Mufti Day
Charities in this country, and their associated overseas projects, would struggle if it wasn't for the help of schoolchildren and sponsored Mufti days. Nathalie's school has two in the next fortnight, one for Comic Relief (which I hate with a vengeance) and one for the school's own pet project in Uganda. The school in the town where I work has a similar number of such days during the year.
The idea of getting nearly 2,000 children aged between 11-18 turn up in anything but school uniform (but adhering to strict rules regarding decency and drug related logos) and paying 50p for the privilege is a good one - raising as it does the awareness that not all children are as lucky as ours. How much of the awareness lasts beyond registration is debatable but if some drought ridden village in the Ugandan wilds gets a well, a water pump and help for three years than its been worthwhile.
There is always one child though that doesn't take the school letter home, one Mufti day last summer was based around the World Cup and one poor lad was the only one in his year who turned up in school uniform - perhaps he was striking a blow for individualism or possibly stupidity.
2 comments:
I'd love to know why you dislike Comic Relief so much, Paul. Is it the self-congratulatory smugness that oozes fron the telly on every comic releif night? Even so, they do some great work, don't they?
Shy - I don't doubt the work. I think my feelings were best summed up in a sketch on Dead Ringers. It went something along the lines of "Phone in and pledge what little money you have to a celebrity who already has more money than you'll ever have, which he got from you in the first place, so that he can say look how much money I've raised.
I'm old fashioned enough to believe that charity is a personal thing best done without the aid of newsreaders doing Grease routines or ex-pop stars doing special one-offs.
Post a Comment