Fuck Oxfam

[DismantledKing]

Anyone seen the tweet by Maya tonight about this little animation by Oxfam? Here’s the link:

https://twitter.com/mforstater/status/1665817901327085568?s=46&t=U7-xooKExwmFQ8mivn72lw

as I said, fuck Oxfam.

Well well well, this from Third Sector magazine "The chief executive of Oxfam GB, one of the UK's largest charities, today announced he is leaving at the end of the year. Danny Sriskandarajah, who succeeded Mark Goldring in 2018, will take up a new role as chief executive of the New Economics Foundation." - I can't get to the rest of it because it's behind a paywall, but hope he doesn't do the same to NEF as has been done to Oxfam.

“During Danny’s tenure Oxfam has made real strides in addressing injustice and inequality and placed increasing emphasis on ensuring that our work takes place in a way that is consistent with our values. We wish him well in his new endeavour.”
Sriskandarajah, who is on a research and writing sabbatical at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and will return in mid-August to continue until the end of this year, has faced some controversy in recent months.
In March, <a class="break-all" href="https://12ft.io/proxy?ref=&q=www.thirdsector.co.uk/oxfam-boss-hits-back-onslaught-criticism-its-staff-language-guide/communications/article/1817225" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">he and Oxfam were attacked by critics, including Piers Morgan and the Daily Mail, who described the charity’s new inclusive language guide as “wokery”. The Mail ran a front-page ‘Beyond Parody’ headline.
Sriskandarajah came out fighting, writing in The Guardian that the reaction was “offensive and divisive”.
Earlier this month, Oxfam apologised and edited a Pride video after being inundated with accusations that the clip had included a derogatory caricature of the writer JK Rowling.

Hnmmmmmm

Thanks Clymene. I cancelled my third sector subscription because of their unquestioning reporting of the woke agenda (you know, poor Mermaids and Stonewall being attacked by all those nasty people) and focus on who is coming and going at a national level that has absolutely no relevance to work going on on the ground. And it was expensive.

I have just emailed my resignation as a volunteer. 50% of the reason I am going is because our store manager is an absolute arse, he has a hoarding and control problem which translates into volunteers not being allowed to do anything other than the simplest tasks and him secretly guarding sales figures etc. You don't even get a please or thank you from him.

But I also wrote: I am very uncomfortable with Oxfam's campaigns and political stance around "inclusive language". My aim at volunteering at Oxfam was to raise money to alleviate suffering all over the world from famine, drought and natural disasters. Not to fund the production of a 92 page document which labels me a "cis-woman", or the production of a video labelling gender critical women as "terfs". It is very clear that a gender critical stance is not acceptable to Oxfam Head Office. The massive disconnect between the culture at Head Office and the culture in the stores was highlighted in the recent volunteer survey but I have no faith whatsoever that things will change; if anything, Oxfam Head Office will just double down on its attempts to educate volunteers into thinking "correctly". Enough is enough.

So I am looking around to see what other charity shops I can give my time to. We have a few choices locally.

I must say that some of you have written excellent, succinct letters to Oxfam. I do wonder if it will result in them changing the way they communicate and advertise.

We can only hope so.

Sriskandarajah came out fighting, writing in The Guardian that the reaction was “offensive and divisive”.

It was an awful article.

Well done, @GulesMeansRed - it was obvious from your earlier posts that you enjoyed your time with other volunteers.

Put any article into 12 ft ladder and it gets rid of the paywall

Oh well done @GulesMeansRed - that must have been really hard. I have so much respect for you and hope you find another volunteering role supporting something you believe in and enjoy

Thanks Clymene - I'd worked out you could see more of it if you googled the headline than by clicking the link, but I'd not heard of that. There is the occasional article I want to read!

