President’s Star Charity Show - is there a need for artistes to perform stunts to milk the public’s compassion for more generous donations?

The President’s Star Charity is an annual charity performance, as the name suggests, aired on the television. It has been run for a long time and its purpose is to garner donations from the public to help the underprivileged and the needy. These underprivileged have a wide range, encompassing the elderly, orphans, both the physically and mentally disabled people. Charitable organizations come up with innovative ways to encompass the public’s compassion so that they can garner more donations. In many cases of “innovative ways”, various pop stars and MediaCorp artistes will be present to prepare their stunts and it is said that their presence there would be able to raise more donations from the public. In my opinion, I do not see the need for artistes to perform stunts to milk the public’s compassion to garner more donations.

You may be wondering why the organizations would hire such high-priced artistes. Organizations do this because most Singaporeans have the thinking that to earn some donations, the organizations must do something for them, which in many cases, the hiring of famous people to perform stunts so that people would donate. The separate heads of the organizations also know about a typical Singaporeans’ thinking and therefore, they made use of this knowledge to milk the public’s compassion and of course, donations come together with the compassion of the public. However, I feel that this already defeats the purpose of charities and donations. Charity is compassion which should be spontaneous and can be seen through a generous offer made from the bottom of the heart. When the organizations hire the popular people to come to perform, firstly they have to make sure that the stunts that they perform are worth watching and must be able to garner more donations. The stunts are breath-taking and spectacular because these will appeal to Singaporeans and make them sympathize more with those people who are in need and make more donations. However, without these performances, people would still donate to these charitable organizations because they just simply want to help those in need.

Many people are more concerned now about where in the end the donations go to. Ever since the NKF saga incident, many Singaporeans have lost the faith in donating to such charitable organizations. Many came up with the opinion that they would rather their money go to improving their own lifestyles than giving it freely to the heads of the charity organizations. Donations have to be sincere and must come from the bottom of the heart if not the whole purpose of charity would be defeated. Artistes come up with different performances to make themselves experience pain similar to those affected. This is to say that artistes come up with a substitute stunt so that the public would witness their sacrifice to the increase in donations. They also imitate disabled people so that they know what it feels like and would understand and sympathize with the underprivileged better.

In conclusion, I do not see the need for artistes to perform stunts to milk the public’s compassion to garner more donations. Compassion is to come from one’s own heart and soul. They must be sincere and come up with the belief that these donations can help the underprivileged and the needy. This should be the motivation instead of the performances which is “necessary” for people to pay to watch. We should not harbour the intention that only when there are charity shows being broadcasted on the television should we donate. Instead, we should embrace the notation that donations can happen all year round and most importantly, everyone has a part to play to aid those in need, which will better our country.