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?

Thank you for starting this thread. I already knew some reasons why these trips were problematic but certain posters have added further layers which I hadn't been fully understanding of. Particular thanks to @IMissVino and @Sigma33

The patronising quotes about local people wanting to help them (as in the volunteers)

Er no they probably want to help themselves without a load of young tourists doing a bit of feel good volunteering

Thank you. As I said, it was life changing and I get very caught up emotionally

@EmmaGrundyForPM

I echo what everyone else has said, (taking the work away from others who live there/potentially pulling it down for next lot/white saviour bullshit lalala,..) And in addition like FUCK am I funding someone else's trip to another country. No way!

This reminds me .......... Before covid, every 7th or 8th time I went into Sainsbury's or Tesco, there was a bunch of maybe 20 or 30 teenagers on the tills offering to pack my shopping for me, and excepting me to stick some money in a bucket at the end of the checkout... To pay for their scout or local football team's trip to fucking New York/Japan/Morocco etc, to play against the amateur teams there. Yeah, like FUCK am I going to be paying for your trip to another continent. LMFAO!

Thankfully, since Covid, we don't seem to get this shit now, as nobody wants anybody handling their shopping.

YANBU! It’s cheeky, outrageous and not acceptable imo! It doesn’t help the people in the local Ugandan communities at all. If he genuinely cared, he’d be raising money for a reputable charity that could use that money to actually transform people’s lives. Volontourism is a disgusting practice and I would not be helping to facilitate it.

@Sigma33

As you were addressing me, you were clearly thinking something about me. Not my feelings though, as you just said. Not that it matters, because you didn't effect my feelings at all. I was just pointing out that not all of us do these things for our own benefit or trying to be white saviour, posing for selfish etc.

As an academic psychologist I also have very grave concerns about this, though, and I have flatly discouraged our students from doing this sort of activity.

I am of course assuming that the individual volunteers do not already have mental health training (I don't mean a psychology degree - which does not qualify you to work as a psychologist - a HCA or social care qualification at a minimum). Qualified staff are obviously a different matter and should be deployed within a recognised and established organisational framework for skills exchange that is designed to support the local community and develop sustainable structures for human and other resource management.

It is not ethical to work in these roles as an 'aspiring psychologist' without proper training and supervision (which is very, very unlikely to be available), and opens the volunteer and any individuals using the service up to a really wide range of unacceptable risks.

That's right @DarkShade academics have to do due diligence on their partners and before any research is funded go before an ethics committee that weigh up the benefits, conflicts and harm of all projects.
I hope that you are reassured because I believe 100% of DHs colleagues around the world see this kind of harmful, money making scam it is. They expect the brightest of our students to have developed critical thinking skills and applied it to their life choices.
Obviously at interview the marking scheme is strict but if you have a wobbly answer that could go either way, an African human safari on the Personal statement is never going to be a positive no matter how your parents, teachers or church leaders spin it. It would be seen as white saviour and British Universities have worked very hard over the last decade to get away from that, it always discussed at strategic levels.

Oh my. This thread has opened my eyes more than any other I've read on MN - and I've been here for 14 years.

Voluntourism isn't something I'd given an awful lot of thought to over the years. Nobody from my deprived district of Glasgow had it on their radar, and there's no chance any teens from there were in a position to fundraise £2500 to facilitate it.

It came into my scope five years ago when DH and I got an email from DSiL, saying that DNiece was planning a trip to Uganda to help the local community, and could we offer a contribution.
It's worth mentioning that DSiL and DBiL both earn in excess of £200k, and that DN attended an exclusive private school.
Between the two of them, they organised a fundraising event with similarly affluent friends, and reached the target within a couple of hours.
I contributed £50, which was a bit more than I could afford, but did it in the interests of familial harmony.

Even after doing so, it didn't sit right with me. I queried what DN would be doing in Uganda to "help". I also asked if DN couldn't just take a train from Weybridge to, say, Tower Hamlets - and offer some help there?
DSIL and DBiL both winced at this suggestion. It wouldn't have been safe for her, apparently.

I can't remember now how long DN was supposed to be going for - but, she managed 3 days. She didn't like the accommodation she was staying in, as it was "very basic".
Also, she said she'd been asked to do some babysitting one day, and felt unsafe because she was white and they were black.

On day 4, DSIL and DBIL booked her a return flight to the UK, and nothing has ever been mentioned again.

