I do not agree at all to the need for artistes to perform stunts to encourage the audience to donate more. If one genuinely is aware of the misfortunate people and the hardships they faced, and is willing to fork out money to help these people, I believe that they would probably not donate through such means. However, I believe artistes performing stunts is used because it will appeal to people who do not understand or care about the lives of the people in need. Personally, I believe that money should not be involved at all. If we do care about the needy, I think the best way to show our efforts to visit their homes and bring them joy and laughter, or also giving them food items and daily necessities. Most of the time if money is involved corruption usually surface. Take NKF’s case for example. Millions of dollars were donated to NKF by the members of the public with the mindset that the financially weak patients are able to be treated. But in the end, almost half of the money donated went to the hands of greedy and wealthy people. Even though in the end he was finally caught, it severely broke the trust the nation had in the organization, and the people who truly suffer from it are the patients – they still lack the financial assistance. Thus I believe time and effort is worth more than money, even though money is still largely required.
Now, let us go back to the topic, artistes performing stunts. Artistes are taught by “professionals” before the shows for the stunts. And these “professionals” are paid to teach the artistes for such acts. Also, all the materials, costumes, props etc. all costs – at the expense of the donations. This amount though, is not really a huge sum. What is much worse is the fact that mediacorp brought in the lucky draw. I feel that this is outrageous and ridiculous. The top prize, which is a car, as well as all the other prizes is bought with the money gathered from the donations and a few “lucky” donators will be chosen to be given those prizes. They would then describe them as “kindness begets happiness” while I think that this is absurd. Imagine yourself, donating $10 thinking that it will help those unfortunate people who are physically and financially unwell, but instead a fraction of your contribution was instead used to buy the prize for another donator. Yes, even though you stand the same chance of winning the prizes and even though this did not occur in the President Star Charity show but in other charity shows, the mindset of the organizers is terribly wrong. If people really do donate more because of the lucky draw, then I think we should think about why we want to donate and where do our donations actually go to.
Also, if the artistes really are serious about helping the misfortunate, they should spend their time to help them out instead of training stunts to encourage others to donate. Or, I believe a live concert or a band performance could really be enough instead of difficult stunts and performances. If people are really aware of the poor’s sufferings then they would still donate. However, personally, I feel that what makes the greatest impact on the audience would be a parliament member of a rather high ranking post making a simple performance. I am sure the members of the public would be amazed by it!
Therefore, I believe that artistes performing stunts is not required or needed to milk the public’s compassion for the President Star Charity show, since if the people really care for the poor and the misfortunate, such charity shows would not be required at all. Also, it would be far better if we donate directly to the organization itself, and not through such charity shows, for you can minimize corruption and all other possible means part of your donations could be wasted, and secondly, no GST and call fees could be charged [every charity show take in more than a million!]
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