Peter Wilson’s Wrap

I thought we’d try to stay away from Aberdeen this week but no such luck, so let’s get it over with quickly. Sir Ian Wood’s p.r. people have clearly been instructed to get out there and show us all what a good bloke he really is, so in the interests of fairness, here we go. Two years ago Sir Ian established a £50m trust to fund projects in both Scotland and Africa. The trust is dedicated to helping the poor in sub-Saharan Africa and to developing young people in Scotland through volunteering overseas. The latest addition to this scheme is a further investment of £400k over the next three years to deliver an exchange programme for volunteers aged 18-25 in Aberdeen and Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. The programme will involve teams of nine young people in each city to live and work together on community projects and spending three months in each city. Sir Ian said the aim was to help the volunteers to become “active global citizens” and to encourage long-term community development in the north-east of Scotland and Tanzania.

All genuinely laudable and unquestionably a more 21st century approach to philanthropy than the plutocratic Victoria municipal rebuilding programmes that Sir Ian’s plan for Union Terrace Gardens bring to mind, which makes you wonder why one of Scotland’s richest men feels compelled to destroy one of the least offensive areas of Aberdeen’s centre. Just think, instead of contributing £40m towards the hashing up of the Gardens, he could pay outright for Brisac Gonzalez’ competition-winning scheme for the Peacock Arts Centre to be built on the site and still have £25m to spend on encouraging almost 3500 other kids in Scotland and Africa to become global citizens. I know which I’d rather have, especially as it’s actually achievable.

Image by Olaf.