Yesterday was Daffodil Day and in two different locations people put a lot of effort into creating neat displays that enhanced the urban environment and made people stop and look.
The first one I saw was on Durham Lane where Daffodils had been tied to a netting which was hung like a canopy above the lane.
The second was at Takutai Square at Britomart. Here hundreds of Daffodils had been planted into the grass (this was done a few years ago with poppies for ANZAC day).
What a fantastic way to raise awareness for a charity while also making the city more interesting at the same time.
This is great – This gives both publicity to an issue that affects so many people (Cancer) – it also livens up our city a little and makes it a nicer place to see and be part of
Amazing. Love it.
I went to took some pictures at Takutai Square but I completely missed the display at Durham Lane. Is it still there?
These undeniably imaginative projects have enormous social impact, they literally raise the spirit. You can’t measure that and why would you bother; that’s not the point. Councils, governments & local authorities should simply support them then stand aside and let folk get on with it.
Was that paid for by my rates, or did some other group pay for those displays? I don’t know if it is true but I saw an infographic the other day showing enormous disparity in the US for money donated towards a specific disease and the deaths from that disease. It shocked me. Suffice to say, cancer deaths are small but recieve the lionshare of charity money. Clearly they have superior marketing schemes. http://i.imgur.com/M7FfhbC.png
Then you have the actual humanitarian crises in Syria/Iraq, Ebola in Africa and all the other unrest.
Don’t get me wrong, its nice to do stuff to raise awareness for charity (even if you arent actually doing anything directly useful), but if any of my rates money went to this, I would be pissed off.
See also http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/infographic-shows-differences-between-diseases-we-donate-and-diseases-kill-us for a little more commentary… but even more than that, you’d probably want to know about the differing impact of these diseases on QALYs and life expectancy. If I die at 90, I’m not too worried about whether it’s heart disease or cancer; I’d be much more interested in knowing what might knock me off at 60 instead.
None of your rates were spent on the Britomart one – I can’t comment on the other
The Durham St East Daffodil Canopy was also undertaken with no expense to ratepayers by volunteers keen to make Auckland a better place. Members of the group also helped with the Britomart installation. The group is called Guerrilla Playspaces and they’ll be delivering more projects soon. See the FB link for more details: https://www.facebook.com/GuerrillaPlayspaces