@JockTamsonsBairns

Your niece sounds horrid.

Win - win is a business deal. This is being promoted as 'charity' that the op and others should sponsor. It's no such thing, it's depriving local tradesfolk of work in these countries while posh kids get to feel virtuous. I find it very unsavoury.

I'm afraid she is. I do feel awful saying that, but I guess she was like many other super privileged teens that age - going out for a CV enhancing trip under the guise of "helping the less fortunate".

Like I said to my in-laws, there would have been plenty opportunities for her to "help" in London - just a short train ride from Surrey.
But, not surprisingly, that idea didn't quite carry the kudos.

Her 3 days in Uganda did nothing to 'expand her horizons'. Quite the opposite in fact.
I had the misfortune to spend a weekend with her and her parents a few months later, at my PiL's wedding anniversary - she had the typical privileged attitude of holding court at the dinner table (aged 19), saying "The problem with these African nations is that they do nothing to help themselves...."

Awful young woman, but very much a product of her upbringing.

I was in Sri Lanka a year after the Tsunami

Lots of support that was needed unfortunately infiltrated by lots of students on gap years who wanting an experience

some moaned how the locals were lazy no thought was given that their jobs had been taken or their wages dropped

one told me she hoped she could inspire the young children (she was teaching with a charity) with her travelling tales and maybe they too one day would backpack across the world and experience life

Surely the local people in Uganda could fill those 'appropriate jobs in much the same way apprentices do here'

Knowing it's mostly a jolly/CV filler is so patronising.

Interesting thread @EmmaGrundyForPM

Yanbu

Emails like that asking for funding for an ill-thought out (white saviour) project like that annoy me. It's all very self serving.
I wouldn't sponsor your friends DS for that either, for all the reasons you raised.

I don’t even know him and I’m proud of him. What a fantastic man

There could be schools and/ or local parks that could benefit from this on the u.k. So an alternate is to find alternate local charities.even support a local pta. :)

It's a wonderful opportunity doing it here or abroad.

I took part in an overseas charity house build. There were experienced local tradespeople on site doing most of the hard work and we just assisted.

This could end up being a life-changing experience for your friend's son and may make him more rounded and extremely grateful for what he has access to at home. I'd support him all the way.

Of course it's good to volunteer, no one is disputing that. My son did DofE Gold which involved a year of volunteering locally. I also volunteer, as does DH. However, we do so through reputable organisations. The "volunteering" we're discussing here is a different kettle of fish.

If you've read the thread, and the links posted by other posters, you'll see that this sort of voluntourism often does more harm than good.

And of course there's nothing wrong with being middle class. I'm middle class myself. But there is something wrong with people who can afford a holiday themselves asking others to pay for it.

Perhaps you should read the whole thread.

Except that to get onto a building site in the UK you need a CSCS. The Green Labourer Card allows individuals to work on construction sites in entry-level positions. It is issued as part of the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) and is valid for 5 years.

Kids rocking up with zilch skills or safety training is fine so long as it's somewhere foreign.

IMissVino, well said. This, and all of your comments on this thread. I wish I was surprised by how many of us have totally dismissed your personal and professional experience.

I do seem to have hit a nerve with @Prescottdanni123 - they've responded again upthread 😁

There is no doubt it’s good for most of the voluntourists. It’s just really bad for the local communities and many people in this thread think advantaging privileged (usually white) Western teenagers at the expense of deprived POC (including children) in third world countries is not a good thing.

There are posts on this thread linking to newspaper articles on the subject and posts from people who actually work in the field. You may want to read them.

@JockTamsonsBairns , TBH I’m shocked that your niece was allowed to go home early.
Our niece who went on one of those trips (all highly privileged kids of very well off families) said there was one boy who just refused to do any of the work (IIRC they were helping to build a school toilet block) but everyone else mucked in. She was disgusted with that boy. Their accomm was very basic, IIRC cold showers, etc., but niece thoroughly enjoyed it all. I still don’t approve of those trips, but at least it helped to emphasise to them how very fortunate they were, compared to so many others.

On a similar tack, when dds were 15 and 18, we took them on a safari holiday to Kenya. Everywhere we went, children were clamouring for pens. At one point I bought a whole box of Bics, so as to have enough to dish out,
I still remember a dd saying with wonder, ‘They’re so happy, just to get a pen!’ And they were.