On a sunny Sunday morning, 12-year-old Susana was sticking a charity flag on a woman's jacket at the Fountain Pool. "This is the first time for me to attend flag-selling fund raising activity. I've found it to be a hard job, people are not so willing to donate even though I have tried my best to persuade them," she frowned. 

Susana is one of the school students who are out on weekends trying to solicit donations. "Would you do me a favour to buy a flag?" Girls and boys in school uniforms frequently ask this question to people walking by in busy streets in Macau every weekend. 

It seems that more and more organizations are engaged in selling charity flags on Saturdays and Sundays. Some are familiar organizations, such as Caritas de Macau and Macau Deaf Association. But recently, there are some unknown organizations trying to raise money in streets as well. For example, some schools are selling flags in public places to raise money for their own expansion. They give people the impression that this is a donation for charity, but in fact they would spend the entire donation on their own schools.

Since there is no law in Macau regulating flag-selling fund raising activities, it is obvious that some organizations are taking advantage of this situation for their own benefit. This in turn breaches the trust of people in such flag-selling donation campaigns. 

"I feel tired of it. Because every weekend when I am walking along the street, I will be requested five or six times to buy flags," a housewife, Chan Chi In complained.

Another interviewee, Johnny Choi, a UMac student, said that he would watch carefully the organization's name and know exactly which organizations he was donating to. There were too many unknown organizations asking for money. He wanted his donation to go to the right groups and really help the poor.

"I usually buy one and have a sticker on my shirt even though I am sort of hesitant," Chiu chi Fong, a bank teller, said. "I don't want to waste my time asking questions and expressing my opinions. This is the only way to avoid inconvenience and refuse further donation requests." 

A tourist from Hong Kong complained that students seemed to force her to buy their flags and some of them were not very polite.

Some legislators are concerned with the issue. Cen Yu Xia, a legislator of the Provisional Municipal Council of the Islands, believes that this will bring inconvenience to Macau residents and tourists and leave them a negative image of Macau." 

Cen thinks that it is very important to set up laws to regulate flag-selling fund raising activities in public places, so that the government could supervise if an organization makes use of donations correctly or not.