The Secret Millionaire
I'm not really one for reality TV but in recent weeks I've become a little bit addicted to the Secret Millionaire. It's a simple concept; a successful (see: rich) person in the UK moves into a low income area for ten days. Sometimes they get the gyro (for the Aussies, that's the dole), sometimes they're made to get jobs but they're always made to live the way the people in the area do. Their task is to meet people in the area and find one (or a few) worthy causes to donate some money to.
I first got suckered into this when a lady millionaire went back to the poor area that she'd come from before she made her fortune. She found a woman who ran an organisation that supported single parents, a dance and drama school that kept local kids off the street and a really talented little girl who attended the dance school. I was in tears by the end of the episode.
I really like the idea of people getting in and making a difference, especially in a lot of cases on this show, when the people are just ordinary people who might not ever benefit from a charity or one of the bigger organisations. Last night I watched an episode I'd taped from during the week where a conservative Tory buisiness man realised that his opinion on immigration was completely wrong and then donated to an asylum organisation. Then he gave a Kenyan man who'd been granted asylum a job. It was quite amazing.
The show obviously doesn't just change the lives of the people who are being helped, the millionaires are being changed as well. It's a nice, heartwarming hour of telly that makes me feel better about the state of the world.
The Secret Millionaire currently airs at 9:30pm on Channel Nine in Australia
I first got suckered into this when a lady millionaire went back to the poor area that she'd come from before she made her fortune. She found a woman who ran an organisation that supported single parents, a dance and drama school that kept local kids off the street and a really talented little girl who attended the dance school. I was in tears by the end of the episode.
I really like the idea of people getting in and making a difference, especially in a lot of cases on this show, when the people are just ordinary people who might not ever benefit from a charity or one of the bigger organisations. Last night I watched an episode I'd taped from during the week where a conservative Tory buisiness man realised that his opinion on immigration was completely wrong and then donated to an asylum organisation. Then he gave a Kenyan man who'd been granted asylum a job. It was quite amazing.
The show obviously doesn't just change the lives of the people who are being helped, the millionaires are being changed as well. It's a nice, heartwarming hour of telly that makes me feel better about the state of the world.
The Secret Millionaire currently airs at 9:30pm on Channel Nine in Australia
