Ethical Much subscribers and thank you for your patience in waiting for this edition. Happy Springtime.
We have a new thing here... the launch of a new platform, and new ministry, drumroll please .... Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to announce the launch of COMPASSIONATE.TV
Please google Compassionate.TV and you’ll find us, looking like this:
The idea for Compassionate.TV came to me about 17 years ago. I met a man, in the Hoxton Hotel in Shoreditch, and we talked, he said he was a ‘story teller’ and over the next half hour or so we together came upon an idea, a way of connecting people in poverty with people with money and a platform in the middle that showed the fruit of that connection. Angels and Heroes we called it.
Ethical Much is a version of that idea. As you know, your subscriptions fund good deeds that are documented and go in the very magazine you hold. This is our 20th edition by the way. What a result. Compassionate.TV is different in a couple of significant ways. Firstly, it’s not a magazine, instead it’s a website, with short video episodes, around 4 or 5 minutes long each time.
Secondly, and this is a big step, rather than me and Muylen doing almost all the good works, for Compassionate TV we have employed people in Cambodia and Uganda to do the good works and take the videos. This is ground breaking, and doubly impactful. The people we employ are locals to their countries and communities. They themselves live in impoverished areas. For our Ugandan chap, he was very much in poverty himself. Now he is well on his way out of it. From a practical perspective, I’ll describe here how it works. It’s super simple.
As always, you are very welcome to give more if you feel. You can also support Compassionate TV as well as Ethical Much, should you choose to.
We are now making real and lasting differences to peoples lives. Many thanks and God bless you, Bird and Muylen
Ethical Much Sort code 04 06 05 Account 16954991
07535 670 581 hello@ethicalmuch.com
One: We connect with Christian people in poverty. In Cambodia this is done through Muylens network, in Uganda, it was done through Linkedin.
Two: We confirm they are reliable and practically able to do the work. We send them a little money, to check they can receive it, we ask them to send us a few photos and videos, to check they can do so.
Three: We send them £100, and ask them to keep half for their own wage, and use half to buy food and whatever else is needed for the impoverished people all around them.
Four: We ask them to document the work in film and photos, and to email it to us.
Five: We receive the footage, edit it into a short episode about 3 or 5 minutes long, and we publish on the platform with a short description.
Six: We repeat steps three, four, five every week.
This system immediately lifts the employee out of poverty by giving them a job of alleviating the poverty of the people around them.
As more people support Compassionate TV, we can increase the number of people we employ, we can increase the frequency of the episodes they produce, and we can increase the budget they have for doing good with. THANK YOU Ethical Much subscribers and supporters, Your EM subscriptions are crossing over into Compassionate TV, you’re funding both in effect.
Really, you have our sincere gratitude, without you there would be no Ethical Much, and without Ethical Much, there would be no CompassionateTV.
And without CompassionateTV, people in Uganda and Cambodia would not be receiving a wage for supporting seriously impoverished people in their communities. Muylen was quite shocked when she saw the poverty in rural Uganda, it makes Cambodia look quite well off in comparison. Please do watch the episodes and you’ll see. Personally, I think it’s fascinating and deeply meaningful to be able to connect with people thousands of miles away, and within a short period of time be able to change their lives and the lives of the people around them. It is love your neighbour, it is feed the poor, it is love one another in action.
We thank you for your part in making this happen. You are Angels, and Heroes.
God bless you, Bird and Muylen.
EthicalMuch Ltd
16 - 18 Station Road Sheffield S35 2XH
Reg. 11856732
CEO Jesus Christ
Hello@EthicalMuch.com
07535 670 581
Sheffield 867
We got a text and phone call from a guy, his neighbour told him about us, we used to provide support for her during the pandemic.
So, we did a big shop and took it to him, had a good chat, he typically works in hotels, he’s been offered a job at a local one, and is waiting for his right to work approval to come through. We’ll keep supporting him until it does.
£82.33
Sheffield 868
As Christmas is coming up we thought to help this lady the best we could, which included a nice shop at Tesco, then a trip to M&S to buy some candles, which they don’t sell, so we ended up buying an amaryllis instead, then on to shopping in Waitrose and bought a pair of lovely candles with Love and Joy on them.
