It’s Silly Friday, a time to look at those development projects that transcend the ridiculous to reach a kind of clueless, navel-gazing glory.
When it comes to the cloying, manipulative use of Cute Kid pictures to drum up donations, it’s hard to outdo the sheer, brazen chutzpah of Teddies for Tragedies, a charity that does very much what it says on the tin.
Campaign for Boring Development 
I feel sorry for that one kid who doesn’t have a teddie. (i never had one either, bwaaaah!)
He has that look on his face like “what the hell, man?!”
Delivered in a Prado by how many staff. Not good value for money. Buy them pens, pencils, exercise books, etc., instead or give the money to their mums.
Remember when I was a kid and given money by some kind folks my mum took it off me before I spent it on things like teddies and she bought me more useful things that I actually needed or things for the house.
This development organisation don’t think like my mum or the mums of these kids. Could be renamed “Tragedy of giving teddies when the money can be used more wisely”.
One of the big probs with all of this is who gives the money for this. They are on impulse gift mode or no knowledge gift mode. Can’t see the wood for the trees. Kids should have toys but it is way down the list of immediate needs.
To highlight how silly these types of charities are, the Norwegian organization SAIH has launched a hilarious parody campaign called Raid-Aid: Africa for Norway: http://www.africafornorway.no/. You gotta check the couple of videos in there!
This looks like a cheap shot to me. Maybe the name of the website is asking for it, but still…
Their website states front and centre that “this is not a charity, it is a knitting pattern”.
As far as I can see, they are not asking for donations.
They don’t think they are doing development work.
They are 100% clear that they don’t think that teddies are development aid.
The claim that IS made there, that cuddly toys can bring a smile to a child’s face, doesn’t sound clearly false.
So unless there is a story here that goes beyond the website that you link to, isn’t this site the one being a bit uncharitable?