To dislike this type of tourism?

[CatastropheKate]

Have just seen this on facebook which gives me the irrational rage.

Day 2 The Dump - we went to visit a community who live next to a landfill site. We split up into groups and gave out water and fruit to them. A boy call Jose came and joined us to help he beamed with delight when he gave the things to the people he knew. He kept trying out some of the English words he has learnt and I got him to teach me the Spanish. We met a lovely lady who runs a shop and try's to help the people living there. We prayed with a guy who told us he was drinking again after managing to give up. He said that he was finding life tough and this has caused his relapse. Opening up to us cannot have been easy. The young people were really shocked by the bleak conditions in which they lived and found it hard to get their heads around how children could be brought up there.
We finished the day with games and some time thinking about what we saw today.

It's by a group of kids that made their parents friends pay for their holidays by organising coffee mornings etc. I get that the kids have new exciting experiences and can pad out their cv, but to pretend it's for charity and spend it on airfares and 'games' is a bit much. And asking your imaginary friend to help is really taking things too far.

Leaving the God stuff aside, I can't bear poverty tourism either.

In South America I was astonished that 'favela tours' were offered and that people, tourists like me, went on them. Let's all gawp at the poor people in the poverty theme park.

I refuse to have my supermarket bags packed by spoilt sixth formers raising money for these wretched poverty tours, which in my opinion were conceived so that teenage puddings have something to put on their CV and bore their friends with. If you truly want to help poor people in Uganda, make a bloody donation to a proper charity. Don't try to get other people to pay for a holiday so that you can ooh and ah at the poor people and pretend to paint a wall in a school whilst taking selfies, or whatever they do.

"The young people were really shocked by the bleak conditions in which they lived and found it hard to get their heads around how children could be brought up there"

I think it is worth it for this ^^

"I do wonder if it would be better in the long term for, you know, actual tradespeople to go (not city types on a sort of "working" holiday) to train local people to build the houses, leaving a legacy of houses and skilled workers and boosting the local economy"

Of course it would be better. Much better. The city lot should do what they do best and find the money to fund the skilled trades.

YANBU.

Don't like the tone of the FB post at all and echo what others have said about these schemes.

Our school runs one and I find it quite depressing the way the kids go off each year, and all come back parroting the same phrases about 'joy', 'appreciation', 'taking things for granted', etc etc but it's really just a thing they go through. These are great kids, but I just don't think these things work and encourage a kind of patronising benevolence and little more imo.

Oh - as a teacher I have to speak up for the so-called 'spoilt sixth formers' involved. It's really not their fault and imo, the majority are very well-meaning. It's just that no longterm or productive impact is made on their outlook and they tend to end up basking in a feeling of satisfaction that almost certainly isn't matched by the level of improvements they leave behind.

My stepson did something like this with his school when he was 14. Yes it was 60% holiday (they did two African safaris too) but they painted a few classrooms and took a container of books and equipment out with them for the school. Most of them were so humbled by the children out there they came back with empty suitcases (gave all their stuff away!). It humbled them and made them think how bloody lucky they were to be born where they are. And so what if they raised money washing cars and packing bags!

What's better? Going and sitting in a four star hotel and ignoring what's going on? The school has a link with the African school and regularly sends out books and donations. I don't think it's bad really.

Hear hear. If I were living in a Guatemalan slum I would be more than happy for some over privileged twat with a bottle of water and an orange to come and gawp at the reality of my day to day life as though I were a modern curio providing that it made them a more thoughtful person. In fact I would deem it a most valuable use of my time.

Test I agree. I almost signed up to go on one of these trips until I actually really reflected on why I wanted to go - and realised I had no really useful skills to offer. I'd probably be a hindrance. My time would be better spent raising funds for long term projects staffed by professionals with relevant skills. In the meantime, there's lots of other things city workers can do which do utilise their skills - e.g. Lloyd's has a close relationship with Tower Hamlets LEA and runs reading and numeracy partner schemes with local primary schools, or CV writing workshops with older kids.

That's the point for me - volunteer your actual skills, not rock up somewhere for two weeks, build a house (badly) that takes a job away from a local while taking lots of selfies and then post about it on Facebook.

While I do still think most participants do have the best intentions, as someone said unthread, some of these voluntourism projects have a whiff of paternalism and even voyeurism about them. It makes me very uneasy.

I certainly have misgivings about such schemes. But on the other hand it does give young people to see what life is like in other parts of the world and maybe to do a bit of good.. Not sure really.

