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?

I think we need a 'banging a head against a wall' emoji

No-one is saying it isn't a wonderful experience for the young person.

We are pointing out it isn't a wonderful experience - often the opposite - for the communities that the young person benefits from

Agreed. The people I know who work for the UN / WHO are obsessed with their bandings and where they can make their salary go further.

At the beginning of my career, I was a corporate fundraiser for a hospice. We had dozens of volunteers from our corporate supporters (banks, law firms, accountancy firms) who would all come along once a year and paint a wall or something.

The charity got absolutely no benefit from this, but their organisations paid us tens of thousands of pounds every year and one of the conditions was that we have ‘employee volunteering days’. They wanted employees to feel like they were ‘giving back to the local community’. We needed the money, so we found stuff for these people to do. Dozens of them, from dozens of companies, every year. It was often lots of the same people, so we had to get creative in finding jobs (they couldn’t all just paint the same wall every time).

This is a pretty standard corporate FR model. Do you think the MS centre genuinely needed inexperienced office folk to build benches and put up fences or do you think they’d rather have had a bit of money to allow them to pay skilled labour to do it?

Presumably you have skills. I think you’ll find that there are charities out there that need those skills, whatever they might be, and would gain more from them than from you inexpertly painting a fence. If you’re interested, have a look at opportunities on Reach Volunteering.

It's not humbling though. They eventually set into their middle class, Tory voting lives.

From the degree admissions perspective, in most cases it would all be completely irrelevant. Universities are interested in (a) A Level grades and in some cases (b) proven interest in/engagement with the subject being applied for. I can see some cases in which volunteering could meet criteria (b) if the candidate were able to reflect on it and the connection to the subject in the PS. But I certainly can't imagine a case in which voluntourism would trump volunteering in the UK just because it was 'abroad'.

Surely £2.5k could pay for a playground, and pay some local people to install it?

That’s not fair or true, not all the young people who participate are middle class. Don’t use such sweeping statements.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

I’d be interested to know how many of the critical posters are supporting resource poor countries. I think there is a lot to be gained from appreciating how privileged most of us on here are.
And before I’m slated, I work with SSA health professionals and travel there as a professional and have done for 15 or so years.

It’s a hell of an experience for young people, lots of hard work and quite humbling. Yes, it looks good on their cvs but is well deserved.

The reality is, I imagine, the kids that get the "amazing humbling experience" and to travel to the far flung places to volunteer, are probably pretty well travelled and have had all sorts of amazing experiences anyway because their parents can afford it. These trips cost ££££ so even with fundraising for part of it, only a certain demographic can afford to go anyway.

I don't know any of my working class peers who would have been able to get friends and sponsor me for £2.5k to do one of those trips.

This is a middle class gig.

raises hand

Baffles me too , sponsoring people for a charity to go and climb Everest - why not just get sponsored for something cheap and local and give them all the money not less an expensive adventure !

Oh I'm with you OP. Growing up my sister did all of these, got some amazing trips, became a doctor, did MSF and everyone thinks the sun shines out of her arse. Whereas I think she's just always been paid by other people to have some amazing experiences and it pisses me off (esp because she still expects me to sponsor her running marathons, but I don't think she ever donates from her salary!)

Not necessarily true. I’ve known students work their arses off to participate. One was working in a cafe every spare hour and making dog treats to sell as well as other hustles to fund herself. Her mum certainly couldn’t afford it.

I am. I’m also from one such country. If you RTFT, I think you’ll find there’s quite a few of us.

I get requests like this all the time. From adults as well as school children.

I am not paying for someone else's experience however charitably it is spun.

DD did a World Challenge trip to Peru for a month in 6th form with her state school. She worked her ass off for 2 years saving every penny she could-we met some of the cost. I would not have dreamt of asking for ppl to pay for her to do this.

There was a huge charitable aspect-they dug latrines and helped build a school and volunteered in an orphanage but also trekked and camped and climbed Machu Picchu and had an amazing experience. These organisations are very slick.

At then end of the day it is a volunteer vacation and however well meaning I would not be paying for anyone else to take one...

One of the few 'advantages' of coming from a poor developing country bearing the brunt of climate change is that there is never any dilemma about who to give to donate to.

My money goes directly to those most in need, managed by my relatives. No Oxfam inflated wages, nothing.

My son did lots of volunteering (and still does) as he did DofE Gold. He's also travelled extensively, mostly funded by himself thanks to the job he got. I'm not at all regretful that he didn't go to Malawi on a white saviour trip.

OP, completely agree.

I have known quite a few teens who have gone on these trips and had the most amazing experience apparently.

I also think raising the money and gifting it directly would be far better, but then there wouldn't be the wonderful experience.

My children's schools do these trips and slap their own backs in doing so.

I have heard many parents remark that the money would be better gifted and how tiresome it is having siblings requesting heavty sponsorship for what they view as a jolly.

My daughters classes, among others, did a series of bake sales to raise money to be used to buy school materials for the children being visited.

I went to the pitch for one of these charitable African trips and basically your sponsorship or donation as the company likes to call it is your friend’s son’s friends, family and anyone else paying for him to go to Uganda. I had lots of questions which didn’t go down well as they exposed the questionable practices. Personally I wouldn’t sponsor anyone for this type of trip. The downside of that is the parents are liable for any shortfall.

Good for them, but they're spending their own money and can spend it how they like.

Bear in mind, they don't usually ask for a DBS check of any kind. Someone I knew went to a third world country to work in an orphanage and just as she arrived, a guy at that orphanage was arrested for sexual abuse in his home country. He'd been allowed to work at the orphanage without any check at all.

I agree with you completely, @EmmaGrundyForPM. Generating 2,000 tonnes of CO2 to take work away from a Ugandan tradesman who probably desperately needs the work. If he would give the £2,500 to charity instead of flying to Uganda himself he would make a much bigger contribution to the wellbeing of children in the village, as well as having less of a detrimental environmental impact.

I hate this white saviour shit, and I hate that people applaud kids for it.

YANBU, now there is so much awareness of the harm caused by 'voluntourism' it is surprising it still goes ahead. So many issues, including safe-guarding, taking jobs that could go to locals, sustainability, etc., etc. The sponsorship aspect is really gross, as it is effectively using images/stories from Uganda to pay for a holiday.