It’s Thanksgiving week in America, four days in which I often feel uneasy because, although I love every excuse for eating pumpkin pie and watching movies all day, I don’t really know what we’re celebrating. Apart from being very good at having fun.
Saturday and Sunday begin with Thanksgiving Thursday, a day with hardcore colonial relationships, surprisingly acceptable for being so full of food that all we can do is sleep in the afternoon and evening. This is followed by Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, officially set to go to shops with dirty people that open at dawn, and wait in long lines to save money to buy a few items we may not be able to afford. I don’t want to but I can’t refuse because they are deducting 50 percent. Then a four-day vacation is followed by Cyber Monday, the largest online shopping day of the year. Not just in the US. Friday and Cyber Monday is a global event now.
But in the last two decades or so of a global catastrophe, the human economy has changed, and many of us have been rethinking what is worth our time and energy. I have no choice but to wonder what the data will look like in consumer spending later this week. But even if we still go shopping or click “Full Purchase” on our computers, it seems like the time to pay close attention to what happens at the end of the holiday.
Giving Tuesday, one day known worldwide as a day of generosity, is always a Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Nine years ago, in the autumn of 2012, Henry Timms, a British man living in New York, was sitting at his kitchen table contemplating the culture of the millions of people around the world who now use to buy. things. . He wondered if the people who were given the opportunity would volunteer all the day to give to others, generously. No one said Tuesday, so Timms did. He came up with a “Tuesday Gift”, the idea that Tuesday after Thanksgiving could focus on generosity.
At the time, Timms was working as a head of innovation at 92nd Street Y, a well-known venue for its programs in art, writing and artwork (today, Timms is president and executive director of the Lincoln Center, New York headquarters. ). He shared the idea with his team and co-workers, and a seed of compassion was planted. The 92nd Y Street also articulated the idea and, fortunately, agreed not to mention Giving Tuesday especially to the organization, hoping that other organizations and individuals will understand the concept of greater generosity and create their own kind of day. What happened next is a heartwarming testimony of other things we can give of our time, our resources, and our strength.
People, communities and organizations around the world took the idea, changed it, and created a generous campaign that could meet the needs of their place. And in 2019, Tuesday Giving left the organization he founded and became a nonprofit, supporting another campaign around the world.
On Tuesday, 2020, during the epidemic, Amref Health Africa launched “Strengthen His Future”As part of their Giving Tuesday campaign in Kenya,“ to help girls at risk of FGM [female genital mutilation] and childbearing ”. In the US, people contributed $ 2.47bn in donations and aid, a 25 percent increase from 2019. This year, planners in the Philippines, who joined the group in 2020, have two. campaign – “#passthebread” and “#ReadTogetherPH” – focused on reducing hunger and literacy, a challenge in the country.
I may not be sure about Thanksgiving and the next few days, but a global day of generosity and a well-thought-out and powerful team to celebrate and participate. Especially in times of crisis when our habit can be overwhelming with our little pods of people and things. . We may be reluctant to give because of the few fears we have about our lives. But I believe that in good health, people understand the importance of generosity and want to give to others. I like to think that it somehow fits in with our natural instinct that we need each other to survive. I also like to think that being generous gives us a sense of accomplishment rather than a lack of resources.
When we were living in Côte d’Ivoire in the early 1990’s, one word I heard from my mother incessantly, which deeply haunted my childhood. you. ” He said this whenever he stopped a car on the sidewalk and offered money or food to one of the many people we see begging for help every day. He was saying this whenever we saw him trying to find a way to save the life of another Liberian man, a man he had met at church who had fled a civil war.
Capitalist groups do not teach us the skills of community care, or lead us to any understanding of the concept of “sufficiency”. But giving of ourselves to others, whether by money, time, or ability, is a way of showing appreciation for what we have. And it is a powerful testament to the world we want our children to live in, and the kind of people we want our children to be.
Send an email to Enuma enuma.okoro@ft.com
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