The Child Fund commercials - are the kids actors, or are they real?

Mods, feel free to move this thread if it’s in the wrong place.

This morning while I was dressing, a commercial for Child Fund came on (formerly Christian Children’s Fund). It shows a bearded guy in a dirty alley, talking about needy kids, and asking for donations to help/sponsor a child. This is not a criticism of the charity, simply an observation on the content of the advertisement.

The thing that struck me is, he sits with a small child on his lap, talking about how poor Maria is starving, her parents are dead, she has three smaller siblings to care for, she will go to bed hungry that night, she is afraid for her future, etc. and the child sits there looking sad. Are these kids actors? If the child is truly suffering that badly, it just seems cruel to use her as a prop, talking about her in the third person about how she’s on death’s door. If she really is a suffering child, does she not speak English, and therefore doesn’t know what he’s saying? Do they tell them to look sad for the filming?

No real point to this, just something I always think about when I see these commercials. To me, if the children are for real, it is mean and cruel to exploit them for the commercials (even though the goal is to get viewers to donate). Does the end justify the means?

  1. I think it is real unless there is a fine print disclaimer saying otherwise.

  2. I don’t think it is cruel or that they are exploiting them.

To be fair, I only work with Compassion International, but unless Child Fund is corrupt, it does not seem wrong to me.

In NSPCC adverts, they have a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen saying that the children are actors and were protected during filming. Adverts filmed overseas do not tend to have such a disclaimer, and as such I have always assumed that they show real people in their real situations. In my opinion, if this causes people to be more inclined to help worthwhile causes and genuine charities, it can only be to the good. As for Maria finding out she’s not living in the lap of luxury, I would imagine she’d probably noticed her life isn’t champagne and unicorn shit before some beardy guy told her so.

Actually, DivineComedienne has good instincts. This is pure exploitation.

I travel…a lot. I have even been to some of the villages where the money from this organization goes and, let me tell you, first, the family gets a very small percentage of of the money that people send “for the child.” in addition to that, the organization roams town when shooting the commercials, and looks for the kids with the skinniest-build possible.

It’s a sham…they have the kids try to appear sad, and they get them on film after they’ve been playing, but before bathing, and they depict them as hungry, dirty, and poor.

Teacake’s comment “As for Maria finding out she’s not living in the lap of luxury, I would imagine she’d probably noticed her life isn’t champagne and unicorn shit before some beardy guy told her so” is actually dead wrong (no offense). Kids are having great fun most everywhere in the world (unless their parents are assholes), and it doesn’t require money for them to be having a blast. It could actually be argued that kids in a “poor” village in, say, rural Indonesia, are having a lot better time than our kids with their big TVs, iPads, video games, hanging-out mostly in shopping malls.

Most “poor” people out there really love their kids, and they give them a pretty “good” life (relatively speaking). They raise their kids with decent values, and the kids find a lot of fun things to do in their areas, around lakes, rivers, beach, jungle, etc. Most don’t fear being abducted or abused, like our kids are taught to fear, in the West.

Most poor kids DON’T realize they don’t “live in the lap of luxury” until the fat bearded guy comes and tells them. It’s a shame…and it’s a sham.

Granted, some parts of Latin America and Africa are genuinely poor, and the kids are genuinely deprived. But I have yet to find any place in Asia…ANYWHERE…where the kids go hungry, and don’t enjoy their life there. We (in the West) are led to believe that our way is the best way, but that’s naïve, and narrow.

DivineComedienne can actually “smell a rat” without any exposure to the realities of it all. That’s refreshing!

Nice opinion you’ve got there…but here’s the facts. ChildFund has a very good rating.

Hahaha, how droll, that’s a good one…oh, wait a minute, you were serious weren’t you?

Rather than argue against your ignorance, I’ll mourn instead for the recent loss of our old “rolleyes” emoticon – since this //rolleyes// is thoroughly insufficient to express how I feel about your screed.