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

Before I start on the topic, consider this: will you rather donate money to a charity show that you didn't know who will be benefited or to a man beside the road performing to earn a living? For me, I will choose the man beside the road, at least I know that I'm helping him with his life, the risk involved in donating to a charity show is too large, you never know if someone else, not the needy, had taken all the money.

From there, I would say that do not agree that artiste should put up stunts to attract to donate money for the organisation. The President's Star Charity Show is a widely known and highly successful Singapore charity show that involves famous artiste performing all kinds of stunts, interesting or dangerous, to ask for donations from the public. Some artiste may be able to use this shows as stepping stones to start their career in the show business and they can gain experience and probably fame from the show, while helping the needy in the same time, this forms a win-win situation for both the artiste and the needy.

The show also gives the public a sense that they are having material gains but not letting the money "fly away" without having any impact. However, this will completely defeat the purpose of doing charity, the public is not doing anything to help the needy, but to "buy" the performances of the various artiste. Though some may argue that the needy is still helped in the end is the most important, we all know that this is does not nurture people with a compassion and love to the society. In the long run, the public may no longer find this charity show interesting and stop donating their money. If the public really want to contribute anything to the needy, they can make their own donations by themselves or contribute their service to the particular organisation, but not wait until the "charity season" come and start donating their money to the artiste performing, not the needy.

Some of these charity shows take videos of the people that need help or even invite them up to talk about their own life stories and sorrows to gain sympathy from the public. However, I do not agree with this kind of acts. Humans need self esteem, and the needy, no matter how ill and how much they suffered, are still humans. Doing this will only destroy the self esteem that they have and they may view themselves as some kind of trash to the society that needs other's sympathy. I believe that inviting those that had gotten help up to talk about how they are grateful to those that helped and to the society will be better. However, some of the public may just view these people as actors and do not believe what they said.

What I think that can be done instead of having charity shows is the government should nurture the people with a kind and compassion heart since young. Start with education. The members of the public will know what to do for the needy and do not require any motivation if they have the correct mindsets.