I am induced to writing this post after reading “The Choice – Solutions or Greatness” by Sarath Chandra, posted today, wherein he has meticulously analysed about use of wealth in Charity vis-à-vis Investment.

I personally do not support charity to beggars, except for limited charity on one particular day of the week to maintain the practice of ‘act of kindness’ J !!

Felt good at the induced realization that we are also contributing to the process of eradication of poverty aka growth of the economy by investing our money in stocks, MFs, bonds or even FDs.

Many of us might have given some thought to the option of “Expand my wealth through owning a business” by Sarth Chandra, at some point or other, given the long hours of work and excessive pressures in today’s workplaces, but probably just for the sake of the pleasure derived out of the thought of it. Sarath Chandra has highlighted the more important perspective of it in his post that it would be a genuine effort to eradicate poverty. Now I think we should seriously think about it… or not just think but actually act upon it.

Coming back to charity again. Though I do not support giving a coin to street beggars – I believe that the capable amongst us can do their bit for –

1) the education and upbringing of the orphaned child till he/she is ready to fight for her own survival;

2) the lonely and forlorn elderly citizen who could not earn enough to run till such age or meet the medical expenses and has no one to support him/her anymore;

3) the somewhat unlucky adolescent who went astray for whatsoever reason and do not have the resource or environment to start mainstream life afresh;

4) the child with special needs who has now grown up but do not have enough support to lead life;

5) the unfortunate woman who might have fallen prey to some social menace and suffered physical as well as mental torture and is not capable of leading normal life on her own at the moment and needs help;

…and so on.

I have chosen not to think too deep about roadside beggars, for, without a miracle I do not think all of them can be removed in next 100 years at least, leave aside the fact that many of them probably are not in poverty at all… meaning they have begged enough to buy land and building for themselves and still continue begging! That is a different story altogether!!

But I do advocate limited charity for the right cause and at the same time long for the capability to contribute to the process of poverty eradication by owning a business – a small one – to help, say, some 25 families. Would anyone send me some ideas for that please…