Christmas? Cancel Se requiere un título

I was writing letters to my kids tonight and noticed a new note at the top of the screen: "Please note: if your child is from India, we are unable to deliver letters or cards mentioning Christmas. But they would still love to hear from you, so please select one of the other beautiful card templates."

..... What? I mean, I know most of our children in India don't celebrate Christmas themselves, but is the very mention of the holiday really anathema there? I know I've written to them in the past about spending time with my family and our Christmas traditions, and my children have written back responding to what I wrote. Did something happen there, that prompted this change?

It does seem a measure taken for the safety of the children there. The ruling BJP extremists causing havoc in the country.. no religious freedom.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/christmas-india-tarnished-climate-hate-171224110717883.html

I sponsor 1 child in India and I not to mention Christmas. But I did mention Thanksgiving which I hope is ok.

Good Evening All
I choose CI because my father has a sponsor and loved the organization. I have looked at Christian organizations and as a Catholic I feel like they are pushing Christian faith on these kids. I have no problem not mentioning Christmas

I agree that due to disingenuous religious charities attempting to convert using aid as a bribe, CI probably needs to be extra careful not to get caught up in that net.  I chose CI because they were not religious.  The previous organization that I sponsored with was Christian based, but they insisted they did not proselytize.  I took them at their word.  Turns out, I should not have done so.  They got in big trouble in India for doing just this.  Shortly after this happened, I hit rough financial times and had to stop sponsoring.  Once I was back on my feet and wanted to sponsor again, I intentionally went looking for a secular agency since I can't trust the religious ones to be on the up and up now.  That's when I stumbled across CI.  I would hate for CI to be colored with the same brush as these organizations that try underhanded tactics and aren't honest about their intentions.  I hope sponsors heed CI's request and refrain from mentioning Christmas in correspondence with Indian children.  I don't like that sponsors can't talk about their cultural and religious celebrations, but I can understand why the Indian government has taken this stance since their people have been burnt in the past by less than honest charitable orgs.

As always, if you sponsor a child in India, please feel free to mention your own traditions, holiday celebrations, religion, etc.  Just as you like to learn about your sponsored child's culture, holiday celebrations, traditions, etc. the kids love to hear about yours too. 

As several sponsors mentioned in this post, there has been an increase in scrutiny of charity organizations in India that appear to be linking aid to religious teaching, this scrutiny can include mail sent from outside India to children/families. Since CI is a secular (non-religious) organization, we need to be very careful not to appear to be a religious organization to ensure we can continue our operations in India. This means we have to be careful about sending cards or letters expressing Merry Christmas and/or other religious sentiments to the child/family. 

System limitations don't allow us to remove the "Merry Christmas" cards/stationary option for only Indian sponsors, we decided to add a note of reminder for sponsors to ensure the mail to the kids is not rejected at SOA and returned to CIKC.  

And because I know inquiring minds like to know, if a letter is rejected at the SOA level and returned to CI, we do notify the sponsor.  So, if you've never received a letter explaining why your letter could not be delivered, then your letters are being delivered!  Hope this clears this up.

I always send them one of our photo Holiday cards. Same as I send anyone whether they celebrate Christmas or not. Although in India traditionally everyone celebrates all of the holidays or at minimum acknowledges them. 

Thanks for all of your replies! Like many of you, I also chose CI because it's not a religion-based charity. The note to not even mention just Christmas caught me by surprise, though, because I know that in years past I have written to my Indian children about my family's holiday traditions, and asked them what their favorite holiday is and how they celebrate it.

Given recent events in the news, I imagine India will be even *less* tolerant of perceived proselytizing than they were previously. Better safe than sorry--I've written about Thanksgiving instead of Christmas, this year. =)

Just NOW I stumbled on this information! WOW...why do sponsors of Indian ​children not get an e-mail or something to alert them to this. I just TODAY (!!!!) mailed my X-mas cards and also one to my sponsor child in India via CI Kansas.
I found a card that has finger puppets on the cover and doesn't say anything about X-mas but on the INSIDE it says "a merry little Christmas to you".
I am a little upset right now not to have known about this rule ​until now. There are several things that I "stumbled" upon by accident and would have appreciated to have known BEFORE. I diligently read all the rules on the beginning of sponsorship and this was not one I read about. SIGH...I could have rather sent the money spent on this special card including postage as part of an EG. Well...THAT was a waste..... :(
I left my envelope for the card open for CI to be able to inspect the content...I stuck the whole thing into another envelope when I mailed it to CI Kansas....can't CI not just take a "Sharpie" and black out the word Christmas and maybe write "Holiday" or something over it? I know it is a lot of work but since the mail is read anyways  that would take but a second.
I just re-read t​he letter I received to donate to the Christmas fund....there is NO note on it to inform sponsors of Indian Children to be aware of not writing or have printed "Christmas" on th​eir cards (in case they want to send one on their own) or anything... this letter would have been a good opportunity for CI to mention the rule for their Indian Kids sponsors. :( I am confused as the little pamphlet with that letter even discribes how Christmas is celebrated in India and no mention of said above rule.

The only place I've seen this notification is on the online letter writing tool in My Account. I have two children in India, and received no notification aside from happening to see it there, which is part of why I came to ask about it here.

But for sponsors who don't use the online writing tool … well, I'm not sure how they'd know about the restriction at all.

I wish I could attach an image to these message board posts--I have a screenshot of the notice on the letter-writing page. 

Yes, I read it only because it was posted here by you and it caught my eye....
I have no problem with the fact that the word "Christmas" should be avoided for India but would have appreciated to be informed of such rule.

Hi DorisR, thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. As we posted in this thread a few weeks ago, it was never a problem to talk about or share Christmas wishes with kids in India even though only about 2.9 percent of the population is Christian. And as jchak938b explained, most people in India, no matter their religious beliefs, at the very least acknowledge all the holidays. 

It only became an issue last year at Christmas time when a competing non-profit was "kicked out" of India because of apparent proselytizing.  At that point the scrutiny of all non-profits in India went on "high alert," and our staff in India began having to reject any Merry Christmas wishes in cards or letters to ensure that we were not seen as a religious organization. 

We knew we had to notify sponsors of this need before Christmas rolled around again this year.  And, since this affected so few sponsors (only had about 200 were cards rejected last year), the decision was made to keep our administrative costs low and not send a mass mailing to all India sponsors and simply add it to the website. 

Of course, we learned from your reaction that we should have cast a wider net when sharing the word, and so we are going to add it to our FAQ's on our website very soon, and will consider adding it to the pamphlet we send to some sponsors in their Christmas mailing next year.  

As an organization, our rule of thumb has always been (well, at least for the last 27 years) to call the gifts provided through the gift fund to Indian kids a "holiday gift," and the Christmas card that we send to sponsors does not wish Indian kids a Merry Christmas. 

Again, thank you DorisR (and saddare) for helping us learn -- we appreciate it!

P.S. Those 200 cards from last year that were returned to us?  We edited them and resent them to India.  We're being proactive this year, and editing them before we send them to India, so the SOA staff does not have to spend the money to send them back to CIKC, and us return to them, etc.  We're always watching the bottom line, cuz the kids need the money more than a shipping company does. 

Thank you Debbies. I hope CI will just cross out the word Christmas on cards sent. I picked a very cute one for my Child and would hate to see that it will not get to her because of one word that I am really not hung up on if it's blacked out. It's about giving my Child Joy with this card and that is what Christmas (ehem...the Holidays)  is all about. Thanks for your response.

Hi DorisR, I'll keep an eye out for your card, and make sure that it's ok to be sent to India.  Thank you for your understanding.