In charity, social media has a great influence. Unlike those days when people had to travel great distances to identify needs, create awareness, and so on, through the aid of social media, those things can be done remotely.
There was a time on Hive when someone gave me a job to find people who are needy and tag them, so that his team can find a way to support them.
Within a few days, I was able to locate a few individuals on the platform, and it was only possible for me because of Hive.
Imagine Hive was not in the picture; only God knows how much I would have to spend on transportation in order to reach these people.
The provision for people to blog on social media has been of great help. Someone can see a situation somewhere and decide to make a post about it, and through that, people might come through and tackle it.
But with all these come disadvantages too. People will always be people; the same post to genuinely attract helpers, others do it with the wrong mindset.
Nowadays, people use people's predicaments to their own advantage, especially those seeking recognition and public approval.
To every assistance they render, there is a photo taken, not to inspire others to reach out to the needy, but to publicize that they are also philanthropists.
A small visit to an orphanage home, they create a post, a small gift rendered to someone, they make a post, and it's not bad in itself.
The concern is that those receiving the help sometimes feel bad about it. Sometimes it looks like mockery, exposing their faces and their predicaments.
Personally, I don't feel comfortable using anything someone gave me and talking about it.
If it were possible, I think it would be best if we apply wisdom while we post about our workof charity. Whether or not the people are comfortable about exposing their identity, I reckon it's best we withhold certain details.
People can be funny; one might make a post for good, but others might not see it that way. I have gone through a few charity posts, and I saw certain comments that are not favorable from people.
Although they may look like showing sympathy, yet they may affect the receiver negatively. Months later, if that same person comes across such a post and the comment, just consider how they will feel.
Aside from this issue of giving too much information that affects the receiver, certain people also fabricate situations of need and use them to scam people.
Someone can just go around and snap a fake situation, cook up stories, and make a post about it. Being human with emotions, someone with a good heart might see it and fall victim to a scam.
It's sad that we can't completely eradicate these problems, but we can do something about them.
When we give, our intentions should be pure, and if we are compelled to make a post about it, we should make posts that wouldn't harm the receivers subsequently.
And in the case of scams, we should also verify projects properly before we give our support.
N.B: All Images Were Generated By Gemini AI