To ask you to talk to me about operation Christmas child?

[BramwellBrown]

DD's school have sent home a shoe box or us to fill and apparently a lady in assembly told the children 'it will make God happy' if they fill the shoe boxes, and its been made quite clear to the children that they are expected to bring them back after half term as helping others is part of their homework, which has pissed me off as it is, but i seem to remember there being quite some hatred of the whole scheme on here so thought I'd ask why before I speak to the school.

As far as I'm aware, the children that receive these boxes have to convert to Christianity before they're allowed to have the stuff

Operation Christmas Child is part of Samaritan's Purse which in itself is part of the Billy Graham Evangelical Church movement. They dislike criticism and threaten legal action. The allegation is they have said harsh things about non Christians - make of that what you will.

I object to paying out for the specific list of 'gifts' and then being expected to 'donate' shipping costs and so don't donate. My choice as it your informed choice.

these are the websites you should read

sites.google.com/site/occalert/

humanism.org.uk/humanism/humanism-today/humanists-doing/good-causes-and-charities/samaritans-purse/

also, I think there was a fuss a few weeks ago about OCC wanting people to delete mumsnet posts that were critical of them. I'm not sure what happened in the end.

That would fit with the preachy way DD described the woman.

I thought they were completely discredited years ago.

I would but I am subject to a gagging order

Thanks Parietal.

I'm Catholic and generally don't mind christian charities but from what DD said this was over pushy (DD is 6 so will check she's not misunderstood)

Our church and our school are doing Martha's Meals school backpacks instead - same practical effect without the bible bashing (please note that many Christians are uncomfortable with the OCC model its not something that only atheists have a problem with)

There are other charities who do similar without the god bothering. If part of your DDs homework is helping others, she can do that equally well supporting a different charity. Depending on her age, one of the major reasons girls drop out of school in developing countries is due to them not having access to proper sanitary protection, there are a couple of charities which teach communities how to make washable sanitary protection so they can continue.

She's 6 so not sure she'd really understand why sanitary protection is important. There's a local charity that my godfather was involved in which has been asking for stuff to send to schools in Malawi, so I'm thinking if we send a box of skipping ropes, colouring pencils etc that's helping lots of children and DD can relate to it because those are the things she loves at her school.

Do a search on operation Christmas child on here - even over the last week or two there have been some interesting threads including one about the legal action being threatened by Samaritan's purse on some posters for daring to point out some of the less palatable aspects of the organisation including by putting links to the American site (very evangelical - very different tone to Uk version. To the point that some of the US supporters complain that the Uk version isn't strong enough). There's also one where somebody's written a good letter to the school explaining why they dont want their child to participate in occ and getting help on writing the letter. Might be useful if you're planning on contacting school!!

I'm a Christian and don't quite know how I feel about them. However, up the thread someone said kids don't get a box if they don't convert, that's simply untrue.