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 could do an NVQ course for less expense and send the rest of the money to pay the wages of a low-skilled local worker for several months.

I need to get in on this. If anyone's kids would like to start fund raising now, they can come and camp in my Cornish garden, i'll get the cement mixer and a few spades out. I'll supervise because although I can't lay a patio I'm a highly qualified civil engineer.

I'll organise a photo op with some local long haired, laid back kids for Instagram and your lot can be humbled to hear what it's like to have two buses a day and nothing to do but throw stones at the random pole sticking out the beach.

I will charge 2.5 k because I don't want to devalue the experience. So ten weeks x 12kids x 2.5k is £300,000 yes three hundred thousand pounds. And then I'll knock down the random breeze blocks and get Kevin McCloud in to supervise time serviced artisans with their apprentices gaining experience through a structured period of learning.

Fuck it, I'm going to offer this at Easter as well.

Easter? Think bigger! All year round. Throw in some "teaching" at a school and you solve the teaching crisis too.

No you dont.....but its much more of an adventure. As a secondary school kid I helped out with help the aged....used to visit an elderly lady every week for whatever she wanted...reading...playing a board game... My kids went abroad and volunteered. Changed their lives entirely....they all ended up working for charities out of the UK....its not a bad thing. Why not encourage young people rather than put a dampener on it? the present generations have managed to screw up the UK for the upcoming kids....least we can do is to help them in whatever ways we can.

I did something like this when I was 19. It was very enriching for me, at best useless and at most harmful for the locals.

We painted walls in the local school. The next year another group of volunteers painted over them again. We also taught English. None of us had a background in teaching, we had no idea what the kids already learned, I'd be amazed if they learned anything at all. After 4 weeks our time there was up and a new group of volunteers would come in and do it all again. We all worked with kids, none of us any kind of PVG check at all.

The only useful volunteer I met during my time there was an American woman. She was there for a year, and I believe was able to form longer-term connections and put in place some longer-term structures to prevent volunteers like us from just turning up without a clue. I know she has been back several times and has set up a variety of economic projects, for example to help women's collectives sell their handmade items to international buyers & vendors, and where the profit is used to help kids stay in school longer.

I admit I haven't read the full thread, but I'd like to think there is still a space for volunteers with specific skills or ideas to help improve people's lives (like what VSO does), but sending 18 year olds abroad for a few weeks is not it.

Why do the benefits to your kids trump the harms to the communities they are visiting? Do the people in these areas not count?

there is still a space for volunteers with specific skills or ideas to help improve people's lives (like what VSO does), but sending 18 year olds abroad for a few weeks is not it

I agree. Construction professionals or healthcare professionals could provide valuable training to local workers to provide them with an opportunity to develop specialist skills themselves. But that isn't what these programmes do - it's all about providing "growth experiences" for a bunch of privileged Western kids who are not in a position to contribute anything meaningful, at the expense of the local communities.

The school of thought that believes the development of western kids is more important than the impact on poor communities is downright racist.

The school of thought that believes the development of western kids is more important than the impact on poor communities is downright racist.

100% this.

By all means volunteer. Even volunteer in Africa's poorest countries. But do it PROPERLY. Do it for a useful length of time. Do it through a reputable non-profit after a shed load of research. And make sure that you are offering something useful and that the community actually needs and has ASKED for.

'Volunteering' through a tour company is never, ever for the benefit of the local people. It's a profit making, artificial, damaging holiday and nothing else.

I can assure you it hasn't been beneficial.
Read. The. Thread.

Unless the village in need is planning on building steel frame, out of town shopping centres I'm not sure how useful I'd be as a construction professional.
However I went to uni with two girls from Botswana and a girl from Bahrain, i often wonder how their construction careers went after three years at a UK uni. Shame Brexit and the clamp down on educational visas has made this kind of cultural exchange harder.

The locals are the experts at building with the materials that they have to hand.

My friend studied sustainable building techniques for his degree. He's been out in one of Africa's poorest countries for several years, learning as much as he's sharing. The best kind of volunteering/working abroad is symbiotic.

