to refuse to sponsor this young person

[EmmaGrundyForPM]

An acquaintance has sent out a mass message asking people she knows to sponsor her son to do a 10k run in the New Year.
Son is 17, Y13, and next summer is going to Uganda to build a playground in a primary school. He's raising funding for this with a target of £2500.

AIBU to think that, if the tables were turned, we wouldn't accept this? If I was told that a group of young people, with no experience, were coming to install playground equipment in my child's primary school, I would be outraged. As would other parents. And yet children in less wealthy countries are expected to be grateful for inexperienced people pitching up at their school.

When DS was in 6th form, there was an "opportunity" to go to Malawi for two weeks and volunteer in a school. I told DS I wouldn't support this, and he didn't go.

Why do schools and colleges run these trips, supposedly to "help" less fortunate children, when in fact it tends to be middle class children who go, because it looks good on their CV.

AIBU?

They're trying to do something nice, YABVVU.

Voluntourism.

Bet they wouldn't be so keen to improve the local playground!

My college built playground equipment for a local primary school. Surely the lad is going to be more of a dogsbody helping someone who knows what they are doing.

This is a very strange post.

Why can't it be for both those aims? Win-win. And all building projects need inexperienced labourers to do grunt work. I think your being offended on someone else's behalf is misplaced.

They don't let the teenagers rock up and do the whole thing, there are experienced people and the teens get given appropriate jobs in much the same way as apprentices do here.

Quite. I'm with you OP. Better that they do some volunteering at home and learn some skills before they start on the white saviour trips.

White saviour complex makes volunteer tourism big business.

I don’t support the companies who run these; there have been multiple instances of homes/schools being ‘built’ and then pulled down again for the next lot of volunteers, they don’t upskill or inject cash/facilities into local
communities - it’s all a bit white saviour with a dash of scamming over the top. The developing world doesn’t require a load of untrained teens playing at community service. So I’d ignore it

Yeah I've heard that this is a problem as it prevents the work being given to locals who would have been paid for it.

This. It’s pretty sick, tbh.

Oh yes, I remember soooo many girls from my private school heading off to various African countries....it does come across as very patronising and cliché

I did that kind of trip as a student. The money would have been much better just donated directly to the local community so that they could pay local workers. It was all kind of a sham. In our case we built a community centre that nobody really needed/had a use for - apparently once we left it was used as a shed/storage area by one of the wealthier locals.

They’re not just left to build a playground. 😂 I know someone who did something similar and there were builders, water engineers and lots of other experts. The others were just helpers really, fetching, carrying, lifting and they were supervised.

I refuse to pay for people's holidays through pseudo-sponsorship/volunteering.

I wouldn't sponsor it personally. If they want to go and do this kind of thing then that's fine, but the money raised isn't going to charity and I would rather sponsor someone raising money for charity. This kind of volunteering holiday should be self funded really imo.

I’ve read articles about this where rich white kids spend thousands to go and build a road/school/well for a poor village somewhere run by a middleman company and then whatever they’ve built is just ripped down at the end of the week after they’ve gone.

They’d be far better giving the money to locals out there who actually know how to build schools/playgrounds etc…. but then they wouldn’t get a foreign holiday, I suppose!

YANBU.

It makes me uncomfortable too. And being sponsored ti do it is even worse.

Except they aren’t doing anything nice except annoying the locals. It’s well known how bogus and corrupt these “volunteer abroad” programs are. If they want to be nice give directly to a charity in that country.

This in a nutshell.

Has he got some weird and wonderful specialist skills that make him uniquely suited to building a playground? Of course not. I'm pretty sure the Ugandan's are more than capable of building it themselves but would no doubt appreciate the money to buy materials. Of course, it's not really about helping at all, it's about having an experience and a bit of tat for the resume. I expect most of that £2500 target is to pay for his flights and other expenses. Tell his parents to pay for their child's holiday themselves.

"Why do schools and colleges run these trips....."

I'd hazard a guess that the staff that have to accompany the students get their expenses covered by the fundraising so they get a free jaunt out of it.

These trips are literally the most problematic, white saviour bullshit out there. I can’t believe they are still going. I’m and old bat and I remember people being uncomfortable with them when I was in sixth form

Yanbu. They should earn/save money themselves for their trip. I taught English abroad for a while as part of my travelling but would never have asked people to donate to my trip.

Yanbu. Voluntourism. Hate it.

Why can't they raise the money, and pay local people in Uganda to build the playground. That way money is not wasted on flights and accomodation, it actually benefits the local economy more providing work for local people.

If he wants to run a 10k to raise £2500, he could do that and donate the money to local charities here, and also to reputable charities which actually do some good in the developing world, like Water Aid or Sightsavers. Still a good thing to have on the CV, and better for the communities concerned (and the climate).

YANBU
A friend was banging on for years for sponsorship and donations for her DC to go to Jamboree, then straight after started asking for more money for another DC to go to Tanzania. Pay for your own kids holidays.

On our local WhatsApp there was a big row as a couple were going on a charity trek somewhere and requesting donations. Someone pointed out after reading up on the trip that there were two tiers of donations one where you self funded the trip and raised for charity and one where the donations funded the trip and then gave money to charity, this couple had chosen the latter and people were not impressed.