YANBU. The report of the trip sounds patronising in the extreme. You don't need to actually inflict yourself on people living in extremes to realise that for many people around the world life is tough, poverty-stricken and cruelly unfair. There are enough sobering documentaries and films. Unless you are out there to actually improve conditions, then going in order to appreciate how good you have it is crass. And if all you are going to do is teach kids a couple of English words, smile and pray then save the money for something actually useful.

It's quite simple, if you don't like it, don't go to coffee mornings to support it.

Why aren't you more outraged that people have to live on rubbish tips?

Don't act surprised people believe in God, it's hardly a new revelation that people of faith pray!

Ps it is possible to have meaningful experiences overseas for less money but it does all cost money, insurance etc, travel, accommodation.

The best overseas trips will leave young people with a genuine desire to make the world a fairer, better place. IMHO that is priceless.

It's disingenuous to imply that the only thing we can do is either support the coffee mornings or not though - imo we need to have a proper discussion about the effects of this kind of tourism.

I have friends who work in development and they have had real concerns about this type of activity for years. The people working on the ground whether local or those on long term postings have to pick up the pieces in the wake of it thus eating into a shoestring budget. But it is big business so mostly the views of people who know how damaging it is are ignored.

why aren't you outraged that people are living on rubbish tips .

Well I for one am outraged. And outraged that people think it's ok to pop in on them for a bit to see what it's like, teach them a few English words, say a prayer or three and then bugger off home to their cosy semi's feeling appreciative of their access to efficient sewerage, education and a life that doesn't involve scratching around a rat infested tip, and with the warm fuzzies from helping 'helping' out.

If you have something real and of benefit to offer the people living there then by all means get out there, otherwise stay away.

Not sure if it was the article pp mentioned in the guardian but I'd read about how the locals had to spend the night redoing the work the students had done so as not to offend them. It can't be cost effective.
I think there is likely a huge difference between the world challenge type trips and trips where a school creates an ongoing link with another school but maybe I'm wrong

Oh OP, I agree on all counts, cuntiness about faith included.

My friend is raising money so she can go to to teach them . I haven't donated.

I'm trying to imagine a situation where - for example - one of these people goes on a mission to a housing estate in Lambeth on the lookout for an impoverished single parent to give a bottle of volvic and a tangerine to, and invites themselves into her house to see the damp and cockroaches etc in order to become a more rounded and considerate person.

But actually I can't imagine it.

In Victorian times they used to do guided tours around slums. It was quite the rage at one point. This does feel a bit similar.... although it's complicated because in some ways it is very useful for young people to see different ways of living. Just the way it's done seems quite patronizing... "here are the poor foreigners living on a tip, we can learn so much from their humility, their joy at simple things despite having nothing" spiel isn't actually that helpful in terms of genuinely broadening horizons...

The more people travel, the more people see and experience difference and see how people live in poverty - the less racism, xenophobia, and intolerance will perpetuate

Totally agree with this, however, call it a "trip of a lifetime to experience the world and how the other half live" and pay for it yourself. Attempting to make out that a school/college child has anything meaningful to offer to poverty stricken communities in the space of a few days is quite frankly insulting.

I say this as someone who has travelled a fair bit and knows, for example, many aAfricans who (shock horror) do not "find joy in such small things we take for granted" or "smile gratefully for my simple gift of a tangerine" etc etc...

And it can be damaging. Constant visits to orphanages/schools in which the simple children put on a simple touching dance performance that humbles us all with their joy in the face of having nothing can actually have a severe impact on those children's education since they are constantly having t take time out to put on sodding dance shows and mob visitors for sweets (and what 8 year old wouldn't mob a visitor for sweets if they were handing them out).

Imaginary friend? How insulting.

Anne, I agree that there's a debate to be had here. Not just overseas trips, but the role of the volunteer more broadly. I'm a brown owl and love guiding and I also follow the Guardian's Volunteering and Development Network. There's been several articles in recent years about the value these sort of trips described in the OP, and who benefits from them - community or the volunteer?

Hopefully, I bring some benefits by volunteering but I also benefit hugely myself. Our girls are great . But what is the role of the volunteer, how are boundaries set, what skills are necessary and what training is provided? How do we ensure that the intended beneficiaries of voluntary work are not hampered or even harmed by our actions, however well meaning?

To be clear, I'm not saying volunteer = unskilled. Far from it. But volunteers must have the right skills in the right placements. I'm not convinced handing out fruit, a bottle of water and exchanging a few words before buggering off and posting it on Facebook is ultimately helpful to anyone, including the young person in the OP.

Are you attacking poverty tourism or religion?

I think it's good for kids to see the reality of the world, I only wish they would spend an equal time with the fat-cat billionaire politicians who are the cause of a lot of this poverty. Get a good old dose of cause and effect. Then they might have a chance of growing up and making real changes, instead of just sending aid.