If you currently go to, or grew up going to, an Evangelical Christian church you are well aware of the tradition of packing up a shoebox that will be shipped to a third-world nation and into the hands of a child whose family does not have the resources available to buy them gifts.
Those shoeboxes are provided by Operation Christmas Child (OCC), a program run by the international relief organization, Samaritan’s Purse. The program has a fairly simple idea: get good-hearted people in the “Global North,” i.e. developed nations, to fill shoeboxes full of toys, hygiene products, and school supplies, then ship those boxes to impoverished children of the “Global South,” i.e. developing nations. In doing so, the people in affluent nations can feel joy as if they are the reason that a poor child in Africa had a present to open on Christmas morning.
If you have never made a shoebox to send, you likely have heard the radio ads or TV commercials asking for you to make a box “for a child who has never received a gift before in their life.”
The primary mission of Operation Christmas Child is not material relief to impoverished people, but rather a tool for “evangelism, discipleship, and multiplication of believers.” Their website states they do this through giving out pamphlets along with the boxes that will introduce the children to “salvation through faith in Christ,” and the children are invited to participate in a discipleship program. The receive a Bible at the end of the 12-session course.
When packing a box the donor must choose an age and gender category, as well as donate a minimum of $10 to help cover collection, processing, and shipment costs of the gift. This donation model creates many issues. First of all, donors need to choose gendered items to fill their boxes with. In the suggested packing list, the bulk of the items were the same for girls and boys, such as: soccer balls, musical instruments, stuffed animals, socks, toothbrushes, washcloths, and school supplies. However, the suggested items for specifically girls included dolls, hair clips, compact mirrors, bracelets, sewing kits, and plastic crowns; and for boys included building blocks, toy cars, plastic dinosaurs, tool sets, and a baseball and mitt. In the very creation of the boxes, donors are reinforcing Westernized gender stereotypes onto the recipients who may not hold these same values.
One of the biggest issues with this distribution model is that the contents of the boxes are not of the same quality. When children are receiving the boxes, one child could get a box full of highly desired items like a soccer ball, a flashlight, batteries, menstrual pads, and a gardening kit, whereas the child beside them might receive a box with a package full of cheap products bought at the dollar store. It is simply the luck of the draw. As well, children have to be present in order to collect their box; this is to ensure children do not take multiple boxes, but can be upsetting for children who are simply unable to attend on the day of distribution.
For all the defaults this program holds in its design, the commercials about giving a child their first Christmas gift ever are actually true in some cases, as a volunteer on the ground witnessed firsthand. This project by-passes the “trickle-down” effect that economic development programs hope to achieve and goes directly to the population they want to impact: children in the Global South.
Claudia Norbert is a volunteer who helped distribute OCC boxes to children in her community in St. Lucia in 2018.
“For some children, that’s their first gift, and they’re happy to get it,” Norbert said. “Sometimes they have never received a gift before because their parents could not afford to buy it … Whereas others, some of them have money, so they do not really need it, and some of them are not appreciative.
“They have some boxes that are really put together … But some children say things like ‘I see another child with a bigger box than mine,’” Norbert said. “Of course the children will be jealous when they see [other] boxes with prettier stuff than their own, but their box also has good stuff, so it’s just a fact of [the child] being appreciative and thankful for what they get, because there are some other children that don’t get anything at all. For some children, that is the only gift they get for Christmas, and they look forward to getting those boxes.”
As a global development studies student, I want to bash this whole program, labelling it as paternalistic and colonialistic, saturating markets with cheap products and culturally-inappropriate gifts. I want to brush it off as an impersonal tool of the American-Evangelical church, and I want to rip its post-colonialistic development scheme to shreds. While the model is certainly questionable, and there are plenty of holes to poke at in this well-intentioned effort, it does do some good for some children. These boxes do make an impact in the lives of children who otherwise do not receive any other presents.
A more ethical way to make an impact in the “Global South” this Christmas season would be to give to a smaller, more grass-roots organization that is embedded in a community year-round, not just showing up to give presents away at Christmas. The Duncan Africa Society, a local nonprofit that funds the Suubi Trade School in Uganda, has a Christmas hamper program to support families in their community during Christmas. Apprentices at the trade school locate the people most in need of assistance, and the hampers are designed to meet their specific needs, whether it be food, shoes, a mattress, or medicine. Your $30 donation goes entirely to the family’s needs, with no overhead costs.
There are always opportunities to make an impact locally, such as buying a Christmas gift for a child of a UFV student through SUS’s Angel Tree, or donating a gift or food to Archway Community Services. Wherever you decide to donate this holiday season, know that your sacrifice is so meaningful to someone in need, wherever in the world they may be.
Illustration: Kayt Hine
Andrea Sadowski is working towards her BA in Global Development Studies, with a minor in anthropology and Mennonite studies. When she's not sitting in front of her computer, Andrea enjoys climbing mountains, sleeping outside, cooking delicious plant-based food, talking to animals, and dismantling the patriarchy.