Once in a lifetime trip disguised as fundraising for Charities

[staveleymum]

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for people raising money for Charity. People asking for sponsorship for things like Marathons, 1000 miles walked in a year, midnight walks, etc. I'm also on board with Red Nose Day, Children in Need, PTA fundraising, kids clubs fundraising and everything else that seems to constantly need money to run.

BUT I just don't get fundraising for things like hiking up Kilimanjaro or funding a trip to Borneo (for a 16 year old) to build a school or some such similar. Both these events need to raise £4,000 so they are on facebook, justgiving, etc trying to raise the money. My issue is that of the £4,000 needed how much will actually go to charity. This covers flights, accommodation, food, guides, etc - surely this is just something that they want to do as a personal thing and wrapping it up in Charity and getting others to pay for it?

I'd love to walk over Sydney Harbour Bridge but I wouldnt dream of masking it in Charity and hoping others will pay for it with perhaps 5-10% of the money raised actually going to the Charity?

I know I don't have to sponsor but I'd rather just give the donation directly to the Charity. AIBU?

74% of looked after children in the U.K. are in foster care.
11% in children's homes.
So this suggests children's homes in the U.K. are rare.

There's lots of reports around the world about the downsides of children's home and the long term effects. From Save the Children to governments to universities. Hence more are going down the fostering route.

As for the orphanage volunteers even UNICEF and save the children are opposed to these, to name a few. If orphanages where beneficial they would be advocating for them. The Better care network also have a lot to say.

Psychological impact they have negative affects long term on the child. Children in care homes are 4 times more likely to have mental health issues. There's also lots of research on the long term impacts of having people in and out of children's lives. They need stability to thrive.

Lack of development in the child. There's lots of footage on the web from undercover reports spanning over decades showing children, not just babies and toddlers on cots for most of the day. Children also need affection to thrive something that lacks in care homes/orphanages.

Even if there's no welfare legit charities and the better care network work with families and communities to keep children out of orphanages. Providing proper support from trained people both in and out of their own country. You know like trained health people, builders, educators etc. people who can make a difference and not for 2 weeks once in their lifetime.

The voluntourism is creating more problems. This is from UNICEF - 75% of orphans in Cambodia are not orphans. These have actual living parents.

The orphanages are havens for abuse. Generally there are no checks on volunteers. Not something that should be seen as a good thing. Trafficking from these institutions is increasing.

Lets go back to Cambodia. Over 260 orphanages. Only 21 are state ran and recognized. Strangely enough the 21 exist without voluntourists.

There's lots of research on the negatives of orphanages. The mental impact. Voluntoursists. If they were really a good viable model for countries then more charities would be encouraging this approach. But oddly enough they don't want people without any experience meddling. They want people with skills who are committed to making a long term impact to forge a relationship with people in that community.

If you still cannot understand that negatives
Maybe this will help.
You send your child to school. There's minimal staff, not enough to do a thing other that all sit in one room. So in comes a wave of volunteers who are barely out of school themselves, some are still in school, none or very few speak the same language. They stay for 2 weeks educating your child. They go and another batch come with the same experience as above.
Disruptive, nothing really learnt and the impact of having an endless stream of people.

Or, regular people who talk the same language who stay for several months. Not only educating your child but also training locals how to continue.

Yanbu. I know someone who did one of the Macmillan trips overseas. Family raised the money - couldn't really say no. She didn't have a job herself so her husband paid for all the kit and had to take time off from his self employed job to look after their little dc. All to raise a little bit of money.

Puzzled

That's why I always ask who's covering costs. I ensure every penny goes to the charity and happily provide proof of this.

A member of my family is flying to Africa to 'deliver' some of those shoe boxes thingies. Why do they need delivering personally? The local church are paying for her to go.

Really? Its going to cost a fortune and I'm sure it will be lovely for them, but why not donate the money to the community they'll be visiting?

I don't particularly agree with the shoe box thing so I really don't get the free holiday bit.

[[https://tvaakili2017.everydayhero.com/uk/hayley This was posted to a local women's Facebook group asking for donations... I'm so tempted to ask whether the money is all going to charity or to travel costs!

YANBU, some assclown at the moment on FB, has been repeatedly trying to get us to fund her "holiday" to Peru. Subsequently unfollowed

I totally agree. So many of my friends at uni went to Machu Picha (sp?) 'for charity'. Hitch hiked to Morocco 'for charity'. Amazing tourist trip to Thailand with one afternoon 'teaching English' 'for charity'. Their fu draining events where always 'please just hand over money'.

I was a volunteer on a week long trip recently. It cost me loads to go. I raised over 3000 pounds in total - I got nothing at all for that, I paid all my own costs, and it was quite hard work (though fun with it). Every fundraising thing I did people got something - we ran a pub quiz with a 500 pound prize (I worked at the pub and so they agreed to make my cause their charity focus for the bank holiday), a cake sale with cakes made by a real baker, a supper club. None of the people who demanded money from me constantly donated anything.

I am hoping to do one of these "charity" holidays with a colleague next year. I would be doing it totally for my own benefit. To give me a goal I couldn't easily back out of that I had to train for and for a completely different type of holiday.

Neither of us intend to fundraise at all. We will just pay for it ourselves and make an extra donation to the charity.

YYYYYYY Yes. I cannot agree with this enough!

OMG those Humanitarians of Tinder are horrific.

P00pchute

thanks for that! really really good

"yes we have shoes in Uganda, our issue is power supply, Malaria and employment"- so true

Its ever so easy to slate people for their misguided charity isn't it, and I think its the fucking VIRTUE SIGNALLING that grates on me, and the waste, the waste

JUST GIVE THE MONEY TO THE FUCKING CHARITY

My best friend did one where she had to pay 2000 to walk the grand cannon through fund raising then be sponseted for the actual walk.

