When you think of foreign charities you will ususally picture smiling faces of American or European adults passing on boxes of donations to Zimbabwean kids, even wider smiles on the faces of the latter.

But it’s not that rosy if you read a recent CNN report “Above the law: America’s worst charities.” This year-long investigation identified America’s 50 worst charities. At the top of the list is Kids Wish Network, which gave nearly $110m to corporate solicitors. 

This charity, like many others on the list, mimic well-known charity names that fool donors
The data gathered by CNN show the worst charities devote less than 4% of donations to direct cash aid.

In Zimbabwe, we hear less about such cases. But does it really mean that nothing like this happens in the country of ten million people? Does lack of reports similar to the one prepared by CNN mean that all faith-based charities — including the international ones — perform dilligently? One would need a significant amount of resources to find this out. But in the past cases like the Howard Hospital one showed that there may be need for a deeper investigation into the charity sector in Zimbabwe. 

Any journalists ready to pick up the challenge? Or are they all too busy covering the upcoming elections? When everybody looks the other side, villains tend to jump on the moment of media-blindness.

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Welcoming the stranger and challenging others, even leaders in my faith community, to do the same