To feel a bit "hmm" about charity treks abroad

[prettybutclumpy]

I am donning my hard hat, but am interested to know if anyone feels the same as me about this!

I feel a bit unwilling to give to charity for friends who are doing a charity trek or other big activity abroad. I think for some people they are just a chance for a cheap holiday and amazing experience which they sort of shame their friends into "paying" for. I do know that most people pay a fee for joining in the activity, but I am sure this doesn't cover all the costs for the charity - I think the charity relies on each individual meeting or exceeding their fundraising targets to cover additional costs. If anyone works for a charity, I'd really like to know whether this is true!

I also feel that I should choose which charities I give my cash to which are of particular relevance to me and my family, rather than to choose charities offering these experiences. However, I do feel pressed into giving funds as it is someone I know who has asked me directly to contribute.

Does anyone else feel this way, or am I just an old moany-pants?

Yes, and get a photo of yourself with them; you can tell all your friends that "Even though they're pitifully naïve and ignorant they're, like, soooo happy!"

PikaAchooo - if your dad is a water engineer and there are no water engineers locally and he also e.g. took a trainee water engineer from the local population to the project and helped them so they can learn how to do it next time - then yes, that was a worthwhile project. If he just provided manpower he has taken food out of someone else's mouth. Perhaps he has gained some useful experience and empathy but that's for him.

There is absolutely nowhere in the world that needs expertise and that "has no manpower". Everywhere that lacks trained professionals has masses of unskilled, underemployed people to do the heavy lifting, paint the walls, and cuddle children in orphanages. By doing any of these unskilled things you are taking money away from locals who would do the job, as an PP has said would feed their family and would also give them more skills and employability. If you are cuddling children in orphanages you are teaching them that people that love you go away, and that they should therefore not get attached to people that love them.

I also didn't realise about the huge amount of "sponsorship" for these treks that goes towards the cost of the trip. I did think that individuals paid for the cost themselves (I'm in Guiding and we had some Tall Ships experiences where it was expected the individual would pay for the cost themselves and I thought the trek itself was generally under this arrangement), and that they were expected to fundraise too, on top of this, and only for charity (which perhaps includes some admin - and good charities do have admin costs too, not just bad charities). There's no way I'll be sponsoring anyone unless they are paying for the trip themselves.

I volunteered as a teacher (similar to VSO) when I had a science degree and in a setting where science teachers were lacking. I didn't train any teachers but hopefully may have trained some future teachers. I would now go back to train people, though not necessarily to just teach in a school - I've actually trained a few people from developing countries through my job and am in contact with a few of them still, and if our DS wants to find out what life is like in a developing country, we would be going on a holiday - that we pay for - no pretence about volunteering.

We'd definitely visit and/or stay with local colleagues, see if we can visit their children's schools etc. but not pretending that a teenage British child can "make a difference". If he ends up in a useful job (electrician, teacher trainer, doctor) then he can go and be useful once he's trained.

YANBU.

And yes to the poster who said it is always the same people doing this. My one is also someone who is really fucking santimonious about vegetarianism for environmental reasons (don't start me on what a whole bucket of muddle-headed some of that is), but must have used up more carbon zipping about to places than I would in a lifetime if I ate a cow a day.

I agree. Completely peed me off when our youth organisation was made to fundraiser for one persons jollies

i cannot bear this.

the worst was 2 colleagues who decided to do a half marathon in New York for a charity. they needed to raise £2500 to go. They put the charity forward as one to sponsor by the company and got £1000 that way. they then spent months harranging us all to pay the rest of it. for their 5 day holiday in New York.

The day that i get one saying "i want to walk the Great Wall of China- i need to raise £3k to cover costs and I have donated this to the charity already instead of going on an expensive holiday this year. The charity is x and this is why it is important" i will put my hand in my pocket.

The absolute worst personal statements I've ever read (I review them for TheStudentRoom) are the ones that talk about their gap yah. 'Seeing true poverty', 'understanding how privileged we are here in the UK'... littered in with a load more cliches about 'loving our global brothers and sisters, this makes me a really good person, please let me study English Literature now'.

(note - I have nothing against English Lit students, I'm a drama student so what can I say? But a disproportionate number of them take these pointless gap yahs (but it's for charidee) and then spend half of their personal statement blabbering on about them when they don't need to, as they're completely irrelevant.

The best statements come from school-leavers and those who've taken a year out to get an internship or apprenticeship, or similar experience, in the area they're applying for, here in the UK.

I think the Scout Jamboree is slightly different to some of the other charity fund raising concepts - no one is pretending the Scouts are going out to help anyone, it is a purely Scouting event and the benefit to the young people will be in meeting other Scouts, participating in all the activities etc etc. Hopefully most of the youngsters will arrange a lot of the fund raising themselves and they are discouraged from just asking for 'sponsership'. They also have to raise the money to cover the expenses of Scouts from less wealthy parts of the world.