I told her i wasnt paying for her holiday.

Oneiroi - good article - you might think your orphanage is one of the good ones, or that there are no alternatives, but that is rarely the case:

www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/feb/08/i-worked-in-orphanages-for-years-but-now-know-there-is-no-substitute-for-family?CMP=share_btn_tw

"Everyone has heard horror stories about orphanages, but the common refrain is “mine is different”. I said it too. Ours was a contrast to most orphanages, but it always fell short of a family. Unless your orphanage is one of the rare few that is actively reintegrating children with family members and finding adoptive or foster parents for those without, then it is just another spoke in the orphanage cycle. At its core institutional care, and much of what it necessitates and begets, is at odds with the creation of a true family environment."

Interesting article in the Guardian today about orphanages
www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/feb/08/i-worked-in-orphanages-for-years-but-now-know-there-is-no-substitute-for-family
But the PP's mate who informally gave English tuition (in which she was trained) to the older DC seems fair enough - not supporting the orphanage system financially but giving her skills to children who happened to be stuck there.

Xpost - what are the odds ?

Great minds etc.!

^Yes, you don't get people asking you to sponsor them to dredge plastic bags and old trolleys out of the local canal every Saturday morning.
It's always flying away for a month to climb a beautiful mountain in an exotic country they just happened to have always dreamt of going to.^

Funny that! But true.

Besides I think for teenagers building schools etc - it's a wonderful experience for the teen

They don't know the first thing about building.
Why not send the teenagers who are studying plumbing and bricklaying. They would be more use.

and a wonderful opportunity for the community who is getting the school. Plus once that teenager had seen real poverty firsthand

Don't have to go abroad to experience poverty firsthand.

The point is that orphanages are absolutely awful for children, even well run ones, and we should be doing all we can to move countries around the world to a foster care system & family care.

This sort of misunderstanding is causing serious problems for all sorts of "orphanages" and children's homes around the world.

What precisely do you think the difference between a children's home and a foster home is?

There is none.

In a children's home, a number of children without carers are looked after by a number of carers they are not related to.

in a foster home, a number of children without carers are looked after by a number of carers they are not related to.

Either can be big or small, either can be stable or unstable, either can have loving carers or unloving.

Children's homes tend to have larger numbers of children, but that is all.

I've worked in two African orphanages. One was in a flat, three bedroom,s 18 children, a rota of 4 carers. The children and the carers both stayed an average of over 10 years.

the other was in a house, 4 bedrooms, two living rooms, two playrooms, 30 children, none of whom were ever kicked out, there were 5 carers, two of whom had grown up there. 30 children, from babies upwards ( to the two young adults)A child was replaced if they left, to go to uni, to work, etc, but there was very little turn over. The carers, who were a husband and wife and MIL, never intended to leave.

These "instituations", offered a far more stable, less traumatic and more healthy childhood than the British foster care system. As would the model of other charities, such as SOS childen's vilages, in which the aim is for each group of 10 mixed age children to grow up with one "house mother" throughout their childhood, (although this isn't always possible, obviously)

It really is very ignorant and patronising to say we should be doing all we can to move countries around the world to a foster care system & family care

our foster care system is very deeply flawed, frequently very unstable and very traumatising and damaging to be involved with. Many of these charity models are far more successful.

Not to mention the idea of placing each child in a foster home is only possible when such tiny proportions of children require it, such as they do in UK. it is out of the question in countries were the number of orphans is many fold higher than ours, and the whole demographic is different.

So please spread the word to counter this silly fashionable backlash against orphanages from people who have no idea what they are talking about.

All it is about is the need for loving, stable homes and secure bonds with carers and other residents, that is the ideal in a foster home, or a children's home, and you are NOT more likely to get it in foster care than children's homes. There are happy and sad examples of each, but to discourage people from supporting orphanages is going to cause terrible anxiety and shortages, for many children, who have no alternatives in their country, and we certainly should not be attempting to force any other nation to care for their children in a way we approve of, when out ways is less successful and leads to poorer outcomes for the children than theirs.

About these trips, look at them for what they are.

Children raising money to support education and conservation in a different country, AND to fund themselves to visit, meet people there and get involved in their lives and work.

The money is split more or less half and half, the local communities benefit, the children benefit, and international relationships benefit. The children work hard whilst they are there, and come back with a far better knowledge and understanding of the world than before they left - and a lot more grown up.

Raising the money is part of it, and to those saying why not pay locals, well, many locals are employed by these companies, but the work that the children do would not be done by locals, nor would there be enough money to pay people to do it. Caring for the rain forest, planting thousands of tress, etc, the children are doing it for free, and you don't need many skills to dig a hole!

It is as much for the children's benefit than the locals, certainly, but the benefit to both is huge.

My son was in a foster family before we adopted him. They provided the most loving stable base I could have wished for him. He wouldn't have received the same care and attention in a children's home as his care was one to one and he was with a stable family, in a family setting.

I also see these trips as a form of being colonialism. "Let's teach the natives how to build stuff". Patronising in the extreme

I also see these trips as a form of being colonialism. "Let's teach the natives how to build stuff". Patronising in the extreme

that's not how it is though, its " can we come and meet you? please show us your life and share with us your goals for a little while"

My son was in a foster family before we adopted him. They provided the most loving stable base I could have wished for him. He wouldn't have received the same care and attention in a children's home as his care was one to one and he was with a stable family, in a family setting

That's brilliant, and that is the best of foster care, and the best of care in a children's home is just as good,

Many countries with large number s of children's homes simply don't have the adult population available to give looked after children one to one care, it isn't feasible, in any setting.