I have been at Oxfam for about 8 or 9 years and agree with the Private Eye cartoon - when I started first all the communication we had from Head Office in Oxford was about a new well-digging project, or famine response, or how they'd partnered with an organisation somewhere in Asia/Africa to provide jobs and income to women. Campaigning was about raising awareness, drawing attention to that fact that whatever % of girls aren't in school, or infant mortality. The organisation has completely changed in the last 5 years probably, the Haiti thing (which happened in 2010 but came out about 2018) meant that a lot of people in senior positions at Head Office either stepped down or were sidelined. New start. But then all this nonsense started about inclusion and pronouns, the shop is filled with Pride merchandise (which nobody buys) - it just really misses the mark.

I have said it before on threads like this but the "type" of people who work (salaried) at Head Office and the "type" of people who volunteer are completely different. What really needs to happen is that the people who want to be in the political campaigning and lobbying go off and set up their own wee pressure group. An extinction rebellion, just stop oil sort of thing. Fill their boots with their gender woo before they destroy Oxfam completely.

Communication in Oxfam is APPALLING, they send out bulletins to stores which are rarely read, nobody in Oxford actually gets off their arse to visit stores in Plymouth, or Inverness, or York or anywhere else. They just sit in their little woke bubble in Cowley, thinking that everyone else in the organisation is JUST LIKE THEM. They also seem to forget that without volunteers, they wouldn't have a job.

I used to work in the head office of another (now defunct) retailer and their rule was that everyone in Head Office had to spend at least two full days a year working in a shop somewhere in the UK. People moaned but it was such a good idea.

It's so sad that the charity which has been going since the 1940s has been destroyed like this in such a short time. I will miss my former colleagues very much but onwards and upwards.

What really needs to happen is that the people who want to be in the political campaigning and lobbying go off and set up their own wee pressure group.

The thing thats most annoying is that charities are not supposed to engage in political lobbying. They are supposed to operate only within the aims of their charity's remit.

Yet what's happening is a huge number of charities are going way beyond that.

Thats frustrating and tbh I think means far too much money is spent on schemes that the charity supporters aren't remotely interested in. Its fundamentally dishonest.

I do think there needs to be a massive crack down on it. Unfortunately that in itself is hugely political because so many of these charities are left leaning to begin with. And that boils my piss because ultimately the people that charities are set up to help miss out whilst the money is funnelled into politics and propping up the employees of the charity sector itself. Its about as far removed from left wing ideals as you can get. More frustratingly, this opinion - like others - is labelled as 'right wing' - purely because of the political bias going on within these political circles for their own indulgence.

This is where Doers v Virtue Signallers really collide. The virtue signallers can only fund their shit off the back of the work of the doers.

Good for you for withholding your labour from Oxfam.

The virtue signallers can only fund their shit off the back of the work of the doers.

I’m so sad and disappointed that the pandemic didn’t open everyone’s eyes to the fact it’s the low status, low-paid workers who keep this country moving, not the billionaire “wealth creators” who create more wealth for themselves. I mean, I think everyone noticed, but it didn’t change anything, we were all harried back to work asap, “back to normal” when normal was so shit.

Sorry, off-topic, but your words reminded me of that.

Letter to my MP ( I don't spend a lot of time on this - just want to draw his attention to it)

Dear XXXX,
I am writing to say how angry I am over the misogynistic cartoon produced by Oxfam to vilify J K Rowling because of her views on transgender women having access to women's safe places. Portraying her like some sort of evil demon.

I am disgusted that a charity that purports to be a supporter of those in poverty in third world countries is actually embroiling itself in the pro-transgender issue, let alone stooping to this level.. Placing itself firmly against women, half the population..

I volunteer in the XXXXXX Oxfam, as do many retired women, and when I see that the the Government supports Oxfam to the tune of 31.7 million pounds, thereby supporting this misogynistic behaviour, I am furious and think the Goverment needs to reappraise whether this charity deserves to be funded to this extent if it chooses to carry on in this unacceptable way.

Yours sincerely,

If your MP is a Tory, Triptoqueen, your letter may have some effect. I hope most sincerely that it does.

This is why I only donate to smaller charities. The big ones become bloated, corporatised, and corrupt.

£37 million? Fuck me.

