So heartening to read this after reading your story in The Big Issue.  I feel like the grassroots are always where it is – individual people helping individual people.  Unfortunately charities are burdened under the red tape that comes with any organisation.  Person to person sure cuts out a whole lot of middleman guff.  I look at crowdfunding sites and wonder if in the future there couldn’t be something that links up people needing help with people who are willing to give it.

Of course, one of the first things that comes to mind for a lot of people when contemplating something like that is, “Yeah, but what about people taking advantage?”  That underlying fear that someone in need is actually tricking you, or taking advantage, or “rorting the system” or whatever is a difficult one to trevail, and I guess that’s probably why charities tend to have that sort of a “prove yourself” focus in the first place, to try to weed out that element of human nature.   I can’t help thinking though that maybe the wheat and the chaff need to be allowed to stay mixed in together – that too much weeding out harms already fragile people in vulnerable situations who are trying to do it straight.

Anyway, thanks so much for posting this, it was very heartening.  I loved your story in The Big Issue.   It’s a mag that I have had a longstanding fondness before (even before they published my first paid-for writing piece last year 🙂

Cheers,
Sue 

Thanks for this article, Michael. Your original article about Dee and Michael struck a chord with me and what Rob’s doing is just incredible.