Contractors are helping abused children in new charity effort

A contractor has started an effort to raise money amongst fellow contractors to help abused children. Could we not all give a one-hour fee to the NSPCC? Then please check out Just Giving. We contractors need to do more than just earn our keep.

Ending Cruelty To Children

The London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is the UK's leading charity specialising in child protection and the prevention of cruelty to children. It is the only children's charity with statutory powers, enabling it to take legally sanctioned actions when it finds children in need of help.

Equally important, the NSPCC has set up a telephone service where children can call directly to make their sufferings known. Before this line was created, children had to be referred by an agency to the authorities. Obviously, given how difficult it is to get children to come forward when they are abused, such a service is priceless. Or it would be, if it didn't need support from private donations to keep working.

One Contractor's Effort

The Cranage, Cheshire-based Ian Webster, a contractor who works in financial services, while in between assignments one day, decided to create Just Giving/Contractor (Just Giving is an overall Web site for charities). Like most contractors, Webster isn't happy unless he's doing something useful. ''It's an admirable cause. And it's good for us contractors to begin to make a name for ourselves as a group that supports just causes.''

Webster points out that we contractors in the UK are a reasonably affluent group who should do something more than just earn our living. The average contractor in the UK today earns around GBP 400 per day, Webster points out.

''We're asking all contractors to donate just one hour's pay (which we calculate at about GBP 50, but whatever you can afford is fine) to help to improve the lives of children who are suffering. Most contractors won't miss an hour's pay. To a child it could literally make a lifetime of difference.''

There are about 300,000 contractors in the UK. If just 20,000 of us donated GBP 50 we'd hit our target of GBP 1 million in no time. Perhaps this is something that we could all get together and do, not just for the NSPCC, but for other causes as well in the future. It would certainly make our industry more visible to the rest of the UK, apart from the good it would do in itself.

Webster has set up the charity on the Just Giving web site so that you can easily use a credit card to make a donation. And you can see the amount achieved to date on the site; it's just started though so don't be disappointed if the sum is still a small one. The point is to fire up contractors all over the country to kick in.

If you know of other causes that you think contractors as a group should support, let us know at ContractorCalculator.