To think voluntourism needs to be called out?

Go and do some charitable work, thats great. Asking others to fund it, is just plain CF erism. Fund your Mother Therisa experience week yourself !

We had a highly qualified friend who did VSO and said the same. Tried and tested simply engineered techniques that could have improved so much for people’s lives for their village and farming were laughed at and nothing changed.

No one in Africa thinks that the teens doing this are having any more than an enriching youth experience.

While they are there they mix with other kids/young people who get to meet teens from another culture too who also have a good experience.

The white saviour idea isn't about the teens going abroad - it's about missionary organisations. It's also an issue with how we have historically portrayed Africa on TV. Its about restrictions tied to foreign aid.

What I don't agree with is a crowd funder. You should do sponsored events to raise money for it.

They’d do better to get a job in the UK and donate their earnings to Lend With Care.

Do you work in women's and public health at all? Because I'm a midwife with a special interest in this area. What I'm talking about actually comes from solid research and my connections with various maternity initiatives across the world.

Where is yours coming from?

Yes I agree that is the job of celebs on comic relief. I didn't agree with Lammy fully on that part, but I'm well aware of the general problems of volunteering in these locations.

What i actually liked about the Lammy thing is the conversations in the black community about why black celebs weren't being asked or taking up these positions when they were asked.

It really doesn’t. Healthcare in many developing countries for women is woeful even if bad forrins are not volunteering.

Heck, it's smacks of 'let's go and see how the poor live' before returning to our naice, well equipped home and feel good about ourselves. Thankful that it's them and not me living in a shack.
These trips get a wide swerve from me, you want your kid to go you fund it yourself.
I'll stick with sponsoring children in 3rd world countries that really need the help, and not kids on a jolly up poncing around.

No I’m not suggesting she is qualified in healthcare. She was promoting a free maternity clinic with qualified staff funded by comic relief. So people would give money to fund the clinic. That’s her job - and good on her.

David lammy is an idiot with luxury beliefs - poor women want good healthcare. We don’t have the luxury of foregoing it to wang on about skin color or student politics nonsense.

It actually does work like that because it has been tried and tested. Paying qualified people more and providing better conditions actually meant they were more likely to take up these posts and stay in them.

It's just cheaper to allow middle classed western students to do it instead and they feel a sense of entitlement to be allowed to do it so it becomes a vicious circle and breeds corruption.

Sorry but sadly it often doesn’t work like that in developing countries (or developed ones) especially where women’s health is concerned. Just because people don’t turn up to help doesn’t mean there are the resources or inclination to set up a good maternity system. Thinking that the problem will fix itself if you do nothing is magical thinking

And by the way, I adore Stacey Dooley. And Stacey Solomon fwiw..

Stacey Dooley isn't qualified staff.

Yes this. Projects need to be well structured but if done properly they should benefit both locals and the travelers.

If they didnt have an army of students to "volunteer", many of these places would be forced to spend the money on training and retaining qualified staff.

There are places that literally slash their qualified posts through the summer because they know Emily and Anais will be coming over to "deliver babies".

I remember David Lammy criticizing Stacey Dooley for promoting a comic relief funded maternity Centre in Africa (white savior etc). I find that ridiculous. Having worked in developing countries the locals don’t care about that and would rather have the clinic with well qualified staff (white or not).

To be honest if any Ugandans want to come and set up a free clinic with qualified doctors and nurses in my area I’m all for it! I might then have an outside chance of getting a doctors appointment

More fool, the people that donate to these

But this is what I’m trying to say. No, they wouldn’t allow buses full of instagrammers. But they do allow some volunteering. For example, it is appropriate for a teenager to help out with sports/outings/homework etc during the long summer break. It is not appropriate for a teenager to be a houseparent that is responsible for the day to day lives of the children for a few weeks. I think you’re using a straw man fallacy.

Of course that would be better. It would be better if they all had qualified obstetricians.

But your initial point was that it’s better not to have anything at all rather than a student midwife and that surely can’t be true

Very unpopular opinion:
I think it's very patronising to the people in said countries.

It's an extension of colonialism: our way or the highway without regard to the landscape, climate or traditions.

I agree. Does not sit well with me.

Valuable for the person volunteering, yes. But also should be valuable to the project concerned- puts money into the local community, builds houses, schools, etc. The charity I worked with that did gap year stuff basically sent people to an area where tourists never go. So it was a huge boost financially to locals.

The best help would be from standardising the training of Traditional Birth Attendents, better access to midwifery and medical degrees, better pay and conditions in rural areas for qualified practitioners, and especially those who come as highly qualified professional training locals to those levels of expertise. As well as money for technology and facilities.

If these western students actually cared about the outcomes of these women and their babies, they'd fundraise for them to have those things instead of raising money for their unqualified selves to get "hands on". But because it's not really about the woman and babies, just about helping middle classed young adults feel good about themselves, neither they nor their parents would ever give the thousands they pay to go away directly to the people who need it.

I also personally did a habitat for humanity house build in Africa. It was basically a corporate project for my employer to do team building. It worked well from that perspective and raised a lot of money to build houses. I did further work on habitat projects in London. These things can be win win. But of course people shouldn’t overestimate how useful their actual Labour is.

I thought programmes like this stopped years ago.
I’ve never seen the point in sending predominantly middle class 18 year olds with no building experience to build schools in Africa.
At best it’s pointless them going, at its worst it’s actively harmful and perpetuates the idea that Africa needs Western help for everyday life.

I would donate money to send a qualified bricklayer, but even then I expect they would have limited use due to lack of experience with local materials/climate etc.

I did some work overseas as an anaesthetic consultant in a low to middle income country and I was of limited use. You need to fully understand the local conditions before you can start being useful.