To think if teenage girls from a private school can afford plane tickets ...

[Morgansports]

.... To visit the orphanage in Africa that they have been fundraising for, then the orphanage would be better served by just receiving the money they spent on their tickets. Seriously, what actual use to the orphanage is a group of hair-flicking, ugg boot wearing blondes???

And the bit that made me laugh is that other parents at the school were asked to help fundraise for the girls' trip.

AIBU?

There is a massive gap for charity and hair flicking girls in this country. I have several children at my school who could really do with new clothes and sond someone to read and give them cuddle. Only over here they are considered "neglected" children and need specialist help rather than "poor" as in third world.

I say let the rich kids raise the dosh and let a few deprived children go and help those in the third world. They need the experience much more.

And to the poster cycling into a Cambodian village on ONE bike, well words fail me. You are going on a holiday and are giving a local a gift. Don't pretend it's anything more than that.

We had a big chairty known for their gap year 'volunteer' travel trips come to our school. I was wholly unimpressed at the time and my opinion hasn't changed. It seemed counterproductive for me to pay GBP3K to them to go visit people in need when that money could be used for better purposes.

My Dad insisted that we do charity work and it was all local. It included entertaining children stuck in hospital over Christmas, preparing Christmas dinner for the homeless etc. Our fundraising was us asking local business owners for materials. At university I read to children at the local school and now I just donate as time is restricted. Once DD is a little older she will be volunteering with me.

Breezy - was that question directed at me? This is irrelevant to this thread but my family started a charitable project in a Ugandan village from scratch in 2001. It went from strength to strength and was taken over by ActionAid five years ago because it was seen to be of such benefit to the local community.

Is that ok?

OK, our local school raised £30,000 to build a new (fairly basic) classroom block for a school in rural Africa with which they have a connection.
20 boys went to Africa for 3 weeks in the holidays and built the classrooms. Their parents paid £950 each (separate from the £30,000 raised).
The £30,000 was spent:
£25,000 on materials (bought locally in Africa)
£3,600 on flights for 4 (advanced) building apprentices from our local college
£950 on flight for an old boy who is an architect/project manager
One parent commented to me that his contribution to the charity was £950. He was "giving" them 160 hours of labour at £6 per hour (cost of flight divided by hours worked by his son).
Was this really so awful?
The African school got a new classroom block. Presumably good.
4 young apprentices from the UK got (subsidised) responsible jobs to improve their CVs. Presumably good.
20 boys learnt some new skills and saw some real deprivation first hand. Presumably good.
Am I missing something?

So it's OK for your family members to do charity work in a Ugandan village, but not a so-called hair flicking blonde?

Grovel, sounds marvellous. We're not talking about the same thing at all though.

Oh for goodness sake, read my OP!!!

Maybe you could rewrite your CV without the inverted snobbery? That is a very big barrier for some of us getting "the point" (obviously).

Knowsabit - point taken. Just substitute the word 'schoolchildren' for the 'hair flicking blonde girls' bit.

Breezy, do you really believe that given the choice, the manager of the orphanage would choose a ten day 'visit' by a bunch of schoolkids over a lump sum?

It's a bit unfair to refer to them as schoolchildren. They are sixth formers - young adults.

Taking the amount of money out of the equation, do you really believe there is no value for the village children, or the young people from here?

The £3000 is for the cost of the trip. Very little of this money will go to the village - maybe a tiny amount towards painting supplies.

The £3000 goes towards practice expeditions in this country and other training, flights, equipment, local guides, food (from local markets). It also contributes to expert advice and emergency services on the ground. Most parents would like this assurance before letting their 16 - 18 year olds go to places where there is potential danger not likely to be encountered by your average Brit.

No one is promising cash going into a village. The young people are giving time and talents, and building relationships.

The young people from here get a tremendous amount of personal development out of these trips. They have to develop serious teamwork and planning skills. They have to budget pitiful amounts of money and negotiate for food in local markets. The have to do had physical work during their project phase, and physical endurance during the expedition phase. That's before thinking about the people they encounter.

It is so much better than a fortnight in Shagaluf.

I think one of the issues here is that some people do go and do tremendous work for charities but others go for personal gratification. The former are usually trained professionals and go for a reasonable length of time. The latter are usually not trained and go for a short time.

The other issue is a mismatch between what the volunteer believes is useful and what the organisation believes is useful. The volunteer may believe that the small child needs lots of hugs but if that child has been abandoned, then a volunteer who gives hugs for a couple of weeks and then abandons the child will not help. The organisation would probably prefer someone to clean the toilets and do the filing, these however are not glamarous enough for some volunteers.

The situation the OP describes is not about people going out to help but to sight see at the orphanage.

You have lost me breezy. First you have me taking dog-eared books to Oxfam and now you're introducing 'the SE Asian mentality' into a thread about a schoolchildren's trip to Africa!!!

Oh, finally we get to the POINT. It's not the charity per se, in any shape or form OP et al are objecting to, it's charity by privately educated hair flicking blondes.

No, Rollmops. Some of us are questioning whether schoolkids with no skills are much use to deprived third world villages and whether they should be shaking buckets under our noses to raise money for their air fare.