In Reply to: my feelings posted by vonda on Saturday, 17. February 2007 at 10:25 Bali Time:
We visit the school but not every time we go because we go often. Actually I do feel a little uncomfortable in case it appears I'm there to receive thanks. In many ways I prefer to be anonymous and am in other circumstances when I give. In my book we sponsor their education not them and their family and definitely don't "adopt" them. On the other hand as a social experiment I hope that visits from in our case Australians to Indonesian schools will help to foster good relations and understanding between us in the next generation.
I have misgivings about home visits for 2 reasons the first of which is pretty unimportant. There have being a few instances of "Walking ATM" syndrome which then puts a strain on the whole relationship and can sour the good feeling but of course is not the fault of the child.
The second is ugly but very important. It is not possible for the various charitable organisations to really "know" who the sponsors are. I am sure the overwhelming majority are just kind hearted people who love kids. There are however people out there who profess to love kids but in reality want to abuse them. These people could use sponsorship as a doorway to become trusted friends of a child and their family. You all know where this is going don't you?
If 4999 of us are moral ethical people and true friends to our sponsored child's family and one is an abuser how are we goint to feel about that?
Sorry a miserable subject but we do know that Indonesian children on Lombok and Bali have been the target of such ploys albeit not via a sponsorship programme. I think we need to protect that 1 potential victim very carefully and at least if after thought, we still want to do home visits they should be with a teacher or somebody from the charity.
That's my two bob's worth.