Charity

When people talks about the culture in UK, charity is probably not the first one popping up on their mind. But it is huge here. You can see it everywhere, from the National Lottery, to the various charity shops in the town (they even have one inside the university here). In Lancaster University, you will realised that almost every type of students society or events will have some sort of contribution to their selected charities. When I send Ilyas to his pre-school every morning, there will be several announcements on the board detailing how much money they managed to raise by selling cakes, pictures, organising events and so on.

And today is the Red Nose Day where you have a big round red thing on err.. your nose. Ilyas will be wearing a red t-shirt today. And getting your nose to be punched to make it bloody and red is an option.

With the spirit of charity on high today, I'm going to propose to the KULM president that all the players fee for tomorrow Sports Carnival will be donated to Mercy Malaysia. In addition to that, I've already set up an appointment with the UPM Deputy Vice Chancellor (Students Affair) when I'm back in Malaysia at the end of this month. I'm going to give him my working paper on setting up a student office based on the Lancaster University Volunteering Unit. It is a voluntary unit created to encourage students to participate in any charity events and contribute to the benefits of the surrounding community.

Charity begins from the heart.