My DS applied and two years before I started to do some car booting etc to put money on one side and then he drew up a list of ideas to raise money himself along the lines of car cleaning, odd jobs etc. Sadly he didn't get selected .

Yanbu. My xsil went off somewhere to do a charity 'event'. She had to raise money so we were all expected to give generously and hold events. Then be all admiring of her awesomeness etc. My db had to work extra hours to pay her entry fee and then we all had to chip in with childcare while she was away for weeks and then admire her awesomeness once more. I suspect the charity probably got a couple of hundred pounds which we'd have cheerfully donated to shut her the fuck up about how awesome she was.

Or my db could have done less overtime and given the same amount himself.

I may have an axe to grind...

Just a teensy little axe preferably sticking out of her head perhaps Haunted?!

Yes
What makes you think that? :)

I think I would have felt the same

There is also another side to this that people don't think about with the 'teaching kids english for a month in south america/cambodia' ones. These children end up with hardly any stability, or routine in their learning, what would be better is if they just moved there for 6 months! Not a few weeks interspersed with sight seeing.

YANBU. We were "told" were were "expected" to "give" £250 towards DMIL's visit charity walk on a small part of the Great Wall of China, as it was for charity. PIL are easily able to afford to do this as a holiday from their own finances.

@SomethingOnce it might be joke elsewhere, but not to me or any of my friends

Eh?

'Yes, and get a photo of yourself with them; you can tell all your friends that "Even though they're pitifully naïve and ignorant they're, like, soooo happy!"'

Zulu, you have the wrong end of the stick. The words are to be spoken by you about all the ignorant westerners whose feelings you are sparing by being polite.

Something was not intending ti be insulting, or making a joke at your expense.

Thanks, Mothra - I'm glad the parody wasn't entirely lost.

I'd be inclined to tell the Westerners to bugger off, frankly.

I agree OP. I was once asked to contribute to a charity trip like this by a friend. When I saw the itinerary it appeared to be 6 days of holiday and 1 day 'working' in an orphanage. And she was expecting us all to pay for her accommodation, flights etc. I felt cheated.

See what you mean in a way OP. But it's about how the trips are funded for me.

A friend does one per year, pays the whole cost of the trip himself and takes annual leave, so all money he raises goes to the hospice he supports. He then volunteers in the areas he visits so that helps the communities in the areas he visits.

Know I have commented about this before, WSJ personally think the scouts (and guides) should be fundraising for their place. As it is part of their experance. Leaders taking contingent groups fine.
International service team, events teams, sub camp leaders adults that have chose to go not so sure about donating to.
A good friend of mine has spent several weeks since last summer going back and forth from Japan sorting things out and vetting things. He is taking 8 months off his job before the jamboree to go out to Japan to sort things out, he has started to getting annoying with donations. Yes I get all this travel is expensive and 8/9 months un played leave while you volunteer is going to cost you but I am not donating to you just to live as you should have thought about the cost before applying for WSJ and the role you have in it!

I think it depends, if the person pays for their own flight accommodation etc so everything they raise (probably with a little bit going on admin costs) then it fine, but if the monies being raised are syphoned off for flights etc, I think it's just wrong to ask for sponsorship. However if the participant is raising money through bake sales etc that's cool and I'll happily give.

Kayak - your friend's attitude is against the spirit of Scouting, he should not be pestering you for donations. Adults doing the support role should fund themselves or do specific events to raise money rather than just ask for donations/sponsorship - and there are funds available centrally to support the sort of things he is doing.

My daughter's (State) school has an end of GCSEs volunteering trip to Malawi. Apparently they help build a school and then go off on safari or something. She wants to go on it but we've said no because: A. I don't see how useful a group of 15 & 16 year old girls can be. B. It feels like it's exploiting people in Malawi so the girls can have an experience that looks good on their CVs. C. It's flipping expensive.
I've told her to learn a useful skill and go and volunteer somewhere when she's an adult - she wants to be a midwife so this may happen. In the meantime she's volunteering in a local charity shop.

I'm on the fence for this one...

I walk for a charity - I spend a lot of time training and decorating bras! I chose my charity because my cousin had breast cancer and it was one way I felt I could control soemthing that was utterly out of my control.

In 2011 I walked 2 marathons for them. I raised money fro the charity BUT I gained a huge amount for me too.

In 2012 I was offered the chance to take part in one of their events - 3 marathons in 5 weeks. One of the marathons was in Iceland. In my case I was expected to pay all of the costs myself. That is how the charity operates. In order to afford the trip I did extra supply ork and some extra tuition.

I was then sponsored to complete the marathons.

BUT, I object to being asked to pay the costs of ome of these treks.