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?

I am thoroughly confused by the comment that overseas volunteers with no qualifications teach/lead classes in U.K. schools? Where does this happen?

User "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 immediate reaction to that is "and what exactly is so special about you that letting you poke into my life and tut sadly about how poor we are is worth the money that could build something meaningful and useful for the whole village/town?"

Its not every two weeks, is it, its once a year in a school.

There are companies that do this all year around for gap year students and people on holidays, in some places it will change every week, two weeks, three weeks all year around.

JK Rowling on it, who has done terrible damage to the quality of lives of children....

How exactly? By encouraging them to read?

How exactly? By encouraging them to read?

by telling people to stop supporting children's homes, by literally taking away their bread and butter.

There are companies that do this all year around for gap year students and people on holidays, in some places it will change every week, two weeks, three weeks all year around.

not in the places I know, they will have one set of volunteers in August, if they are lucky, some years none at all.

Surly a gap year student stays a year?

My immediate reaction to that is "and what exactly is so special about you that letting you poke into my life and tut sadly about how poor we are is worth the money that could build something meaningful and useful for the whole village/town?" Its about international relationships and understanding, and sharing culture.

not in the places I know,

There are many many places that offer this all year around and have an incredibly high turnover of people in both schools and homes. Gap year students sometimes just stay for a week then move onto the next thing.

There are many many places that offer this all year around and have an incredibly high turnover of people in both schools and homes. Gap year students sometimes just stay for a week then move onto the next thing.

not ideal

PP said: a) they're often very poor quality anyway (building is a proper trade, you can't just get teenagers with no experience to construct at the same quality)

b) the money raised could be better spent locally. So people should still raise the money but use it to support local people to build.

But the majority of volunteers where building is involved are just doing manual unskilled labour under local direction and with local labour.
For instance a different DD is an architect. After an earth quake in Haiti she saw an urgent appeal for an architect / surveyor to go there within 48 hours to work with a local rescue team assessing which buildings were safe. Local radio and FB and online fund raising by each volunteer paid for loads of equipment. Her company gave her 2 weeks off. Airlines gave free flights. They also had a volunteer European medical team. It was no holiday! There were after quakes and she saw dead bodies but she worked with locals and left them with drawings and assessed loads of buildings. Later in the year a second team went back and helped the overwhelmed locals to rebuild including an orphanage (the alternative was the streets) where the children all had open sores on their shaved heads. Turned out to be simple impetigo which the young newly qualified UK volunteer doctor diagnosed, it was treated with fucidin which the volunteers had brought (paid for by the charitable donations like the doctor's flight). By the time they left the children's miserable impetigo was all clear. Small differences but huge for them. My DD still jumps when a lorry rumbles. I think it's far too easy to criticise.

User148 - why do I think foster care is cheaper?

Because in the report I linked before, it says that in the UK we spend roughly £600/week on children in Foster Care & £3000/week on those in residential care. That's why. Where are your govt. statistics coming from...?

As far as I can see despite the Lumos website clearly saying that Foster care is cheaper, you have decided to do a back of the fag packet calculation to show that no, it's not! Can't you just find some evidence if it's so self evident?

You are living under a rock if you don't know that foreign unqualified teenagers waft in and out of children's homes abroad on a regular basis - just at look at these "opportunities", all for much less than a year:

www.gapyear.com/volunteering/care-work/orphanage/list

Secondly, I know of no schools in the UK who are accepting unqualified, unvetted volunteers who don't speak any English.

I worry what the teen in question learns from the experience.

That it's ok to put yourself at the centre of a big vanity exercise? That parachuting in and out to suit your own convenience and agenda is a helpful contribution?

'making a difference ' is far better and more usefully done by volunteering in the local community especially if it's over a sustained period of time when there's a chance to show commitment and learn skills.

That said, if the teen is raising money by bag packing, car washing etc they are at least offering a service in exchange for contributions and understanding that they need to work in order to get themselves there.

Chatnanny - your architect DD is obviously bringing real expertise. And doctors working in foreign countries are also bringing real skills.

But a teenager with no training go to and build something is mad - they will spend huge amounts on getting to said country which could instead be used to hire local labour.

Where are your govt. statistics coming from...?

from the govt, surprisingly, and foster care is a lot more expensive in terms of money, but also in all other terms as well

Alyosha, I've looked at that website, it doesn't say anything clearly at all, as far as I can see, but in any case , i have not done a "fag packet" calculation, I have looked up the official govt figures, and used my own knowledge.

How much do you think it costs a family to buy a home with an extra spare room, for example. Some families may not have to do that, some may be housed by the LA, but this again is extremely expensive, and that cost is not accounted for in the figures.

