Dear beggars and the charity associations,
I have a dream. Thanks to the sales person + beggar+ charity person who inspired me today. Yes he is a person playing 3 roles. And to be honest I actually see another 4th role he was playing which is what actually inspired me. I was extremely happy and entertained! And best of all, I got inspired. And I hope as the following idea/ plan reveals itself, you too are inspired to make a difference with me. =D
(*you can skip these 3 paragraphs to get to my points*)
The incident was simple, simpler than you can even imagine capturing any person’s attention. We were at a roadside stall having dinner, me and my family, while chatting and waiting, he interrupted. As all of you would have expected, he tried to grab our sense of sympathy to sell his toothpaste. Well what would you have done? If I were 2 years younger, I guess I would have naively bought his products because I honestly sympathized him. Regardless of how worthy is he, or how pitiful he is. But after being “educated” by my parents, they cautioned me to not be cheated and not encourage physically healthy or fit-looking people to beg as a “profession” because this encourages social “epidemic”. So as you would have expected, especially with my parents around, sure we will not look into their eyes and just ignore them.
Well most of the times you could be right, and we had just managed to ignore and won 2 passing charity person and sales person. But who knows, the 3rd came. And mum accidentally looked into his eyes, was mum charmed by him? I was wondering. Nope. He wasn’t charming at all. And we didn’t plan to buy his “pitiful” story at all. I was following closely his every single moves and emotions displayed on his face. He was obviously lying. No doubt about that. And you won’t even believe me, there was another person who interrupted, he stretched his hand in from behind with an RM10 bill and without even showing his face, he went off hiding in a corner! Lol! Yes “hiding”! And yes if I didn’t mention that, he is a beggar! And then this sales guy started saying, “oh I’m so touched, that guy always come from behind and pass me RM 10 and treats me food, he is such a generous person, I’m so grateful, I’m from foreign country, I have chest problem and I can’t work, and this guy always helped me I felt like crying. I lost count of how many times he did this.. But this is not counted la, because I am sure to return him this bill later. Because I owe him too much..” yes you got it, obviously he was cheating, and yes obviously he planned ahead of it. And yes, you can see how naively his satisfaction showed on his face despite the pitiful voice he projected..” I’m pretty sure mum is not going to pay him but I see that he had got his deal. Why? I saw it happening. I told mum, “mi, just give him la. It’s RM10 and I think it is okay to get the 3 toothbrushes, even though we honestly stocked more than enough and it might be more expensive than the market rate.” You can see how he took pleasure of the trick he used, and he totally believed his idea was brilliant! So funny! I could have told him off on the spot and let him down. But I honestly took pleasure and was entertained by that little amusement too! How happy you can be by making another person happy! So sweet! After that we were leaving and on the way back to home, I started telling my family how I totally noticed their loopholes. They were not angry but amused! We laughed it off and were happy about it. Especially for mum, she felt great about “teaching” that guy to work in some other lines and not direct sales. Obviously again, he’s not gonna change, especially having seen how he took pleasure from his little trick. Mum has no idea she wasn’t gonna change him that way and on the contrary could possibly encourage him to do more. How amusing..
As I continued to think about that naïve trick and the amusing scenes, suddenly something struck me! An idea came by! And I actually believed it is brilliant!!
*
So here’s the deal. Dear charity associations, isn’t it super hard for you to generate funds from the public? Isn’t it harder for you ask volunteers to help generate funds for you? And hadn’t you known how many shrewd people are ruining your benevolent idea of seeking funds from the public by cheating? Especially using your benevolent idea to do so. And who are these people? How pathetic. They not only ruined their own image, they also damage the goodwill of charity work. Perhaps you had considered helping the beggars and the needy by asking the healthier beggars to help raise funds by providing them shelter and food? Had you? I bet you had.
As for our dear beggars, don’t you feel despised doing what you do? Is begging fun? Is it worth begging for a living when you could have opted something else? After all how much do you earn from begging? Don’t you also have to work extremely hard begging to just get a few Ringgits a day? Or do you not feel embarrassed at all? Perhaps you love begging more than facing a mean boss nagging at you or carrying boxes day and night and not being appreciated at all!
So are you thinking along the line I am now thinking? The charity associations need volunteers to help raise funds. The fund raisers who walk on street to solicit funds need to have extreme patience to endure rejections. At the same time the charity associations do not discriminate any people but are willing to help every needy people, right? So the charity associations are ready to help the beggars for the better as well. From the other point, the beggars are CAPABLE of enduring REJECTIONS and WILLING to beg. Do you capture my vision now?
Add a little flavor into the ingredients we have now. Humor and entertainment added into the charity association and the beggars. What is the mixture we have just discovered? An amazing opportunity to save the beggars and save lives! How?
1st, the charity associations should arrange with the mass media to have a national search for humor talents, jokers and clowns who are voluntary and willing to be a part of the society who dare to make a difference! These talented jokers and humorous charismas will plan together many workshops to do simple tricks to amuse people! Yes, as more jokers and humorous personalities come together, the better ideas are shared (the more intelligently humorous their acts can be!). As I said, ideas breed ideas! In addition to that, I think charity workers should plan motivational seminars and sharing sessions to help these talents share their ups and downs and continually motivate them to help and share humor with others as their passion!
What comes next? These talented volunteers will start a nationwide search for beggars from all corners of the society, amuse them. Yes I mean it, in their entire life, you could be the 1 and only person ever to make them smile and more amazingly ever, made them laugh for the first ever time in their begging life! You will be surprised, I guarantee you they will be inspired and amused and love to be like you! Then it’s time you bring them back to the charity organization and provide them the shelter and food.
Do you see the bigger picture now? Host a series of workshops to inspire each other, but now you are not just sharing with jokers and clowns, but include ex-beggars! Time for a change! No more labeling of “beggars”; now we call these “professionals” – “THE JOY GIVERS”!!
We all have seen artistic people making a living on the streets in foreign country by requesting for tips, and we can’t ignore the fact that they are enjoying every bits of their personally chosen life of selling their skills on the streets to passers, why can’t we make a difference by nationwide calling?! Impress the foreigners that Malaysia is even more ready than anyone to change into a genuinely benevolent society and yet amazingly entrepreneurial nation!
It’s definitely not hard to do this. How much do the government and corporate companies have to sponsor these could-be potential “JOY GIVERS”? The corporations can collectively produce thousands f Charity T-shirt with their corporate logos printed on them, and collaborate with the government and the mass media to give a public announcement of this charity act so the public is aware of it and together positively embrace this trend!
Before I end on this, I would love to give credits also to the multi level marketing and direct sales companies’ ideas of sharing and working together instead of competing with each other, which definitely inspired me along this way. I’m not associated with any direct sales or multi level marketing companies, not planning to either but I definitely respect them for their genuine hard work and willingness to endure hardship that inspired me. To underscore the amazing power of their profit sharing idea, I am humbly inviting any genuine Actuarist who shares our big visions to join our business ideas and help us generate this amazing profit sharing plan that could work wonders for the coming talents.
With a little genuine effort to make a difference, our world can really become an ideal place to live in, not just a better place to live in.
chrisshee@yahoo.com
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