The young man who phoned me sounded a little shrill. He was from a small charity, UK based, which does its work overseas and which I will not embarrass by naming. Except I'll give a clue - it thinks it can solve the Aids epidemic expressly without the use of condoms.

Anyway, this was a man in a hurry, filled with pressing righteousness. We need The Times to carry our phone number and website for our Burmese appeal, he said, because we raise money separately from the Disaster Emergency Committee. We know people dislike giving money to the DEC. We offer an alternative. You must print our details.

And at that point, I had a small epiphany. In the distance I heard Bob Geldof cry “Just give us your fecking money”, and I realised this was a son of Bob; one of that army of good-hearted but pushy people he spawned, now demanding money with menaces on behalf of the Burmese people.

Twenty years on, is this what we have come to? A huge, spontaneous, innocent humanitarian groundswell has evolved into cut-throat competition between charities and a form of aggressive, institutionalised begging for the sake of the developing world.

Give your money to us, not to them, they cry. We're more deserving than them. We'll do a better job saving the dying than they will. We are rich, but only in our moral ambiguity.

Ever since saving starving foreigners became a fashionable career choice, post-Live Aid, overseas aid work has become a considerable industry, and it is a fact of life that charities do now have to operate as corporate entities, trying to out- market each other in order to ensure their own survival. But at times like this, it all becomes much too ruthless; it makes you stop and ask whether charities are structured along lines that ask them to prioritise their own survival.

Of course, in quiet times when there are no disasters it must be difficult too. The staff must mark time, and remain inventive and send forth a million chuggers to stop us in the street and try to charm us into monthly direct deposits.

When disaster strikes - and I'm not saying charity workers wish it to, but it must quicken the blood and justify one's existence - these good people become part of a race to act faster, more caringly, and on a wider scale than anyone else. They also follow certain business procedures; one of which is to issue standard apocalyptic warnings about how there is worse to come with cholera, typhoid and dysentery unless a second wave of aid follows the first.

Above all, don't ask questions, just give us your fecking money, not them.

The Disaster Emergency Committee, an umbrella organisation pooling funds for its members, 13 major aid agencies, has been in existence since 1963. It should do away with all the competition and wasted effort, of course. But apparently the DEC does not suit everyone, especially the smaller charities.

This time, however, the situation is novel. Nobody's help is wanted by the Burmese Government. As Human Rights Watch put it, never before has a government chosen to obstruct the process that would save lives (though one assumes their memories do not stretch back to Berlin in 1945). The Burmese junta plainly rates the plight of its people below the need for secrecy and its grip on power: hence the awful sight of the generals calmly holding a referendum and escorting people to the polls to vote for them while the dead bodies still float, uncollected, in nearby fields.

The brutal fact is that they don't want an invasion of Western aid. We can't change that. No matter how moved we are - and I am as affected by the television pictures as anyone - there is little we can do to help. We cannot rescue political prisoners and aid is only trickling into Burma. What is the point of writing a gesture cheque in these circumstances, if not merely to make ourselves feel better?

So here's my good idea for the week. Forget about Burma. Forget about the horrors; forget the scandal of the junta; turn off the TV; and do something really wonderful: perform a humanitarian rescue on someone closer to home. There are thousands of deprived, neglected, malnourished young people in the UK, just as innocent and just as deserving as the Burmese, who would benefit enormously from your help.

Give your money as generously to one of the magnificent, unsung charities, like Barnardo's, or NCH, the children's charity, which toil away unappreciated on our doorsteps, doing unglamorous, low-profile work, without any headlines or Disaster Emergency Committee to rake in cash for them. (The two charities, between them, help well over 200,000 children - more than are estimated drowned in Burma.) There are no dramatic pictures of bloated bodies or sobbing babies leading the news bulletins, but believe me, the grief and chaos which British charities seek to alleviate is just as acute - and much more unsolvable - as anything in the Irriwaddy Delta.

Just because you can't see the disaster, doesn't mean it is not there: a cruel, slow-motion crisis in parenting. Young people across the UK struggle with as little hope as any disadvantaged Burmese child - who generally are a lot better fed and more loved than their British equivalent.

The evidence of endemic neglect is there, should we choose to look for it - malnutrition; abuse; children admitted drunk to A&E at eight years old; toddlers swallowing methadone; growing rates of mental illness. A timebomb of misery and emotional damage.

And, of course, domestic charities are at the Cinderella end of the humanitarian aid fairytale. There are no helicopters. The work is not distant, exciting, action-packed stuff, where sticking plasters are easy and happy endings are only superficial if you look too close. Oh no, this is messy stuff, a long-term grind, with no few happy endings. It is also discomfitingly close to home and clouded with value judgments. But of the two, I know which I find less morally ambiguous.

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