Featured photo: Food | © Roman Mykhalchuk, iStock by Getty Images
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To collect donations
Actually not my thing. Growing up as an “economic liberal” and being more than put off by all kinds of aid organizations for professional reasons, I have developed a healthy dislike for beggars in our part of the world and supposed aid organizations that are very happy to look after themselves.
But then I have my better half, who has always been involved in social issues. And this has enabled me to be “socially” involved for a few years now. It started when she got me to take on sponsorships, then with direct help on site to see how these funds were used by the respective recipients and now since our return to Heilbronn with meseno.
Among other things, I go there regularly and now really enjoy collecting donations, which leads to the following observation. Due to more professional storage, the food donated by companies because it is nearing its “expiry date” is decreasing. This is initially to be welcomed, but it also means that the organizations that collect this food and distribute it to those in need are able to get hold of less and less of it. This is a really big problem for the food banks, which sell tons of food in the Heilbronn area alone and are not allowed to buy any more.
At meseno this looks a little different, as such large quantities cannot be sold there and, if necessary, food is purchased. And so the world would continue to be in order, at least here, if there weren't more and more organizations that were also now increasingly relying on the “meseno sources”. This means that the donation trips take longer, as there is now more traffic jam for some donors, but also means that the meseno bussle is no longer as full as it was in previous years.
And although there are now more and more aid organizations that are literally pushing their way onto the market, those in need in the meseno area are becoming more numerous. Now I'm waiting to see when I'll be able to take my tour through the northern part of the district for free for the first time. I would never have thought that the “African or Balkan problem” would now slowly but surely take hold here: “for every street child there are ten organizations that want to take care of them”.
And so I hope that the new “food savers” don’t just give this saved food to wealthy families who buy a good feeling and respect from their neighbors by eating food that is about to expire.
Human rights
Yesterday we celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was announced in Paris on December 10, 1948; it is Resolution 217 of the United Nations General Assembly. Some of us even celebrated it a little bit.
For this occasion I bought a copy of HG Wells "PHOENIX. A Summary of the Inescapeable Conditions of World Reorganization.”, which he wrote in 1942.
Some others use the opportunity and really try everything to get universal human rights out of the world again. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is still just an ideal, but even ideals are increasingly frowned upon today.
Now I'm curious to see how long it will take until that too European Convention on Human Rights, which has a binding character here in Europe, will perhaps not exactly be buried, but will be bent and bent in such a way that even in the European Union, human rights are again only something for the upper ten thousand.
By the way, a good 2 years ago it was enough for us to simply be Roman to have a few basic rights. And so I'm excited to see what the new criterion will soon be for us to be allowed to be human.