How much do you think it costs to have a chair lift built into every home which takes a disabled child, compared to two lifts in a children's home which might serve over 100 children in the lifetime of the lift? This is missing from the govt statistics too!

How much do you think special guardianship costs? There are tens of thousands of these orders made every year, and in the majority of cases the ENTIRE cost of raising that child is then born by the foster family, and none of this expense is accounted for in govt figures.

The govt figures also report far better outcomes for children who are housed in children's homes FIRST ( but worse outcomes for children who do the rounds of foster homes to begin with, then after repeated placement failures are then placed in a children's homes.

The govt figures also show that children's homes do slightly have the edge on stability of placements, although there are qualifications to this, in some situations placements are hugely more stable.

I do wonder how much real experience you have of ANY of these situations, in the uk or abroad,

You are living under a rock if you don't know that foreign unqualified teenagers waft in and out of children's homes abroad on a regular basis

that does not sound like good practice, but as i've said, this is a very long way from my own experience. My own children's home, which I have taken DC to twice, has had four sets of volunteers in the last 5 years, two of whom were us, and two of whom were the headmistresses sister, and her family. Each stay was about 6 weeks.

I have asked my charity about building work, and suggested we leave it for this year. I haven't had any satisfactory answers from them about the value of the work, although some of our students are brick layers, none of them tend to be particularly good.

User148 - Page 21 of the report I linked:

"According to DfE, the average cost of foster care has been
estimated at around £600 per child per week compared to around £3,000 per week
for a child living in a children’s home. It would be ridiculous to pretend that such a
cost differential can be ignored. So I entirely accept that local authorities will
generally need to try fostering first. But, particularly with adolescents, the
possibility that residential care might be the better option and offer greater
permanence – not least because some older children will steadfastly resist being
fostered - must not be ignored."

You are right that stability is good, and UK children's homes, with just 4-8 kids per home, are better than many in other countries.

But as I also quoted in other posts, chidren's homes can never really replace a family because the carers are staff, not family, and the most valuable interaction of all - showing emotional vulnerability - is costly, and difficult to do when so many children churn in and out of children's homes.

Some children may prefer children's homes and that's fine for them to choose that, and of course we could do better with stable placements in all areas.

But the report also points out the huge issues of staff retention in children's homes & the institutional feel they have & the way that once children are 18, they no longer feel welcome. Many children in foster care however still regularly see their old foster parents.

User148...do you & your DD form attachments with the kids, play with them etc.?

And as you must know, the orphanage volunteering industry is huge, and if you read the link I gave you can see the hundreds of opportunities given to non-vetted unqualified teenagers who don't speak the local language.

Of course not all of the orphanages will be full of orphans - most will be full of kids who have parents. Sometimes the parents are urged to place their babies & children in orphanages, they are told their children will have a better life, only for their children to be used as a revenue opportunity to get wealthy westerners to pay to volunteer for a few weeks.

PS you should the report - it's not uncritical of fostering, it makes some great points across the board.

we have a permanent commitment to a particular group of children in the home, Alyosha, we sponsor them, correspond with them, and visit them.

That's great. You clearly think it's important to form long term attachments with children in care.

And do you think it would acceptable for anyone in this thread to encourage their children to go to an orphanage for 2-4 weeks, cuddle children, form attachments with them, when they didn't know the language and were only there to help provide basic support?

And then to just leave and let the whole process start again?

And do you think it would acceptable for anyone in this thread to encourage their children to go to an orphanage for 2-4 weeks, cuddle children, form attachments with them, when they didn't know the language and were only there to help provide basic support?

no, I don't think that is acceptable, very unfair

when I take volunteers into a school, in the uk, or abroad, they are firstly taught about the damage inappropriate attachments can cause, touching is forbidden, first names are not given out etc.The teaching that is planned and delivered is more like a "show" , including demonstrations and some practicals, such as microscope work the children can do, but it is done in groups of 4 uk teens, minimum, and they are warned to all keep moving around the class, no one gets to know individual children.

Right, so actually you agree with us then - it's a Bad Idea to volunteer in most orphanages. Because most people who do only go for a couple of weeks at at a time.

And presumably you also think that the orphanages that do this probably aren't the best setting to raise children in? What with all the unvetted, unqualified teenagers coming and out, forming attachments and then abandoning the children?

This isn't a trial of the one orphanage you work in (although I don't know how you would know the family background of all the children there? And what goes on when you're not there?) - it's about the 80-90% of orphanages that are, frankly, awful & damaging for children and which people support by volunteering & donating money. The ones where the kids there aren't orphans and have been taken from their parents using false promises of better education/opportunities, the ones where children are deliberately neglected to tug on the heartstrings of potential donors.