To think voluntourism needs to be called out?

Personally I'd ask (and have) why they're not donating the cost of the trip directly to the "cause", where it could support local workers who know the issues best, and who'll be around to support it a lot longer than some teens breezing in and out

Imagine being an adult with lots of life experience and knowledge of the place you’re planning on setting up a business and some inexperienced British kid comes along with 5 minutes training and tells you how do it?! That’s ridiculous!

I’m not sure this is necessarily true. Most people these days have an agenda for anything they do. Personally I think these types of parents are well aware of the limited capabilities of their little darlings lol. It’s just that it’s an excellent addition ti your child’s CV at such an early age especially where there is greater competition to even get onto certain HE courses never mind an actual job. So yeah I bet the DC does stand out with examples such as ‘facilitated building of this or that’ or ‘left a whole group of kids with an ability to now converse fluently in English’ and also shows ability to be independent at a fairly young age away from parents and understand issues like infrastructure, economics, urban/rural planning etc. And of course to have this life altering opportunity funded by others - well, what’s not to like?! 😅

This sums it up nicely.

I remember a few years ago David Lammy calling out Comic Relief for doing the exact same thing.

I wasn’t suggesting that they are. You’re another who has totally misunderstood what I said

It smacks of it, yes, by suggesting local people aren’t perfectly capable of doing these things themselves and need middle class western youths to show them the way.

Presumably you meant ‘they’re’ - and you have totally misunderstood what I meant.

A lot of them seem to loathe poor white people, especially poor white boys.

Of course going to Tanzania is much more interesting than helping a project in Blackpool or Stoke

@SchoolDilemma17 I agree. I see this in my own workplace where there's a disproportionally high amount of people from plummy backgrounds.

A lot of general volunteering does go on, but one or two are also particularly keen on helping refugees & illegal immigrants as that comes with a particular political stamp of approval. I really doubt that hardly any of my colleagues have stepped foot on a Council estate before, or actually been inside a Council house. They live in a soft different world.

How can you be so brass necked and unaware to be spouting stuff like this?

It's very very common in the middle-upper classes to do this sort of thing.

The privately school darlings have been taught that they will be the nation's next leaders. They come from people who are leaders in the corporate world or in the upper echelons of society, so naturally, why wouldn't Henry, Deliah, Caspar, or Arabella be qualified to give business advice?

Although I think that many do want to help, my opinion is that it's much more about putting an additional class marker on their C.V. It's like putting 'Secretary of student Classics society' or 'Lacrosse Captain'. It's not quite a holiday, but yet, I would bloody object to being expected to pay for this type of volunteering.

Out main boss at work (she's not a teen,she's an adult) was going on something like this-slumming it and building a school or something

She had the neck to ask us for donations ('only £50 folks!')

The wrote down the names of anyone who donated (it was a short list-only the managers gave anything) and kept nagging at us ('come on guys!she's doing something for the greater good!')

She's worth 25 million,I'm on minimum wage

She can pay for her own bloody holiday!

Schools have to realise it’s not charitable, it’s a money making company , and that’s all they’re interested in.

Valuable support is given via VSO and the Peace Corps, where professional agriculturists, economists, IT specialists, builders, teachers, nurses, midwives, dentists etc work alongside local colleagues. The first rule is you don’t go in telling anyone what they need or what to do.

All of them ?
So just to be clear, the British teenagers aren’t able to remember their own passwords but the whole of Africa does not require any further assistance with social media. Internet.
growing their online business.

That’s your position is it?

It's not the bloody zoo! Thier not exhibits for your kid to gawk at! Christ almighty 😂

What comments do you think they'd get? You know there are hundreds of negative comments underneath an African woman putting her baby on her back. How do you think the West would handle seeing other ways of life?

I have several British teenagers living under my roof all more than capable of remembering their passwords and very capable of manipulating Google to their own ends.
Sharing that knowledge would certainly not be harmful in the context of the trips that we’re describing now.

You've clearly not used the internet recently. They're already there.

I think it was a fairly poor example because he was mostly wrong, but there is also a point in there which I highlighted earlier. I love Stacey, but it didn't need to be her. It also didn't need to not be her. It should probably be some other people whether she's there or not.

Very.

you can ramble on about TikTok’s all you like, they’ve created millionaires out of 18-year-olds. Why shouldn’t the African teenagers be given the opportunity to do the same?

You ever been around British teenagers? They struggle with remembering and typing in their school password that they've had since Y7 - even when it's the generic (because they never saw the point of following instructions to change it) !School123. They aren't social media and SEO experts from sticking a doggy ears filter on a TikTok - and that's before you take into account that in Nigeria alone, there's over 107 million internet users and banking/trading use is huge.

It's not a continent of helpless eight year olds using smoke signals or sound to communicate over distances, despite what racist tropes still prevail from exactly this sort of white saviour bollocks.

Are you serious?

The criticism wasn’t about the centre, if was about her and how she portrayed herself on social media (holding a black baby etc).
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-47400300

If that’s what’s needed to promote their businesses to be able to trade on a global stage then yes. It’s not without merit is it ?

They are not charities. These trips are organised by companies.

Still looking to create issues where there aren’t any ?
I don’t think it’s part of the selection criteria that the teenagers have to be white from what I’ve read. So is it less of an issue if it’s a black teenager from Walthamstow?