Breaching the subject of Operation Christmas Child

[BeanBag7]

Over the last few years it has become clear to me and many others that Operation Christmas Child is not as "good" and charitable as they appear to be. Many schools and youth groups still put together shoe boxes for them.

I want to let others know about this when they ask about which shoebox charity to support, or post pictures of their shoe boxes ready to go. But I dont want to look like a dick about it and be preachy.

Should I just leave it and let it continue, or am I right to make people aware of the issues? If so how would you go about it?

In fact the name makes less than no sense now that it’s become a programme evangelising chiefly to countries with a majority of non-Christian inhabitants — it’s as if all the Muslims of Indonesia were told that lower-income British kids from Christian backgrounds were tragically left without presents at Eid, which they didn’t understand the true meaning of, and sent over shoeboxes of plastic tat complete with proselytising leaflets tucked helpfully inside, codenamed ‘Operation Eid Kid’ or something.

I suppose it’s a slight step up from early Christians who stole the pagans’ winter festivities and murdered them if they refused to convert to Christianity.

If a charity doesn't sit right with you, stop moaning and support another.

Do you not think that people should be able to make an informed decision about the activities of the organisations they support? OCC isn't particularly open about all their activities, so it falls to others to fill people in on what they're donating to.

If they still wish to go ahead and donate that's their choice and I respect that, but it seems that the vast majority of people and organisations are horrified when they learn what happens on the ground, and so choose to stop donating.

If a charity doesn't sit right with you, stop moaning and support another.

I fundamentally disagree. I have the right to moan to my heart's content about charities that don't sit right with me.

I will also defend other people's right to moan about charities that sit 'extremely right' with me...

And no, I certainly won't stop moaning about imo genuinely harmful charities. 🤷🏻‍♀️