Oh, and a fluffy hot water bottle from the petrol station.
Came to £67.73
Sheffield 869
Our guy is still waiting for his right to work permissions. Took him another, slightly smaller shop, and bought £10 worth of electricity.
God bless him, hope he starts work before Christmas!
£47.26 + £10 from subscriber fund
Sheffield 870
Christmas eve delivery, working right up to the last hour at Tesco!
Bought her lots of good food, some Christmas treats, and just lots of good food.
£75.65 from subscribers. God bless you.
Sheffield 871 New Year’s Eve
Flying round, buying some last minute food and gifts, one of our guys texted in, asking if we could help.
It’s New Year’s Eve … ! How could we not!
£48.31 from subscriber fund
Sheffield 872
Travel card for a lady. She got in touch just before Christmas, haven’t heard from her since about 2021, when she was really struggling during lockdown. So was surprised to hear from her, she asked if we could help with travel expenses for the month. Decided to buy her a travel card for the month.
Sorry about the lack of image... imagine a bus if that helps!
£83 thank you subscribers;.
Sheffield 873
He just moved in to a flat, and had very little of everything, including food, and also pans and things like cutlery, bowls, plates, all the stuff you need for basic living. We went to Sainsbury together and did a shop, or rather, he did the shop, I mooched about chatting to a friend.
Tuned out, quite an expensive shop, mostly that’s the household equipment we needed. Here’s a bit of the receipt, which was about a foot long by the time we finished.
Sheffield 874
Another big shop, helping her once a month, I know she’s been really struggling, and needs to move flat to an area that isn’t full of drug addicts with nothing better to do han try to get her to join them in the hole they are digging for themselves.
Really what she needs is to join a monastery / nunnery and end the struggle of daily living in a tower block filled with people who would rather drag her down to their level than lift themselves up to hers. She’s swimming against the tide of her ‘community’ at all times, and it’s exhausting for her, it’s visible on her face and in her demeaner.
We help, how we can, and she also phones The Samaritans when she needs a friend.
£96.88 from subscriber fund.
Sheffield 875
Quick delivery to a guy who needs our help.
£46.54
Ethical Much Cambodia 215 - 224 &
Three days after our wedding, we decided we had time to squeeze in some good works for the very local people in Kom Pong Thom province, Muylen’s home town. There’s a road about ten minutes from the main town, where some of the houses are just shacks made from a collection of materials. it’s very obviously a road of two sides, one side is the wealthy one, with gated detached houses, the other side is as described and shown here in the photos. Strange how that divide exists in Cambodia as well as in the UK, the poor and rich living within meters of each other, but, I suspect, having little to do or say to each other on a day. The people on the poor side scratch a living from various occupations, maybe collecting plastic bottles for recycling, maybe selling a few eggs from their chickens. We decided to give $50 to ten of the poorest people, in an envelope, saying Happy Christmas. It was just a few weeks away after all, and we wanted to give them a present, some money, to spend on whatever luxuries or necessities they chose.
It’s a blessing to be able to give.
Some time after we visited, we heard back that one of the families we gave money to had no food that day, and they were just about to go out and borrow money in order to buy some. Then we arrived, and handed them an envelope with 50,000 Riel in, enough money to buy food for a month.
I wonder, can any of us imagine and appreciate how impactful that was?
This lady was quite frail, even coming down the steps to greet us was hard for her.
In total we handed out ten envelopes of 50,000 Riel, $50, and they were received well, no one opened them to see how much was inside, but it was clear that it was a meaningful amount of money for them.
Perhaps they will treat themselves to one of the roast ducks on a rotary spit, bought from the little shop at the end of the road that also serves as a nail and hair salon. Or perhaps they will take a few days off work, whatever that is, some of them collect plastic bottles for recycling. Or perhaps they can just stop worrying.
As poor a dwelling as one could imagine, the walls are just blankets and the roof is old corregated metal.
The materials of the house are worth less than the money in the envelope. Would that we could do more.
