#we charity

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Here's Why WE Charity Is So Problematic

I wrote my thesis on how organizations like WE Charity use celebrities to manipulate young people—I’ve seen this coming for years

Pretend for a moment you’re a teenager again. You’re still on cloud nine from that amazing concert you went to last week—on a school day, no less—with all of your friends and classmates, not to mention your crush. You sang, you laughed, you heard a pretty moving story about a girl in Kenya, and you sat through some semi-boring speeches—then you finally got to see Shawn Mendes perform live and you definitely made your followers jealous by posting it on IG Stories, Snapchat AND TikTok.

That concert you attended wasn’t a concert at all—not in the traditional sense, anyway. It was a youth rally called WE Day. The price of admission: a few acts of goodwill and volunteering projects you did with your classmates (and the permission slip from your parents).

WE Day, an event that many Canadians have either heard about, watched on television (CTV was a media partner) or online, or have even attended or sent their children to, is the flagship event hosted by Toronto-based WE Charity. It’s held in more than 15 cities across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, features star-studded performances and motivational speeches from the likes of Selena Gomez, Malala Yousafzai, Nelly Furtado and Justin Trudeau (both as a private citizen and as prime minister) and has been attended by 1 million young people to date.

WE Charity calls WE Day “the greatest celebration of social good”; it’s also been the cornerstone to the organization’s meteoric rise to international fame and strong standing in the humanitarian, entertainment and corporate communities. And, lately, it’s been central in national media coverage about questionable practices that the organization has taken in its quest to change the world.

The charity has been under increasing scrutiny over the past month for having accepted a sole-sourced contract from the federal government that would have seen them distribute nearly $1 billion worth of summer student volunteer grants, sparking the hashtag #WeHaveAProblem. The deal fell through after WE pulled out amid ethics concerns that the Trudeau family has longstanding ties to the charity. In addition to Justin Trudeau’s participation with WE Day, it was revealed that WE paid Margaret Trudeau (Justin’s mother) and Alexandre Trudeau (Justin’s brother) between $250,000 and $320,000 each for their speeches at events. Other speakers were told that they would not be paid; notably, Jully Black posted a video on Instagram about her shady experiences with the organization. And this is all just a wormhole into the complicated, controversial and downright confusing operations of this very prolific Canadian charity.

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Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[omyheart]

I just wanna say, can we back up a little bit and talk about this whole international development charity aspect of this? You know, we have places around the world that are not doing well, and yet they're rich in natural resources, there's hard-working people there. They're poor, but they're not poor because some young person in Canada doesn't care enough about them. They're poor because of the legacy of colonialism, imperialism, neo-imperialism, continued corporate exploitation, state intervention with world trade organizations, banks, even armies. And there are solutions to this. We could end foreign debt, we could end or change these predatory international regimes, we could pay back all the loot we've stolen from them, we could teach young Canadians about that, that history, about the on-going exploitation. But instead, we tell young people it's all about them. It's their inherent worthiness as good Canadians that's going to save the world, so forget about politics, forget economics, you know, forget about restructuring the way the world works, you're going to save the world by being a good person. [references a recent Canadaland article that ask what it is Me to We actually does] So what does We do? Not a whole lot apparently. I think it's really the perfect neo-liberal structure to not change the world.

Tim Bousquet, on Canadaland episode #271 Bottom Of The Barrel, discussing Me to We scandal with Jesse Brown

[newsfromstolenland]

Ontario government cuts ties with WE Charity | CBC News

The Ontario government says it won't be continuing its relationship with the WE Charity.

"The Ontario government says it won't be continuing its relationship with the WE Charity.

The Ministry of Education says it has been told not to renew its contract with WE, and to investigate its expenditures on the organization. 

"Hard working people in this province deserve to know that their money is delivering value," ministry spokesperson Alexandra Adamo said in a statement.

The charity received $250,000 from the province in June for its WE Schools Programming as a part of the Mental Health Initiatives for Ontario Students plan."

Full article

[madamewriterofwrongs]

I so rarely laugh at Canadian politics but this 3 minutes of chaos from the Prime Minister's committee hearing on the WE Charity scandal was stunningly hilarious.

[quasi-normalcy]

The Trudeau-WE scandal seems like exactly the sort of scandal that you would expect the Liberals to get involved in. But beyond this, it seems like exactly the sort of scandal that you would expect the WE organization to get involved in. Indeed, it seems like an almost-inevitable consequence of the celebrity charity-industrial complex and of government-by-jet-setters.

[canadianabroadvery]

[charitabledirection]

Liam Payne supports the WE charity by performing at the WE day

Liam Payne supports the WE charity by performing at the WE day @WEMovement @LiamPayne

  March 10th, 2019: On March 6th Liam Payne performed “Get Low” at the WE day UK, bringing to the attention of all his fans around the world, the work done by the WE movement charity.

https://twitter.com/WEMovement/status/1103363993740165125

The WE movement was founded in 1995 by then 12 years old Canadian boy Craig Kielburger. Craig had read in the Toronto Star newspaper about the murder of 12…

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