Students in Bergen are annoyed by charities stopping them on the way to the study hall for money.
Amnesty International and The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have been fundraising outside the University of Bergen’s (UiB) main faculties and the Student Center. For the charities this is the perfect time to campaign as it is the ‘season for giving’ and they hope people will be generous.
– Saying no doesn’t help and it doesn’t make a difference.
During exam time this has left many UiB students bothered. UNICEF continues to stop people as much as three times for their bank account details, one student is worried.
– A little suspicious, you never know who’s real.
On the other hand, Amnesty’s membership fee starts at 100 kr and it does use text messaging that you sign up to.
Students still feel it is time consuming to talk with the charities, and are ready with excuses that they have already given so they’ll leave them alone. The fundraisers know this and understand people are irritated with them, but they say they are careful not to bother people too much.
How is the money spent?
There has been concerns that money ends up in administrative costs of fundraising not with the deserving causes. UNICEF and Amnesty both pay their ‘face2face’ fundraisers 15000 kr per hour to stand by UiB. As Dr. Espen Villanger, Researcher at CMI (Chr. Michelsen Institute) in Bergen, states it is difficult to know if large admin costs are good.
– Working in these countries means you need to have control over the money
Most charities consume on average around 13% of their money just in Norway. According to Tanja Clifford, west-regional manager of Amnesty,‘face2face’ fundraising raised 800 million kroner from Norwegian sources.
–The way we work is very principled. We document human rights.
The charities maintain that this money is going to good use. Amnesty utilises letter writing campaigns, advocacy, lobbying and litigation to influence opinion by those committing human rights abuses.
Dr. Villanger says that is difficult to know how effective this is but said it was something donors had to think about themselves. He added that generally aid can work very well.
