Money: The currency of Kindness
I am currently reading “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari. Everyone and his dog seems to be reading this book but, in summary, (if somehow it has passed you by) it is an exploration of the history of mankind and our development as humans. Though I am obviously not here to write a book review; it is really great.
The last sentence I read from Mr Harari has, nonetheless, set me thinking. Here it is:
“As money brings down the dams of community, religion and state, the world is in danger of becoming one big and rather heartless marketplace”.
Is that true? If so, how come crowd-funding in the pursuit of charity is so popular?
Yes, the world is no doubt an increasingly singular market (I have just bought a packet of Tesco chocolate biscuits in Fairprice supermarket); but must it be a heartless one?
Rather than allowing money to bring down the dams of community can we not use our money to create a global community of kindness? Surely this is what crowd-funding does?
A donation, made here in Singapore, to Her Planet Earth to help launch a new sustainable ocean-conservation livelihood programme for underprivileged women in Siargao, Phillipines creates, I imagine, an invisible thread of kindness crossing national borders.
https://give.asia/charity/her_planet_earth
Through https://give.asia/ and other international crowd-funding platforms we now have a unique opportunity to spool out a whole web of kindness across the globe.
Imagine those silver threads, glistening as they hover invisibly above the world map. Each thread plotting the trajectory of a single act of giving. In the same way that a map of commercial trade routes might be drawn so too can we draw a trade map of kindness. Only this map, our map, will shimmer.
Imagine, you send a donation to help build a school for children who would otherwise have no access to education whilst sitting eating breakfast dressed in your pyjamas and an invisible thread shoots out from you to Vietnam.
https://give.asia/story/help_to_build_a_school_for_the_children_in_ha_giang_vietnam
Imagine that with each person’s donation another thread appears: another line of kindness. It may travel a small distance to Mdm Hia just down the street:
https://give.asia/story/the_sadness_that_was_kept_within_for_years
It may circumnavigate the globe:
https://give.asia/story/spin_for_children_of_syria
Just imagine; if we were all to use just a little of our money in this way by the end of a single day how many more threads would cocoon our world? By the end of the week? The month?
How long until the whole globe is glowing?
Not such a heartless global marketplace after all when, through the power of crowd-funding, money is being used as the currency of kindness.
Lucy-Ann Dale
