In Reply to: You kind hearted Australians posted by Charliebalibear on Monday, 18. June 2012 at 09:49 Bali Time:
women that I know who worked as massage ladies on the beach put their kids through expensive private schools. Good on them. But they were not poor, not that you'd know that by the stories they would spin to tourists, and many of them had (in addition to very good money doing massages) lots of money coming regularly from kind hearted tourists.
Also it is not just Australians who get caught up in this. I can think of several examples of Europeans also giving big sums of money to locals for all sorts of reasons.
I also had a 'conversation' with an English woman just last week who is 'paying' for her 'Balinese family's' kids to go through school, to the tune of several thousand dollars a year. The kids are in junior primary school, and she refused to believe me that unless those kids are in some sort of international school (which they are not) the cost of their education is no where near what she is paying. I just hope the kids are benefiting from the money and it's not being gambled on cock fighting or some other favorite Balinese pastime.
Lastly, there are still poor in Bali and in other parts of Indonesia who can do with a hand. But often you are wise to work with a charity on the ground in those areas to provide assistance.