Today, August 25th, is daffodil day. Perhaps you saw people wearing a daffodil on their jacket. The daffodil was in return for a donation. This donation is used by the Cancer Society which is a charity to help people who have cancer. The charity also supports scientific research into trying to find a cure for some kinds of cancer.
Another important role is to educate people about preventing cancer. In New Zealand, we need to be aware of skin cancer. We have the highest rate of melanoma in the world. Melanoma is a very serious kind of skin cancer maybe caused by sunbathing which is a very popular activity. Now New Zealand children have to wear a hat when playing outdoors at school on sunny days.
The Cancer Society has been active in teaching us to cover up at the beach – “slip, slop, slap, wrap” is their slogan which means slip on a shirt, or slip into the shade, slop on sun screen, slap on a hat, wrap sunglasses around your eyes.
The Cancer Society has volunteers who drive cancer patients to clinics for treatment or help in other ways to support people who have cancer. The Society also provides accommodation for people who live in smaller towns or in rural areas which do not have hospitals to provide treatment.
New Zealand has many charities. A good way to make a donation is to send it directly to the charity and ask for a receipt. It must be for more than $5. Keep your receipts. You can then list these receipts and send the list once a year to the Inland Revenue (tax) Department (IRD). You will get back 33% so the government is paying one third of your donation to the charity. So if you donate $300 to charities in one year, you will get back $100 from the IRD. In this way, the government is helping you to support charities.
Vocabulary
• charity – a not-for-profit organisation to help people in need; charities usually have volunteers who work for free
• to prevent – to stop something before it happens
• melanoma – a mole on the skin which changes and becomes dark in colour or grows bigger
• cover up – wear more clothes, cover your skin
• slip on – put on a shirt of some other piece of clothing which is quick and easy to wear; this is an idiom
• slip into – move easily into a place; an idiom
• slop on – put on some liquid or a cream quickly without being too careful; for example slap on some sun screen; an idiom
• slap on – put on a hat quickly, without too much care; an idiom
• wrap – put on sunglasses which wrap around the sides of your eyes or close-fitting sun glasses
• slogan – short phrase, words you can remember easily like an advertisement. These words “slip, slop, slap, wrap” do not have a very exact meaning but they help you remember what to do.