Unless the village in need is planning on building steel frame, out of town shopping centres I'm not sure how useful I'd be as a construction professional.

Yes, I think any specialist volunteering needs to be led by what communities say they need and ask for. The example upthread about teaching women to sew sanitary pads is patronising in the extreme - there will be plenty of women in these communities who are making their own clothes, a basic sanitary pad is not going to be beyond them!

There will be specialist areas where useful training could be provided by someone with expertise, but in those cases there would be specific skills requirements for the volunteer to fulfil.

At the end of the day, those supporting it would not be happy if they got a load of random young men (women as well, but I’m talking about the reports of SA from male volunteers toward kids on these voluntourism trils) from say, Africa, coming to volunteer with their kids in their school, with no background checks.

But apparently non-white kids aren’t worthy of safeguarding. Who knew?

Is the £2500 to pay for his trip?
Cant his parents pay for it?

@T1DT1Dmama you really need to read the thread. Many people with experience of this type of "volunteering" have provided concrete examples of why it's harmful.

It's not about the money, and yes his parents could easily afford it, it's about whether I want to sponsor someone to participate in what I think is a fairly dodgy scheme. And many of the replies on here have confirmed that it's NOT a good thing to do.

A couple of posters have accused me of not wanting to donate because I'm "tight". It's nothing to do with the money per se - I support a number of charities both in the UK and abroad, and quite often donate to friends who are running marathons etc. It's the cause I'm questioning - AIBU to not sponsor a child's holiday which may be a fabulous experience for him but may cause harm to the community he goes to. Thanks to the posters on here, my fears have been confirmed.

...and we've not even got onto the area of creating dependency in those communities.

Exactly

I went away with Raleigh international. When on the project phases they had all the skilled locals doing the bulk of it, we were essentially the manual labour. Shifting buckets of cement up hills for hours on end that machinery couldn't do etc. The projects were sustainable and organised with local organisations. I think it was really good

Some of the companies are very much rich people tourism, others are genuine.

YANBU

It’s just a load of do-good-ery for the CV.

If they want to help then just raise the money and send it over. That way people in the local communities can be employed to do the work, ergo kids get a playground and locals can work to support their families 🤷‍♀️

YANBU - totally agree.

It’s white middle class privilege giving themselves a pat on the back. Do not agree with these trips at all. Most of the fundraising is to pay for the jolly.

Our school did a trip to The Gambia (I didn’t go, not that we could afford it) and I’ve since married a Gambian and see it from the real side.

But local unskilled labour is always going to be massively cheaper than the cost of flying people from the UK. And the local workers employed will earn money, which will benefit the community.

A load of wealthy western tourists flying over and doing unskilled manual labour as a jolly just takes those jobs out of the local economy.

Even from an environmental perspective, flying people from the UK to do unskilled labour releases significantly more emissions than employing a local. And poor countries are likely to be worst affected by climate change.

It's bad from every possible angle.

This. Every Westerner hauling buckets for free is a local who isn’t being paid a (very small) day’s wage. It also decreases the amount they are paid for similar work as there is more competition for each job.

Raleigh International might be better than the commercial companies in that the work is actually useful but it doesn’t address the problem of local labourers being unable to feed themselves and their families because their jobs are being taken by unpaid labour.

If you are going to say that without the volunteers, there would be no work done as there is no money available, I’d point out that if the voluntourists donated a tenth of the amount they paid for the trip, it would more than cover the wages needed.

I did Raleigh International too (many years ago) and the locals all helped with the manual labour too. As did teenagers from other parts of the host country who were volunteering within their own country. All the unskilled labourers were unpaid. I don't think we took away any paid unskilled labour jobs. If we hadn't been there, I suspect either the building wouldn't have been built, or else it would have just taken longer with local volunteers.

I definitely agree that not all these companies are equal. I think well of Raleigh. But I think incredibly badly of another charity I went away with and really regret my involvement.