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?

If you disagree, you are jealous........tired.....tired....tired unimaginative 'ole argument....

The teens are not being dishonest but everybody else behind the scenes is making money off it.

If the orphanage "received the money directly" it would most likely go through the charity which runs it, and guess what, there are plenty of charity executives that need their salaries and lavish expenses paid too. So although you are right about it being an ineffectual use of money to send the girls there, it will at least raise their awareness, and not make that much difference to the orphans than sending the money directly. So much of charitable donations go toward running the actual charity, don't take too literally the claims that 10p buys loaves of bread for a village for a month.

Imagine there's lots of folks outside SOAS. Lots of folks outside baby hospitals too with objectionable ideas, values and causes. Doesn't represent the valuable first hand accounts in oral histories. You are being very rude about the effort made by the interviewees to get their experiences heard.

Bet you were just a doll in Kenya....

I've never been to Kenya.

After our time in Thailand was finished, some of the people we had treated who were caught up in the Tsunami wanted to record their experiences/lives on tape so as to be heard around the World by others.

My role? To switch the dictaphone on and off. Their experiences. Not mine. joan I do not trust you on this, believe me. You are horribly dismissive about the first hand experiences and lives of others- a true little Colonial in fact.

While I was at university I sent £500 to an Indian orphanage at the behest of our student Junior Common Room committee (I was the Treasurer).

It went missing somewhere between leaving the UK bank account and the charity head office.

I too get irritated by people raising funds by going somewhere exotic to complete a challenge.

However, if anyone doubts the impact visits from different schools can have on a community, look on the Medic Malawi website. Very small charity with NO costs in the UK, and the schools who visit pay their own fares, but also work in the hospital, build playgrounds, paint the orphanage, play with the children and generally try to contribute. Although it has to be said, if DD is anything to go by, there get more out of it than the orphans.

richteas, that's exactly the kind of comment that puts people off donating - it all goes on administrative costs and very little on the people you want to help. donating to charity outside of this country is viewed by many people as a waste of money, and you are seen as a bit of a fool if you do.

it is certainly more helpful to reguarly donate to a charity of you choice than it is to support teenagers going out to 'help'

More

I had a cheque go missing too. Between Bath and London.

Apart from the Jack Wills upturned collars, no difference. Class is not the true issue as plenty of state kids go voluntouring.

I remain unconvinced by the argument that because there is political change needed at a macro level, that it's not worth doing things.

Sure, the impact may be lessened but perhaps on a smaller level someone's life can be made just a little easier. A little less painful. If you give a paracetemol to someone in Cuba, the issue of trade embargos etc remains, but that Cuban person's toothache is just a bit more bearable that day.

some of the people on this thread actually sound a bit loopy backs away from thread

Personally, I think teens would be better being taught about how the World really works. Not being fed some tripe about fund raising to help in a orphanage in Africa.

They should know why that country is like it is. The money that could be used to build primary schools, provide basic healthcare, build a functioning electric grid is stolen by its ruling elite and deposited in Switzerland and spent in London on Bond Street.

Charity begins at home, as they say.

I don't like charity tourism. It smacks of deserving poor attitudes , let's help the poor African kids.

What about those closer to home? Our homeless, our poor? Or is that too unpalatable?

It's the voluntourism that's a problem. And middle aged (yes I'm stereotyping!) women in the main going on charity 'cycling jollies' that do more for them and actually pretty little for their supposed recipients.

wordfactory - the paracetomol will be stolen by someone before it even leaves the port. It will never reach the person in pain. It really will not.

Trust me on what mignonette? I'm not quite sure how your experiences of a natural disaster in the only country in the region never to be colonized qualify you to pronounce on aid in Africa. I've spoken to a number of tsunami victims myself, and other natural disasters also, but I'm not coming on here saying how their lives are just part of an arc of colonialism. I haven't been so arrogant as to make that kind of overarching pronouncement.

MoreBeta, the two things aren't mutually exclusive.

They can learn both, and they can learn the real life effects of how world finance works. That's got to be better than just being told about it in a classroom.

I lived in many different countries, nearly all of them poor by our standards. My Father worked as a surgeon for a non profit organisation. I have lived in countries annexed/colonialised ad nauseum as a child and adult. I didn't say their lives are a sum total of colonialism- but it has not helped. And the attitudes linger.
I can list all my working endeavours if you like but it'd look wanky.

You know what happens after some charity has dug a well in a village?

As soon as the charity leaves the local chief comes and puts a big chain and a lock on it and starts charging for the people to use the water. The people start going back to drink dirty water out of the river like they used to before the well was dug.