Each person and family will be impacted differently by the financial gift we were able to give. Maybe they will buy something for their children, or perhaps just save it, a bit of security for them, knowing they will always now have money for rice, they will never need to go hungry. Maybe they will pay off a debt, maybe buy something from the pharmacy, to take the edge off the pain of old age, or maybe they’ll buy a couple of chicks from the lady with the chickens. When people are so poor, $50 is a life changing amount. Even if the change is knowing that there is enough money tucked away to buy rice, so they are secure in knowing that, and can relax a little.
This elderly fellow is a widower, and doesn’t have any family to look after him.
Cambodia 225
We’ve provided a food parcel to grandma Ven Keng, 65 years old. She is living in Krosang Roulerng villages, Chreav Commune, Siem Reap province. She lives with her three grandchildren, one grand daughter and two grandsons. Her son got divorced from his wife and live far away from grandma. Everyday, grandma earn an income from scavenge (collect the rubbish from the street and from the restaurant) for raising her three grandchildren. She can earn 5000 riels to 10,000 riels = $ 1.25 to $ 2.50 per day.
Food parcel items : 10kg of rice , fish sauce, soy sauce, frying oil, sugar, Sarung , blanket, noodles and salt.
Total expenses $ 20 + transportation 10$.
Cambodia 226
We have delivered food parcel to sister Thoeurn Thy. She is 41 years old. She is living in Krolanh, Chreav commune, Siem Reap province . Her husband died long time ago. She lives with her three children, two sons and one daughter. Her job is goes to collect the bottles to sell to earn money for buy food. She can earn 10,000 riels to 15,000 riels = $ 2.5 to $ 3.75 per day, but sometime she earn nothing after that she gets food from the neighbors.
The food parcels items: 10kg of rice, fish sauce, soy sauce, frying oil , sugar, Sarung , blanket, noodles and salt . Total expenses: $ 20 + transportation $10.
Cambodia 227
We’ve delivered food parcel to grandma Lay Ly, 81 years old. She is living in Khnar village, Chreav Commune, Siem Reap province. She has two children, one daughter and one son. They are working as a construction workers. They are very hard to earn an income for daily food ( cant afford for daily food ) Grandma Lay Ly, sometime gets food from the neighbors who live around her house.
Grandma Lay Ly, broke pelvis and her eyes were blinded. She can’t goes anywhere only staying on the bed.
Food parcels items: 10kg of rice, fish sauce, soy sauce, frying oil, Sugar, Sarung, blanket, Noodles and salt.
Total expenses $ 20 + $ 10 transaction.
Cambodia 228
Feeding the hungry is an act of Caring for the needy and showing hospitality that is the way to bring light into the darkness.
Ethical much team in Cambodia have delivered food parcels to the family in the community. The family name is Keng San, 55 years old. She is living in Krosang Roulerng village, Chreav commune Siem Reap province.
She lives with her daughter’s family. They are working as a construction worker. She doesn’t have a job but she plant the vegetables around her house for reduce the expense in the family. Food parcels items are: 10kg of rice , fish sauce, soy sauce, frying oil, sugar, Sarung, blanket, noodles and salt.
Total expenses $ 20 + $ 10 transaction. Thank you very much for feeding Cambodia people in need.
Cambodia 229
Thank you very much all Supporters in Sheffield.
Your donation makes Cambodia people needy different
For this edition we have buy the new clothes for Horn Phearom, 9 years old. He is studying in grade 3. His family very poor doesn’t have a money to buy a clothes for him. He has only one white shirt ( school uniform ) which is old and break. You can see in the picture .
We bought 2 uniforms for him with study materials such as books , pen , pencil and ruler …!
His parents got divorced. He lives with his mum . His mum working as a construction worker . She can earn income between 15,000 riels to 20,000 riels = $ 3.75 - $ 5 per day.
Total expenses $ 25
The lady has arthritis in her knees, she’s very grateful for the support being delivered by Chantha, who has joined the Compassionate.TV / Ethical Much team. She’s delivering rice, noodles, fish cans, soy sauce, fish sauce, oil, and washing powder. And a gift of a few dollars, the change from the shopping. $20 + $10 to Chantha, funded by supporters.
Ethical Much Cambodia 231 & CompassionateTV Episode
This gentleman works as a plastic recycler, earning around half a dollar a day. Chantha gives him 10,000 riel, about a weeks wage for him, plus several week’s worth of rice and tins and noodles and soy sauce and fish sauce, a lovely gift to give him. He’s now food secure, for a time, and has a bit of cash in his pocket. $20 + $10 to Chantha, funded by supporters.
