To let you know Operation Christmas Child controversy has reared its head again

[Spanglylycra]

If you get asked to support this at school like we do well worth a read humanism.org.uk/2018/11/07/spike-in-recent-uk-donations-to-operation-christmas-child-prompts-new-warning/

Ds school does this at Easter and Christmas but has no religious affiliation at all, so we are happy to support it.

A CHRISTIAN charity supplies CHRISTMAS presents (to celebrate a CHRISTIAN festival) to children, along with CHRISTIAN literature. And you have a problem with that because....?!

Because it's not very CHRISTIAN to give CHRISTMAS presents with strings (INDOCTRINATION-RELATED LITERATURE) attached. A real CHRISTIAN would give gifts to poor children just for the joy of GIVING, rather than with the aim of CONVERTING them!! These children have been through ENOUGH.
Is that so HARD to UNDERSTAND....?!

Why not encourage every class to put together a box for a local food bank - surely it costs so much to ship these boxes of mainly crap (lots of it expensive crap). The same amount spent directly on a community could go a long way towards providing clean water or tools.

If you have seen the clips on YouTube of children receiving the boxes, they are either hysterical in a way which doesn’t feel good or bemused. It’s all a bit shit in my opinion.

What I like about the backpack thing is that it sounds like every child is getting the same selection of things which are all practical.

The Guardian have done a piece explaining the issues

I've emailed and asked our school to consider the rotary scheme instead, hopefully they are open to that idea.

But they are evangelical Christians! This is exactly what they do! Why are people shocked by this? A simple google search of the organisation would have revealed who these people are, what they believe and the work they do. I can't believe people are mentioning doing things for Christmas and Easter "without any religious affiliations" - I mean, really?!

If people know what they're about and choose to support them then fine. But most people don't realise and think they are just giving toys to poor children. A school shouldn't be supporting an organisation that bribe vulnerable children into attending bible study classes.

I personally don’t see the problem with the boxes. If the Sikh temple along the road from me said ‘we’re giving out presents to children who come and learn about Sikhism for a couple of hours and take away a leaflet about Sikhism’ I would let my children go to that.

Babdoc
Because withholding aid until you listen to a Christian service, atempting to stop other aid agencies doing their work until said service is done, insisting you change your religion to recieve aid is vile.

The head of this 'charity' is well known for his anti homosexual rants and anti non-christian rants.
The Occ is banned in many places across USA for this reason.

Stating that giving aid to people in dire circumstances is thier most effective tool to indoctrinate children away from thier own religion (and split families) into christianity is pretty 'unchristian'.

Kit
They arent just giving out leaflets though. Would you.be ok if your child came home with a booklet which at the back had a page where your child had been encouraged to fill in pledging to convert to Sikhism? Was forced to accept Sikhism to get aid? I doubt it.

Don't these kids have enough to worry about? They were just starving but now they're starving and have original sin and a Barbie doll. Thanks you cunts.

I adopted my ds at age 3 1/2 and, not knowing anything about these things at the time, wondered why he brought an old shoe box that had bits of tinsel hanging off it and was filled with an assortment of items, with him when we first brought him home to live with us. This tatty shoe box was one of his most precious possessions, he was constantly putting things in and taking things out of it, like it was his own little treasure chest and it took pride of place in his new bedroom. After looking through his life story book we found an old photo of him at a Christmas party for "looked after children" which was run by the local radio station, where all the children were presented with a shoe box full of toys etc by Father Christmas, that had been kindly donated by listeners. I know most of you donating will never get to see the "other end" of your donation (the recipient of the items you donate), whether it be via supermarkets, schools, churches, radio stations etc but I just wanted to let you all know what a difference you make to these children's Christmas's. I can never thank personally the person who made such a difference to my ds's Christmas's before he lived with me, so I thank each and every one of you instead.

@mamageebo ah that's lovely. I have done them for Barnardos and Women's aid before and it is lovely to think it has a positive effect. It's just the scruples of this particular charity I have issue with.

Spanglylycra - this one is done in conjunction with Social Services in our area - the local radio station collects in the toy donations and passes them on to Social Services for them to distribute to the children at the Christmas party they arrange for them every year.

Yes - home charities where the items inside are appropriate and there is no shipping and no religious affiliation- why not. But for overseas, money to viable and transparent charities is surely a better way to give.