Last Friday night I sat and watched the Comic Relief program with my two children, for anyone who doesn’t know, Comic Relief is a British charity that raises money to help people living tough lives in the UK and in Africa.
Every second year, in March, there is what has become known as Red Nose Day, which is the day when celebrities host a six hour live charity show. During the show the fundraising efforts of the general public and of celebrities are highlighted, the lives of the people who the money is going to help change are shown and as the name suggests there is plenty of fun and lightheartedness throughout the show. Red nose day is also a day when schools and workplaces do fun things and relax dress codes in a bid to raise money for Comic Relief.
What I think makes Comic Relief special is the fact that it entertains people, encouraging them to either give money or raise money without undermining the people and causes that the money goes towards helping.
On Friday night we saw a video clip of a young girl from Africa who had been featured on the Comic Relief show fifteen years previously. Back then she was a scared eleven year girl who had a pretty dismal future ahead of her, if she managed to survive the pitiful conditions she was living in, today she is an educated 26 year old woman who works as a special needs teacher in an orphanage; her life was turned around with the money people donated to Comic Relief. She was one of the lucky ones to receive the help she needed to get her life on track.
I sat and watched last nights show with my two teenage children, I was glad that they decided to sit and watch it with me as I hope that seeing how other people have to live and the hardships they face will bring it home to them just how lucky they are.
I want them to know that there are children and people in the world that do actually have nothing. I want them to know that whilst they may think they are hard done by when asked to vacuum through the house, wash a few dinner dishes or to tidy their room that in fact they really don’t know the meaning of the words and hopefully never will. I want my children to know that there are children in the world who have to go out and scavenge for food just to survive or who have to work long hours everyday just to survive, with hardly a hope of a decent future. I want them to know these things so that maybe they learn to appreciate what they have.
Parts of the show makes for uncomfortable viewing, which is necessary to make us who do have roofs over our heads, access to fresh water and food on the table, realize that there are many people in this world who don’t even have those few basic things.
Even with money being tight people still managed to dig deep and donate. Last Friday nights show managed to raise over £51,000,000 and with Sports Relief events happening throughout England over the weekend I am sure that amount soared.
In a previous post I wrote about Davina McCall, who is one of the many celebrities who have taken themselves out of their comfort zone in the bid to raise as much money as they possibly can for Sports Relief (Sports Relief works in conjunction with Comic Relief and raises money through sporting events). Davina did the Beyond Breaking Point Challenge and managed to raise a staggering £2,239,931 by putting herself through a week of what can only be described as pure hell.
I know that I can only imagine how that money will help people whose lives are barely an existence and I hope I will never know hardship like them. All of the money raised will go to helping people who so desperately need help and will do a great deal of good.
And I hope that Comic Relief and Sports Relief go on raising money and awareness of peoples plights until the day the world becomes an ideal place, a place where nobody ever has to live in poverty.
Copyright © 2014 Debbie Roberts.
© 2014 – 2020, Debbie. All rights reserved.
Max Arthur says
Debbie Roberts says