Ethical
The respect and care for the elderly that Chantha has is clear as she delivers food, and prayers and blessings, and a little bit of money, to this gentlemen. $20 + $10 to Chantha, funded by supporters.
This lady is blind, but Chantha lovingly guides her hands over the shopping she has brought, and explains what everything is. She also gives he some money, which is very gratefully received. $20 + $10 to Chantha, funded by supporters.
Ethical Much Cambodia 234 & CompassionateTV Episode 12
Here Chantha delivers the fifth and final food support and blessing to another elderly lady, she’s very pleased, and the food and money will go a long way for her. $20 + $10 to Chantha, funded by supporters. Thank you all very much indeed for this kindness.
Ethical Much Cambodia 235 & CompassionateTV Episode 14
In the next episode, once again Chantha delivers food and support to people in rural Cambodia, in the Siem Reap province. This elderly lady is quite unsteady on her feet, and has long term health conditions. It’s a blessing to tend to the sick and poor. Costs, $15 food and supplies and $10 for Chantha
Another delivery to a lady who is unwell, the parcels consists of 5kg of rice, fish sauce, cans of fish, cooking oil, soy sauce, and soap and washing powder and then some cash as well so people can spend on what they need. Thank you very much indeed Ethical Much / Compassionate TV supporters. Costs, $15 food and supplies and $10 for Chantha
This lady is 72 years old, she lives with her husband and daughter, but they are not able to support her financially. She makes a small income for the family by selling Cambodia noodles. Thank you Ethical Much and Compassionate TV supporters. Costs, $15 food and supplies and $10 for Chantha
This lady is a 92 year old widow. She lives with he daughter, who will also be elderly. In the video Chantha explains where the food came from, a gift from people in England. Chantha also gives her 10,000 riel, around $2.50. Thank you Ethical Much / Compassionate TV people! Costs, $15 food and supplies and $10 for Chantha
The final lady in the episode is a 79 year old widow, she has health problems, and lives with her daughters but prepares all her own meals. Fish cans, rice, fish sauce, soy sauce, plus some cash. Thank you EM people and Compassionate TV supporters. $15 food and supplies and $10 for Chantha
I have a slightly problematic relationship with Linkedin, but on this one occasion it really came through. I started following a guy from Uganda, Silviano he’s called, who had an Open to Work banner on his profile. All he did was post prayers and Psalms and after a week or two I felt to have a conversation with him, with a view to him becoming a creator for Compassionate TV. First, I asked him to send some photos and videos of where he lived, I wanted to get a feel for it and also wanted to know if he could actually send photos and videos, if he had a suitable phone, and wifi. He showed he was able to take grainy photos, and equally grainy videos, but he really struggled to upload them, he has to travel 15km to an internet cafe.
However, I figured we could try something, so I offered to give him some work. We would send him £100, and he could keep half for himself and use the other half to buy food and supplies for the impoverished people in his region.
Even Muylen was shocked at the level of poverty in rural Uganda, it makes rural Cambodia seem positively prosperous. I did a bit of research and discovered the average monthly wage there is $68. That’s per month.
So, Silviano bought food, from a store 15km away, and gave it to the poor people in the village, took photos and videos, and went back to the town 15km away to upload the videos.
So far so good! You can see the results in Episode 11 of Compassionate.TV. And see the idea now forming more clearly.
We find people in poor countries who are themselves in poverty, and we give them work. The job is to feed and support the people around them, and to film it. We give them a wage, and an equal budget. This takes them out of immediate poverty, and gives them the ability to alleviate the poverty of their neighbours and community.
We ask Silviano for 4 episodes a month, one a week, and he gets paid £50 for each one, and has a £50 budget. So now he’s earning 4 x the average monthly wage, and his job is to feed the hungry, tend to the needy, buy school supplies for children, and whatever else is required and doable.
For every 50 supporters we can employ another person like Silviano. In fact, we will ask Silviano to find another person like him, and then another, and another, and Silviano will be their manager, and this way we will grow Compassionate TV across Uganda, and Cambodia, and wherever else God opens doors.
