Heroes (in the awesome David Bowie sense among other senses) and NGOs

Non-Governmental Organizations are quite awesome. In a nutshell, NGOs lobby for specific causes that are more or less also under the responsibility world governments but since NGOs were created for a specific cause they can do more concentrated work. Also, I find the beauty of NGOs not just coming from what they’re for but even stemming from what they’re called. Non-governmental, just hearing and looking at that term makes every other little girl who grew up resenting the corruption in governments and its officials breathe a sigh of relief (and mind you, I was one of those little girls). So yeah, I like NGOs for the fact that they act as the vigilantes if not superheroes of the world when states themselves and all their regionalisms and supranational institutions just can't solve every important problem out there.

I shall now pave way to bring about the reason why this blog entry is about NGOs and why the title of this post references Bowie.

This rad compilation is about to get even more rad.

Not too long (probably just a month ) ago I was browsing a Fully Booked outlet at the CD area and I stumbled upon this compilation. I saw the 3 B's that were "Bowie" and "Bob Dylan" and "Bruce Springsteen" and immediately thought this was interesting. It turns out, the CD was a compilation of hit songs by these cool old artists done by cool contemporary artists. This tickled my fancy and I bought the damned thing five minutes later. I eventually got home, tore off the plastic, took the photo above, before finally opening the CD. Once opened, I took out the disc, popped it into my laptop disk drive and gave it a good listen. Eventually I found myself examining the CD and what I found was a picture of two African children with guns. Above them a message advocating that children should not suffer during times of war. This is when War Child came into my attention and I realize that this CD isn't just an awesome compilation but it was the project of an NGO to raise funds for its cause. By simply buying this CD, I just helped contribute to War Child's vision. Whilst ripping the album tracks on iTunes I made it a point to check out the NGOs site and after browsing through it I have come to the conclusion that War Child is a damn awesome NGO. So without further ago I present to you...

5 (and a half) Reasons why War Child is an awesome NGO:

1.   War Child was the early 90s brainchild and initiative of two British film-makers who figured after shooting stuff from the war in Yugoslavia that children, of all people, should not be allowed to suffer during times of war. Not only was the birth of War Child noble but the fathers of it was pretty ordinary yet cool people.
2. War Child is a pretty simple and straightforward NGO with a vision to simply change the world culture into one where it is a world wherein children don’t have to suffer because of war. Usually the simple matters are the hardest to deal with; however the way War Child envisions this makes it sound like an achievable goal that isn’t complex.
3.  Just check their site. This may sound superficial and all but you have to admit that aesthetically visually appealing sites speak more than hunky dory black-and-white-amateur-html-skillz sites. I swear, going through this site just makes me want to click and follow all the links because everything is creatively placed, nice to look and, and most of all, informative. Which brings me to this next point...
• I figure I could always scrutinize this more, be a bit more objective, but until then I would just like to say that I love the transparency War Child has. I use transparency lightly because I'm not aware if whether or not War Child is transparent with everything it does such as its procedures and how it spends its income (are those graphs even real/accurate?). Regardless, the fact that the site has all the vital information you'd want and need on an NGO and War Child displays these information clear as day and easy to read.
4. As mentioned earlier, War Child gets a good percent of their income from the selling and distribution of music albums which feature famous musicians and artists all helping out with the cause of War Child. These albums not only include good music, but also serve as a way to create awareness and pool more people into helping out and getting involved. Actually it's because of their 2009 compilation album, Heroes, that I even know about them and am typing this blog post, now so that's really something.
5. Their name is War Child. How awesome is that and what's not to like?

I was once asked to think about a cause a feel strongly about and look for an NGO that aims to work on that. However this approach to finding an NGO I completely like and believe in didn't work out. I believe that almost all NGOs are good in the sense the work for the common good of a majority, and in that sense the only things that give variety to NGOs are what cause they fight for specifically and how well they do it. The latter is highly important to me and War Child just blew me away. They got my attention unexpectedly, they informed me well of their cause and how they aim to alleviate it, I am very motivated to continue helping them out and keeping myself updated with what they do, and now I'm making this post about them to spread the word. If you ask me, that's a great NGO for making a normally indifferent apathetic youth care and believe I can make a difference.

So yeah, I just bought a really good CD and apparently I am helping War Child fight for children to live in a better world. I feel good about myself now and pleased that globalization made this possible.