After reading some articles about child begging that the money doesn’t go towards the child and they are exploited by horrible people who forced these kids to beg and the money they beg for goes towards these people and not the child i can now see that it does make sense not to give money to child beggars. But i still find it extremely hard not to give anything at all to these poor children and wish i could still help I wish i had some food with me so i could have given her a bit, she was with a group of kids on the on coming busy traffic.

~Heidi

After that exposure, traveling in poorer countries and seeing children begging becomes easier because you’re used to it.

I am a big fan of the oft repeated guide book advice: instead of giving money or objects to children, make a donation to a local school or community group.
Aaron´s recent [type] ..Free Stuff in NYC- The Daily Show &amp The Colbert Report

Yes, I agree that if you give you have to do it freely and not care what happens to the money afterward. Its one of those hard things about travel that many people don’t think about before they leave home and thus get “stuck” not knowing what to do.

Cheers,
todd
Todd Wassel´s recent [type] ..The Happiness Chart psst Its really simple

but sometimes i do think it is important to protect yourself, especially in an unfamiliar place.
jenna´s recent [type] ..they do

A polite no thank you twice is my limit these days. If someone pushes further than I guess they have less then genuine motives and I push back.

But I hate doing it.
Todd Wassel´s recent [type] ..Iwayaji Temple Japan- My Favorite Place in the World

i was actually talking to my boyfriend about this the other day, and we agreed that so often you get taken advantage of when you give money to people. in south africa there are also frequent reports of scams involving women begging with babies, crime syndicates and drug-dependency.

these kinds of instances, like so many people mentioned above in the comments, do make it harder to give. i do often feel guilty though, knowing that i can afford to part with small change, but I think it does depend on the situation.

in the last few months i met someone who was asking for bus money to go home, so i gave him some change. 3 months later i saw him again and he had the same story. i felt so cheated for being generous, especially since everyone else was so skeptical at the time.

in india i also had the experience of being harrassed to donate money to an organisation at the holy lake in pushkar. i genuinely didn’t have much money on me, as I was keeping it for lunch, but a man pushed me so much that i cried, and eventually gave the only money that i had, some leftover ZAR that i was keeping for an emergency.

it upset me that he kept asking for euros, and that he assumed I had loads of cash to give since I was foreign.

i guess, as everyone mentioned above, that the best way is to actually become involved in making a difference, instead of assuaging guilt by giving money that doesn’t seem to go very far.
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