Are charities, modern-day slave masters?
By: Selina Hanley
Tags: Trauma, Exploitation, Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Charity

When you think of charity, you think helpful, recuse, cure, right? and some are just that, but some are there for the sole purpose to make money. I know what you are thinking they have to make money to survive and that is true they do, but what about if their primary purpose is to exploit a group of people to solely make money? is that right? well that’s what some charities do, yes they do and it can be very damaging and it needs to stop.

Charities get funding from local authorities to provide services, some are great services and help and move people on to where they need to be, but some, they keep people in cycles so that they can profit off them. What do you mean? well, they create these crazy schemes projects, called PEER Learning, PEER Research sound so helpful when in actual fact it is a way to use people to seek funding. I know people are thinking what’s wrong with that, well it can be triggering and re-traumatizing causing some people to revert back to old ways such as alcohol or drugs. How is this fair? they can not even be arse to pay for a professional psychologist for supervision that they could afford to provide, but they just do not care enough.

Some charities will cover travel at £5.00 per day ( if you travel) and food £6.00 per day, for your time of sometimes up to 4–5 hour days and their rationale is it will affect a person benefits. They are so out of touch with the reality of the problem they claim to want to solve that they don’t even know that there are other ways that you could genuinely seek to support a person’s basic needs. Now for some, it’s not just monetary value they seek, some people whom they get involved because they want to help or they genuinely think that by volunteering it will help then get better and move on, they trust the people they are volunteering for and those organisations just what to use them for funding.

Yep, they pass people around like they are a cheap piece of meat to be used, you could in some cases unknowingly be volunteering for more than one charity. I hear your thoughts, how do you unknowingly do this? here’s how, if charities have amalgamated into one, IE have subsidiaries they use one project manager to deliver the project and just change the name but use the same paper heading and just implement the logo of each, each time they have created another project, that they have sourced to fund for or they just bring other people into the mix. You could easily be doing 30 hours week, thinking your helping your self but actually your help everyone else get what they need from you.

Does that seem fair to you? some will offer laptops and clothes vouchers to get you to start, to but you have to do the whole course. Then when you have finished there is nothing at the end. Some will offer a grant that you can apply for £500.00 for the equipment you do not need, when in actually face what you need is to pay your bills and buy food to put on the table, so you do not have to use a food bank. Some times if you ask for help they will signpost you to another organisation when they have millions sat in the bank from funding and donations that they could not have received without you.

Some charities are really good and do what their primary purpose says which is to make some else life better as a result of what they bring to the table, but with every positive there is a negative and some are solely here to exploit the people they aim to serve, causing more damage than good.

Next time you go to donate, find out how they are serving, find out if their staff are trained, find out what they do to support the well being of their volunteers, find out if they meet their beneficiaries basic needs, are they accredited? Know where and whom your money is going too and whom it is helping.