I am disgusted that a charity that purports to be a supporter of those in poverty in third world countries is actually embroiling itself in the pro-transgender issue, let alone stooping to this level.. Placing itself firmly against women, half the population.

Abso-bloody-lutely.

I've said this about charities for ages, since I worked in a few and one we reported to the Charities Commission several times and no action was ever taken, there should be a time limit on them existing and a proper scrutiny of what they are achieving and if they achieve it, they need to be closed down. If they don't achieve it and never move anything along, then they need to be closed down. The aim would be to make it self sustaining or Business as Usual in terms of their activities. Especially if they have government money.

I'll add to that there needs to be a standard that only a percentage of funds should be going to staff, the majority of the funds need to go to the cause whatever that is. I used to award funds and audit projects and it was one issue that I used to be quite strict about - funds should not be used to prop up salaries but used to 'do' whatever it was they were supposed to be doing.

I see boycott Wickes is now trending on Twitter.

Clearly they don't think women buy DIY products.

I don't think the government gives direct support to Oxfam. Charities usually get money from government via gift aid, which is linked to how much is donated and not something they could remove from one charity and not others (unless the charity had done something so bad that the charity commission struck them off, but I don't see that happening here)
Or charities may have government contracts to provide services. I'm not aware of Oxfam doing a lot of this kind of thing in the UK, as most of their work is overseas, but I could be wrong. I'd imagine most of the £37m quoted above would be gift aid.

there should be a time limit on them existing and a proper scrutiny of what they are achieving and if they achieve it, they need to be closed down.

That would work for some types of charities, but not for others - in many cases achieving their aim doesn't remove the need for their existence.

For example you could use those criteria to judge Stonewall: aim - equal rights for gay and lesbian people in the UK; achievement - legal equality reached. Job done.

But if a charity aims, say, to send search and rescue dogs to the site of every earthquake they could achieve their aim.of 10 dogs at every earthquake, but they'd still be needed because they haven't (and didn't aim to) stopped earthquakes happening. So they need to keep sending dogs. Or the phone credit for refugees that I linked above - they help about 2000 people a month, but there are more in need of help every day - and there's no model for it to attach to as 'business as usual'. Their aim isn't to lobby governments or phone companies to take over the job, because that simply wouldn't happen. Their aim is just to give Fatima in Lebanon £7 a month on her phone so she can use it to apply for asylum online, talk to her mum who is a refugee in another country, and call the emergency services when the camp catches fire. They achieve that, but there's always another Fatima, and always another month.

Got it. Thanks Firey.

I also think that there is plenty of scrutiny on the charity sector already. All of the big charities will have some sort of statement on their website about their finances and salaries, breaking down where their money comes from and where the money is spent. All this information is public domain. Charities are also required to submit accounts to the Charity Commission (or OSCR in Scotland) and anyone can look at those. There's far more transparency on the charity sector finances than there is on other businesses.

I also don't agree that charities shouldn't be spending on salaries - although they will have to justify to their donors that their salaried staff are worth the money. I also disagree that keeping money in the bank is a bad thing, depending on the focus of the charity. Charities involved in disaster response (not just Oxfam, others like Red Cross, Save the Children) absolutely SHOULD be keeping money in the bank to fund an emergency response by chartering aircraft or whatever.

Oxfam has been responding to disasters worldwide since the 1940s. It's really sad that the charity has been led in this direction by a handful of very shouty people at head office who are pulling the charity in a totally different direction from its core purpose.

In which case there is still a need, or maybe other central ways of channeling that money to Fatima.

Added to which, even for those charities that have arguably achieved an aim, that doesn't mean it'll stay achieved.

In the case of Stonewall, even after legal equality was reached there was still plenty of useful work they could've done. They just chose not to do it. Gays and lesbians are still discriminated against because of their sexuality in the UK and not just by Stonewall themselves despite the legislation. That didn't make it go away. They could've provided legal support for people in that position, and training on the law for organisations and businesses that was actually accurate. Both of those things would be good and legitimate, beneficial to wider society and they'd have been in an excellent place to provide them.