Families
Family questions before a student says yes.
Care is not the enemy of service. It is how service stays possible.
Families can use this site as a reading list and a question list. Watch a film together. Read the field note. Ask what the student wants to do next that is local, supervised, and specific.
Green flags.
- A named adult and a way to contact them.
- A schedule, a role, and a stop rule.
- Clear money handling if fundraising is involved.
- Written image and travel rules.
Red flags.
Pressure to decide quickly. Unclear lodging. Requests for large unsupervised cash. Promises that a teenager will “save” a community. A plan that requires clinical or rescue work without credentials. A social-media quota.
More questions are collected in family questions. Safeguarding details are on safeguarding.
Using the archive at home.
Watch one film together, then read the field note aloud. Ask the student what year the story describes and what the camera cannot show. Then ask what a useful next step would be within reach: a research brief, an auction item description, a school collection with permission, or a preparedness plan for your own household.
Do not treat the six films as a catalogue of trips. Kalighat is a care environment. Chernobyl is a long-term contamination and memory site. Refugee-camp and disaster pages describe conditions that untrained minors should not enter because a website was moving. If a programme uses those images to sell a last-minute overseas “service week,” ask for the supervising adult, the partner letter, and the hour-by-hour task list before you pay.
Fundraising at the kitchen table.
If your student joins an auction committee, the educational job is description, verification, hosting, and reporting. Keep cash off personal accounts. The early 2012–2015 totals on the auction page are historical record, not a target your child must beat. A smaller, documented event is more honest than a large, foggy one.
When the project ends, keep a copy of the thank-you note and the role description. That file is more useful for a school counsellor than a collage of other people’s hardship.