Ethical Much Uganda 01 / Compassionate.TV Episode 11
Silviano, God bless him, has travelled the 15km to the store and bought food for the really poor people in his rural community. The footage is grainy, the audio is rough, everything is shaky, and it’s brilliant. We’ve streamlined the charity process to the point where you can literally watch the money being spent doing good. It’s life changing for Silviano, and his family, and his neighbours and community.
I really do consider this system to be a profoundly effective way of ending individual poverty. It literally does end poverty for people like Silviano who become our hands on the ground. And it does enable them to alleviate the effects of poverty for the people all around them.
Silviano, God bless him, is much encouraged by his working with us.
His first episode was a great success, so we sent another £100, and asked him to make another one.
Remember, he get’s to keep £50 as his wage and expenses, and can use the other £50 to buy food and supplies for people.
It’s such a poor area he lives in. The average monthly wage in rural Uganda is around $68.
So we have immediately lifted Silviano and his family out of poverty, and now he has the funds to support people and alleviate some of their poverty.
When we have more supporters, we will be able to ask Silviano to find another person like him, and to expand this way.
We sent Silviano the money (£160) for a new camera phone, the old one wasn’t really fit for purpose, and it was very hard for him to use it for the job we’re asking him to do, and also it didn’t plug into a computer in order to upload the files so there was much time and expense wasted in file transfers.
He’s doing a professional job, now he has professional equipment!
Life changing.
I consider Compassionate TV to be a really significant advancement in both charity and media. We avoid all the ethical and moral issues related to ‘delivering aid’ to people in poverty by instead giving people in poverty a job, the job being to deliver aid to their own people and communities in whatever way they know is best.
In terms of media, through this decentralised hybrid system of journalism and charity, we are able to show life on the ground in regions of hard poverty, shown by the people who live there, and then actually show the alleviation of the effects of that poverty as part of the documentary process.
I consider it ethically flawed to go to places of deep poverty and to document that situation and suffering without actually intervening in it there and then in order to alleviate it as far as possible.
Once there was journalistic value in documenting such poverty in order to ‘bring awareness of it’ to the world. No longer is this a valid line of reasoning. The world knows. It just doesn’t care.
There is now a saturation of media in and of places of hardship. There is no need to draw attention to it other than to alleviate it, and if you are not willing to alleviate at least some if it whilst standing amongst it filming it, how can anyone else be expected to act other than equally passively.
If you are documenting poverty, without actually doing something, anything, to alleviate it, then it is little more that voyeurism. It is immoral, as would be filming a drowning person but not reaching out to save them in order to draw attention to the plight of people who are drowning.
People are drowning, millions of them, all the time, in poverty, and we can and should lift them out. Whether we must is a matter for the individual conscience.
Which? Car to buy now mine died?
Dave. I shall ask Dave.
Brothers and sisters we are gathered here today because my car has died.
It was a peaceful ending. I pulled up outside my house, as per usual, it was cold and snowy, then the next day my car wouldn’t start. Battery? Maybe I ran it down trying to get the engine going. Dave attended the scene, and being an optimist, thought it could be revived. However, after towing it to the car hospital shown below, he determined that infact it would be more of a resurrection than a revival. The timing belt had gone. And that means the cars trousers had fallen off, or something like that, but anyway, it needed a new engine, and that would cost more than the car, so, off it went to the great Vauxhall Vectra highway in the sky. (Actually it was sold for £180 and is now in the process of being reincarnated as Made in China patio furniture.)
But Dave is not a man to see a customer bereft, so after lending me a little Hyundai for a month whilst the Vectra was resting in pieces, he kindly allowed me to purchase the said Hyundai for a modest price, and because he is a gentleman and a scholar, a year’s parts and labour warrantee was included.
The little Hyundai has many advantages to the Vectra, including being much cheaper to run, and a lot lot cheaper to tax. So, as they say, we move on and all is well and will be well.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article you can contact Dave at Ecclesall Garage on 0114 266 1593. Trigger warning advised.
Ecclesall Garage are members of EthicalMuch. Best. Garage. Ever. At the very very top of Murray Road.
