Charity: a personal problem

Charity is big business: in the United States last year people gave more
than $150 billion to charity. And in the UK last month people gave £55
million to ‘Comic Relief’ – just one charity event. But every year there is
more suffering in the news. Sometimes it feels like people ask us for
money everywhere we go. With thousands of new charities every year
how do we choose who to give our money to?

Charity is not a modern idea. In 3500 BC King Hammurabai of Babylon encouraged his people to share their
wealth with their poorest neighbours. For thousands of years, the world’s main religions have encouraged
us to do the same. But many of today’s most well-known international charities started much smaller: with
just one ordinary person and one local problem. For example, Oxfam was started by Canon Milford in1942
to help the hungry and poor people in Greece. Today thousands of Oxfam workers are helping people in
more than 100 countries worldwide.

Charities know that people get tired of hearing the same message.
Over the years they have found new and interesting ways to get the
money they need. In the 1970s more and more people had televisions,
so charities made films of suffering children and brought the world’s
problems straight into people’s homes. The 1980s was a time of big
business, so charities became more business-like: they made money
by making and selling everything from Christmas cards to summer
holidays!

In the 1990s, famous people like Claudia Schiffer and Michael Jordan made millions of dollars for big
international companies like Citroën and Nike. So charities started using famous people too. During the
1990s Sting planned music events for the Rainforest Foundation. With help from other singers, such as
Ricky Martin and Elton John, he earned more than $10 million to help protect the lives of people living in
rainforests.

Today, charities are using the ‘personal touch’ to earn money. With
Plan International, for example you can adopt a child and send money
to the charity working in ‘your’ child’s local area. The charity
encourages people to get personally involved by writing letters to the
child. There are hundreds of things you can adopt with other charities:
families, farms, hospital departments, school books, animals… People
give more when they can see their money working in one local area,
and when they have a personal relationship with the charity.

Some people never give to charities. They say that their money cannot mend these world-wide problems.
This is true, but most people know that a little help is better than none. Look more closely at charity work
and you will see that individual people really do make a difference
(Penguin dossiers )

I.COMPREHENSION

A.Are these sentences true or false?

1) Charities are always using the same way to get money.

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2)In 1942, Oxfam helped thousands of people in many countries worldwide.
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3) Everyone agrees that charities help solve worldwide problems.
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B.Complete the following sentences according to the text:

1) Charities use famous people to ………................................................................………………………………………….

2) People give money when they ……………..................................................................…………………………………….
3) Singers ……………………...........................................................................………………………………….. for charities.

C.Answer these questions:

1) Why did charities make films of suffering children?

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2) What do religions recommend people to do?
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3) Apart from asking people, how do charities get money?
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D.Fill in the blank with one word from the text:

Nowadays, more and more people are ……………................................………… from poverty. Wherever you go,
people ask you for ………………….....................……. But sometimes it is difficult to ………........................…………..
who really needs help. Despites this, we all know that helping people makes a …………….....................………….

E.Find words or expressions in the text meaning the same as:

1) divide (paragraph 2) = ……………………………

2) bored (paragraph 3) = …………………………….

F.What do the underlined words in the text refer to:

1) the same (paragraph 2, line 3) = …………………………………

2) he (paragraph 4, line 4) = …………………………………………