on Thursday that the biggest difference between eating with Chinese tycoons and Western ones was the food.
Thus ended the two billionaires’ mission to promote charity in China, a journey that provoked weeks of breathless speculation here about whether this nation’s much-resented class of superrich was too miserly to measure up to Western philanthropic standards.
At a news conference, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Gates said the answer was an emphatic “no.”
“I was amazed last night, really, at how similar the questions and discussions and all that was to the dinners we had in the U.S.,” said Mr. Buffett, who had wisecracked about the food. “The same motivations tend to exist. The mechanism for manifesting those motivations may differ from country to country…”
On Thursday, the two men pronounced the dinner an unqualified success, saying that two-thirds of those who were invited had shown up, and that more than half of those at the dinner had offered their own ideas on how Chinese philanthropy should work…
China is widely reported to be second only to the United States in the number of dollar billionaires. Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett said the nation was unique in that its wealthy class had arisen almost wholly in the past 30 years, so philanthropic practices that are entrenched among European and American dynasties are new here, and open to change.
“What you have is a first generation of fortune,” Mr. Gates said, “and it’s natural that they’re thinking through, in this society in particular, ‘What do you do?’ ”
But Mr. Gates suggested that their philanthropic globetrotting was not yet over. “We may do an event in India,” he said.
I’ve worked on a number of homes for the nouveau riche who ended up choosing Santa Fe either as their primary residence or just a holiday home. Cripes, I worked on a “vacation cottage” that was 24,000 square feet in size.
But, even the folks who owned that last example were involved with charity from the local scale to global. As I’ve noted before, most folks I’ve worked with who made their own fortunes were not stingy. The greedy grasping types usually were trustfunders, those who inherited their wealth.
I think a fair number of folks who earned their own way remember where they come from.
Feed the needy. Well, some of them.
Har!
Priest really knows how to manage a charity – for himself
How to visit your parishioners in a real hurry!
A Catholic priest who drove a Ferrari, kept mistresses and siphoned off more than £2 million of charity donations has been jailed for fraud in France.
Father Antoine Videau, 64, received a three-year prison sentence for crimes that led to him being known as the “Playboy Padre”. He was revealed to have been in possession of 28 bank accounts around the world following his arrest.
Much of the money was being used to fund his multi-millionaire lifestyle which included regular visits to casinos in Las Vegas and Monte Carlo…
Father Videau, who was arrested in 2005 while parish priest in Calacuccia, Corsica, had denied fraud and abuse of confidence.
His crimes also included hiring out nunneries for social events, and then using the profits to maintain his lavish lifestyle.
He appointed himself executor of the half-a-million pounds estate of a deceased archbishop, making sure that everything went to him.
Meanwhile, Father Videau set up home with a young woman in La Ciotat, in the Bouches-du-Rhône area of France, making sure that nobody back in Corsica got to hear about her.
Is there any significant difference between this particular hustler and any other religion pimp?
He used the money for a hustlers’ lifestyle, fast cars and bimbos. The only difference with our all-American favorites is that they take out a certain amount of time to support reactionary politics.
He only did enough of that to stay in touch with the Vatican.
Wal-Mart donates $2 billion to Food Banks
The Wal-Mart Corporation announced plans to contribute $2 billion in cash and food to the nation’s food banks, one of the largest corporate gifts on record.
Over the next five years, the giant retail company will distribute some 1.1 billion pounds of food to food banks and provide $250 million to help them buy refrigerated trucks, improve storage and develop better logistics.
“Hunger is just a huge problem, and as the largest grocer in the country, we need to be at the head of the pack in doing something about it,” said Margaret McKenna, president of the Wal-Mart Foundation.
While the economy seems to be turning around, the number of people turning to charities to help put food on their tables continues to grow. A recent survey by Feeding America found that 37 million people a year now use its national network of food banks, a 46 percent increase from 2006. The survey drew on interviews with more than 61,000 people who use food banks, as well as reports from 37,000 food banks across the country.
Put another way, 1 in every 8 Americans uses a food bank to make ends meet, the survey said.
More than one-third of those surveyed said they would not have been able to pay for basics like rent, utilities and medical care without relying on food banks to offset the cost of their meals — and more than a third said at least one person in their household was working.
“It is not just the unemployed that are going hungry,” said Vicki B. Escarra, chief executive of Feeding America.
Good choice. Businesses donate to many charities – for many reasons – above and beyond the tax break boundary.
Pleased to see Wal-Mart pick something that is affecting so many folks as we climb out from under this recession.
