In Reply to: thanks freogirl posted by poteen on Friday, 11. November 2011 at 20:49 Bali Time:
I'm not totally against visiting a children's home in Indonesia. And let's call it a children's home, because orphanage implies that the children's parents are dead, when in fact usually at least half the kids have a surviving parent, but their parent cannot afford to feed and care for them and are forced to put them in a home (and just put yourself in that position and think how dreadful that prospect would be).
I have direct experience of visiting a children's home. I visited the Sabilal Muhtadin children's home in the village of Aik Bukak, Lombok and wrote about my visit on this forum (see link to my post in 2003 below). As a result of that post, JHillary got interested in the home and was directly responsible for the children's home getting a new kitchen, and new bathrooms, and then several girls from the home have been sponsored through university through the charity he is involved in (see http://www.sarojini.org/)
In addition, over on Lombok Lovers forum, funds were raised for a playground. And I'm sure others have visited as a result of reading my account.
I knew about the home through a long term resident of Lombok who was also actively involved in supporting the place. The trip was not originally planned, I was going to leave my donations with my friend. However plans changed and I ended up making the trip. I'm glad I did, but I have not returned despite having lived in Lombok for a year, and visited Lombok at least 10 times, since. That is not to say I have not continued to support the home, but I can do that without the intrusion. One caviet on that - we were organising funds to replace a roof, and that did require someone to visit and visually determine actually what was needed - it just wasn't me that did that. So it really depends on what you are doing and why.
I don't want to discourage people from visiting children's homes all together, but I am concerned about the number of gift bearing tourists handing out second hand clothes and lollies to these kids.
My wise friend in Lombok once said to me that it is important for these kids to learn that not every tourist they meet will give them a gift or money. She was telling me about a friend's son who was studying music at Uni and was interested in volunteering - she sent him to stay at the home for a month and he slept and ate with the staff and in exchange gave them some lessons. She explicitly didn't want him to take any gifts, money or old or new clothes, for that very reason.
So, my advice is to be careful and do your research very well before going to a home. Consider what you are doing and why, what your motiviations are, and what your impact will be on the kids from your visit.