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?

Well really. People will criticise and spoil anything these days. Amazing that they could fault something that would be good for all concerned in one way or another.

Our church has connections with one in a less well off country. We have visited several times, sometimes doing children's work, sometimes doing building, sometimes doing English 'teaching'. Do they need us to help build anything? Nope, they are great at it but having some friends who take an interest in their lives and work, coming out to spend time with them is very much appreciated. The visitors from our church usually just carry bricks or fill buckets of water!! This relationship has gone on for many years and if my child wanted to go out there, I'd be happy. ( But I wouldn't ask others to pay for it) They learn so much from each other. There is something to be said for being alongside people different to yourself in some ways. I agree that many of the projects can be problematic, but I think it is possible to do some genuine good. We do bring some gifts for the children ( we specifically ask what they want), we bring money for our food and pay for our own flights. We have a much deeper understanding of this country than is portrayed in the news etc, which I do think is valuable. We are not ' white saviours' but actually friends, can speak a bit of the language etc. They constantly ask us to come back. People in other countries don't necessarily just want money sent to them, although that can help. An interest in their lives is important too.

What is the money going towards? His flights and accommodation - if so that's definitely wrong as he should be paying for these things himself. I too disagree with these sponsorships where you are basically paying for someone else to have a free holiday, doing something that they want to do anyway.

I agree. It's very similar to a sponsored sky dive. I will not pay for someone's holiday/activity, dressed up as charity.

As well as all of Queen's points there have been some pretty big safeguarding fails whereby children are sexually abused by these volunteers/gap year people, suffer emotional abuse from bonding with their helpers who then disappear home etc etc.

Some returning volunteers report breakdowns from being exposed to poverty and a sort of survivor's guilt.

It's not a healthy relationship for either side. I'm out.

"Sponsor me to travel the world - it's for a good cause, honest"

And do we know all the people going are white before going on about “white saviour complex”. Bit rude to assume no non-whites ever do these.

I don't agree with these trip.

as for

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.

this^.

Its a response from someone that hasn't got a clue of the stress of running any trips for a school.

There'll be experienced people supervising them and it'll be subject to safety checks I'm sure. What's the alternative? No playground. Wonderful. If you don't want to sponsor him then don't, but the kid is trying to do something good for others. Why shoot him down?

There's no shortage of labour in developing countries, least of all unskilled labour! And people there need the work to feed their families. The foreign workers they need are professionals who can teach or use their skills.

Tourism may not look good on a CV, but it does a hell of a lot more to support a developing country's economy. Especially if you avoid the big international tour companies and use locally owned services.

Threads like these and posts like the OP make me depressed for humanity.

Why doesn’t he do something constructive to raise money, like doing a sponsored litter pick?

what experience does he have of construction that mean he can actually do something constructive?

how is he go8ng to offset the carbon footprint?

much better sending money and employing local people

Thanks, that's exactly what I'm worried about.

Yes, how many local workers could be employed for £2500 - for a week or two?

I used to live in Kenya and voluntarism was absolutely rife in the community near to where we lived. It always seemed to be rich teenagers, on a "trip" with their private school or else on a gap year with some organisation that charge a stupid amount and get very little "work" done.

Don't get me wrong, there were some fantastic charitable organisations who do incredible work and without which many poor communities would struggle far more than they already do, I did and still do donate to many of them, but they very rarely have teenage rich kids working with or even alongside them.

I wouldn't donate either, it wouldn't be benefiting anyone other than the teenage boy and the tourism company he's going with, you're basically just funding his holiday that I'm guessing their parents could easily afford anyway.

And what particular skills does this boy have that make him the ideal candidate for building a playground? I'm sure there's plenty of people in that particular country who would be able to do it.

As for wanting to do something good... there's plenty of volunteering opportunities in this country ....but no, they want a trip abroad, an experience and something to put on their CV.

Agree on the whole Voluntourism being dodgy and personally don’t agree with it.

But not necessarily him not being helpful because of lack of skills or experience. I once helped build a house for Habitat for Humanity, I have zero skills but still managed to be helpful. They separated those with skills from those who didn’t and gave us appropriate jobs. It was completely supervised and to standard. The house was built in a day (not the UK, but western country with high building regs). The family who got the house had been sleeping in a relatives garage for 2 years and were extremely grateful, they were there serving tea to the volunteers and helping out. Once built it was transported to the right location and finished off by the builders.

I would happily sponsor and support projects like this that were happening in my local community where I saw families benefiting.

I'm not keen on these "projects" though plenty of people I know do them as adults (paying their own way too i should add). I personally think it's down to whether you have specialist skills eg my dd (as an 18 year old) was offered an opportunity to teach music but she is a musician!

This is how it comes across to me too. I wonder how much of the sponsorship actually goes to the cause and how much funds fares

He will be an unpaid grunt. Which is great as he is free labour which means smaller costs, which might be the difference between the project happening, or not happening.

The cost of his return flights to uganda, accomodation etc, is more than just paying for local labour. Probably quite a lot more - these are countries where local people may only earn less than £500 per month.

I don't sponsor voluntourism nor do I sponsor people to go on holiday.

Why? Because I don't want to support voluntourism? Because I'd rather that local people got the work, instead of privileged British kids?

If instead of raising £2500 in order to.pay for his flights and accommodation etc, he set himself a target of £500 to send to a local charity in Uganda, that would be a much better use of money. He could then get a part time job, earn enough to travel to Uganda independently, and spend money in the country. That would be a win-win

Obviously it's not unreasonable to not sponsor someone - you are in no way obliged