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?

@DavidPeters.

So the impoverished black children are all part of the African Tourism experience, along with the safari and Indian Ocean tour. If I were to say I was going on a trip to Russia, to see the sights and also go and have a gander at some kids in some rural Russian orphanage, I think people would be horrified. Why is it different? I can hazard a guess.

There are so many children I think about. Mostly I hear the bad news. Beaten to death by the community because he was caught stealing again and again. Found dying on the streets with AIDS and thankfully taken in for the last couple of weeks of his life, he was off his meds too long while in prison for raping a girl (probably passed on HIV to her). Dead from a combination of substance abuse and off his meds in his teens. Last seen selling herself on the streets and abusing drugs.

I remember them as children, desperate for love and a family/parents, but bright, funny and full of hope. So much potential... not maybe for changing the world (although, who knows?), but for being happy, healthy adults.

It breaks my heart. I can see them without needing to look at a photo to remember.

FFS. It has made me cry again for them.

Black children living in poverty in Africa are not your playthings.

Agree that it's shit. At heart I suppose it's a capitalistic exchange. There are parts of the world with very little money, and parts of the world with teenagers who have lots of money and who want to see the poor parts.

I think a better thing to do would be organise activities in schools with peers. Things like: go to Uganda, go to a Ugandan school and for a week and participate in some joint school work with the 17 year olds that go to that school, do some cultural exchange, go on some trips to local places of interest together, and give money to the school / community / council where it takes place. Then the western teenagers get to go abroad with their money; it's not patronising and saviour-y, it's a legitimate cultural exchange; and the money can get given to people who actually know how to build a playground, resulting in someone's salary and also in a better playground.

YANBU. As much as it’s nice he is doing something to help others, the vast majority of that money will be for his trip expenses. And I’d bet that he is not a professional at building a playground. I really thought it had fallen out of favour for school kids to do things like this, it’s incredibly patronising. As you say, imagine the reserve situation!

There are children like that in this country, with every hope and potential but let down by the system.
These problems are only about to get even worse with more cuts.
Why go half way around the world to 'help'?
There is work to be done here.
Doesn't look as good on the CV or uni application?
Mommy and daddies friends won't fund it?
10k! That is the most shocking thing about this whole farce, that anyone would sponser a fit young lad to run such a measly distance.
I can walk that in not much over an hour, god help me some of those kids in Africa are walking it day in day out to fetch water or to go to school.
He does it once and wants paying for his efforts. I don't think so.

YANBU. That amount of money properly invested into the target community would make a far vaster difference than it paying for a jolly for a relatively privileged westerner.

@RaggedRussell Your husband sounds great, and his work admirable but have I understood your last sentence correctly - he marks down students who go on these trips? That seems very unfair, sheltered UK teenagers don't know what on earth is going on with these trips, they often don't see the bigger picture and don't realise that they are treating a country and it's children as a their personal statement altruism line. They think they're actually doing some good and getting to see the world, and it's encouraged by all the trusted adults in their lives, teachers, parents, church.

Yes - whenever I see something like the OP, I wonder if these people think everyone who lives there is stupid.

And the sanitary pads in Uganda... What did the women and girls of Uganda do before well-meaning Western women went over to "teach them to be self sufficient"?

It's all incredibly patronising.

Anyway, @EmmaGrundyForPM YANBU.

When I was 17, I volunteered locally. The coordinator was very keen for us (then) teens to fundraise to go for us to go and build an orphanage in an Eastern European country. It didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense and it was unclear how the "project" would actually benefit from a bunch of unskilled teenagers from the UK.

The whole thing felt very much like a combination of "white saviour complex" (although that isn't what it was called it at the time) crossed with a badly-planned vanity project and not particularly beneficial for anyone (including the "orphans") in the actual country itself.
(Needless to say, I didn't do it.)

I was trying to explain to someone quite recently why voluntourism is so problematic but thank you @IMissVino, you've has articulated all my concerns so much more eloquently.

I've done three trips like this.

The first worked extremely closely with local people. It was part construction, part environmental study, part expedition. The expedition part also included local teenagers and was only for personal benefit, not to help. The construction was overseen by a team of local (paid) builders and also included local volunteers labouring. I personally thought it seemed to work well and I hope benefitted everyone involved.

The second was construction. There were no local labourers - only a single local builder who oversaw our work. It was work that needed doing (school) but unfortunately the local builder was very dodgy - I heard that after we left he was sacked and everything had to be redone because the way he'd designed the foundations was so bad. I have mixed feelings about that project. We had really good relationships with the locals at the school and kept in touch for years. A real shame how it ended.

The last was awful and I'd never support that organisation again. A group of non-medically trained teenagers were sent to help a clinic abroad. We didn't speak the language, and the clinic clearly had nothing useful for us to do at all. We mostly just sat around all day being useless. I think it was immoral for the company to send us at all. A complete waste of everyone's time and money.

Watch this advertisement for the trip that it sounds like the young lad mentioned in the OP is going on. Some notable quotes from the ad:

“We’re all just here to have a good time. You find that these uncomfortable situations can turn out to be more entertaining than being in your shell.”

“The definition of an adventure is when outcomes are uncertain. This is definitely an adventure.” Well what the fuck is that supposed to mean?

A teacher says “Every student is writing their own personal history.”, don’t even get me started on that colonial bullshit.

”There are kids sitting in a bucket dumping fresh water on themselves and you can tell they’ve never done that before in their lives.”

@PontinsBeach what a bullshit video. Actually quite uncomfortable to watch.

"Every day they (the locals) come out and work - as hard as we do, or even more!"

Vomit

Oh my god that video - "I love Africa and I love African people"

"the locals loved helping out because they know this is for them. Everyday they come out and work as hard as we do, or maybe more" - the last bit said in surprise!

"they've already got the right idea. they know what they wnat to do. maybe just giving them the path to then create that."

Awful awful stuff.

The thing is, at 17, I'd have been sucked into it with that ad as well. I simply didn't have the experience or the knowledge to recognise how wrong it is.

It's down to the teachers at that school, and the kids' parents, who should know better, to stop this in its tracks.

Sadly, in the impoverished African country that I know best, the funds from this kind of voluntourism would absolutely be siphoned off and away from the community.

Working for non profits is an incredibly complex area. Ensuring that the money goes directly to those who need it, and to projects that the community has actually chosen themselves and are able to lead in and continue independently when the charity moves on is vital. Voluntourism meets none of those aims.

They are employees of the company. But not necessarily from the community/village that the group is 'helping'. And their pay will be local and barely pennies from that £2,500.

Deals will have been done by the company with leaders of the wider area. And no-one will know what happens to that money.
This company and those like it is not a charity. It's a tour company and will not be regulated with regard to its community 'work'.

@IMissVino

Sigma33 specifically told me that what I was doing was to benefit myself in a rather patronising way. And then preached about how the money I used could have been better spent.

😂😂😂
I am so sorry. Your feelings on this matter should have been at the front of my mind 😂

@saraclara

I can see how a lot of 17-year olds would be sucked in. But I’m sure others can see it for what it is.

I agree though that parents and teachers should discuss it with their child and try to discourage them.

YANBU.

And don't start me on doing a few weeks at an orphanage. It's disgusting.