SAVE THE CHILDREN

Leading childrens humanitarian relief charity.

When asked about Operation Christmas Child, Brendan Paddy, of Save the Children, says it is dangerous when charities mix humanitarian work with the promotion of a particular religious or political agenda.

"The risk is that it creates conflict and that the agency is regarded as partisan," he says. "Given the current state of the world, I would have thought it particularly important for agencies to preserve neutrality."

He questions the economic sense of shipping boxes full of donated goods, arguing that transport costs could make the items more expensive than they would be in the recipient country. "Also, because each box contains different items, that can create conflict among the recipients," he says, stressing that a key principle of emergency relief was equality.

In many ways, says Paddy, appeals such as Operation Christmas Child are "something that benefits the giver more than the receiver".

SOURCE: Extract from article in the Guardian "Presents imperfect" by Patrick McCurry (18 Dec 2002). http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,861580,00.html

OPERATION USA

An international relief organization with 25 years experience that prizes its independence from US governmental funding. Its President & CEO Richard Walden wrote a letter in response to a commentary by Franklin Graham in the LA Times:

AID, COMFORT AND PROSELYTIZATION

As the president of Operation USA, an international relief organization, I take strong exception to Franklin Graham's cheery description of Samaritan's Purse, his evangelical relief group set up as an adjunct to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn. ("No Strings Attached," Commentary, April 3). Graham raised more than a few eyebrows some months ago when he opined that Islam was a "very evil, wicked religion." That he would think he'll get a friendly reception in Iraq is sheer fantasy.

More telling is Nicaragua's experience with Samaritan's Purse, which came in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch. It organized a religious music festival at which Protestant churches were pressured to spend what few resources they had to rent buses to take up to 50,000 children to the national baseball stadium in Managua. The children were to hear Graham preach, listen to religious music and be given a shoebox with candy, personal-care items, school supplies and a Bible. This took place in an atmosphere in which 20% of the population had been severely affected by the hurricane; the Catholic Church (80% of Nicaraguans are Catholic) was furious, and little of material good was accomplished. Graham flew down on a private jet.

There is lots of work in Iraq. Iraqis don't need a sideshow with fresh-faced American missionaries styling themselves as "ambassadors of Christ."

Richard Walden
Los Angeles

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, 7 April 2003, http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-le-walden7apr07,1,5451308.story

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