To want to know why Mumsnetters are so against the christmas shoeboxes?

[MrsWinnibago]

As far as I can tell, it's due to the religious nature of Operation Christmas Child and Samaritan's Purse....from previous threads I've seen that people resent the fact that the volunteers pray with the kids and include religious leaflets in the boxes.

But is this really enough reason to not send a box? I can't help but think, if my kids were in a war torn country and had nothing...no toys or anything...they'd rather hear a few prayers and get their box than NOT hear a few prayers and get nothing.

Or am I missing something?

I'm up for the Purse Posse .

An aggressive 'recruitment' technique by a religious organisation who likes to threaten any objectors with court proceedings?

Imma say it. Scientology.

As someone posted above, Mary's Meals is actually a (Catholic) Christian charity too. However, I have never seen anyone object to supporting their campaigns, as they do not evangelise, but rather show their Christian values by, you know, being nice and helping people and stuff. And their campaigns actually make sense to do in schools!

(I am an atheist.)

Seriously, is Brian still around? Wasn't he in the PR department or something IIRC?

He made an utter arse of himself on last year's thread. I'm surprised they haven't moved him into the mail room as a punishment and to save the organisation from further embarrassment.

I don't do shoeboxes at all now. Where I used to work we did them for years, to poor, destitute people around the world. The addresses and information was given to us by various UK charities. Fine, I worked in a big organisation and dozens and dozens of boxes were sent every year. I refused to do another box when we received a 'thank you' letter from a girl somewhere in a tiny, poor country somewhere, telling us how the box had made a huge difference to her Christmas as she was very poor and had nothing. Great, that's what the 'shoebox charity' is all about. Except, she then went on to tell us that if anyone wanted to keep in touch with her then, wait for it, they could EMAIL her on xxxxxxx. I couldn't afford a computer myself at that time!! That was the end of the shoeboxes from me!

I don't support OCC but I know folk who are very poor and have email addresses. Doesn't mean they have a lot.

Just looked at the Link to Hope website and it seems they are a Christian organisation too. No idea if they promote that through their work mind you.

"The work that Link to Hope undertakes is through a known networks of church leaders, pastors, community leaders and mayors who are at the front line of providing help and services to those that need it. Link to Hope is driven by Christian principles and holds Matthew 25 v 35 - 40 at the heart of its work. "

granny I don't understand your thinking. I'm not sure what country your shoebox went to but I do know they in both East Africa and West Africa sending an email via an Internet cafe (on a very slow dial up connection) is far cheaper than sending a mail letter and so I presume many other poorer countries are the same. And it's likely a child who received your box has some context with NGOs / charitable groups and so may have limited access to the internet through their outreach work. It's a shame that your mind has been changed against a form of charitable giving by perhaps an accidental misconception.