To think voluntourism needs to be called out?

[icreaminbarnsley]

I've had numerous requests this year by parents of teen dc who are going to various African countries to contribute to their crowdfunding "to help the people in [insert country]". They further explain that said child will be building schools/wells, teaching English, designing sanitation projects....but the latest I received was that their child would be "advising locals on how to set up a business". This in particular has really annoyed me, as the child is doing A Levels, has no business of their own, and no business acumen that I'm aware of. How can you be so brass necked and unaware to be spouting stuff like this? I totally get going to a different country is going to be a fantastic experience for the dc, but who is dressing it up to make it sound like these teens have something important to offer and are needed abroad, in areas that they have absolutely zero experience? I also get that the locals might benefit from the money that the dc need to pay to undertake such an experience, but is it really the locals who benefit, or is it the mainly the 'charitable' organizations that are based in the UK?

AIBU to feel we need to call this a unique opportunity to experience life in [insert country] and not delude ourselves into thinking the locals are benefitting from groups of western teens, who are not builders, engineers or business advisers?

Why would I have taken photos? It’s a common occurrence . Also manufacturers are not responsible for their stuff being shoddily erected. They are probably quite happy with the frequent repeat orders anyway!

They’re not going to help anyone. They’re middle class lefties (or children of) who are going off on a jolly. But of course a normal holiday or time away without any pretense wouldn’t be virtuous enough, it would t come with brownie points or the status symbol or ‘be kind’, ‘socially conscious’ or whatever the new label is.

It has to be in Africa, with ample pictures ‘helping’ poor black kids to satisfy their white saviour syndrome.

And then they come back, go to university, sorry, propaganda centres, to study their Mickey Mouse humanities degrees, join the public sector to lecture us all on flying too much, eating too much meat, driving too much, not sitting around in freezing homes yo build our characters and generally being too frivolous and climate change deniers.

Honestly playground equipment is reasonably affordable in Africa. It's made locally where materials and labour are cheap. It's madness to think it needs huge amounts of investment or man hours from Brits.
Sometimes it deteriorates, sometimes it is dismantled and sold.
The money really isn't being spent on play equipment, nor is the presence of foreigners of any use in the slightest.

I refuse to donate to any parent who asked me to fund their child’s holiday. Even the pushy parent who wanted £12 for a lemon cake she’d made to raise funds.
I don’t call it out, but if pushed I’ll say I don’t agree with the scheme.

The issue with dodgy playgrounds has been known for years. There often are no ‘manufacturers’ - the playground equipment is built from scratch, often to standards that would never be acceptable in the UK.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/06/22/habitat-for-humility/

https://mancunion.com/2017/09/19/voluntourism-harms-communities-make-a-difference-stay-at-home/

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/sep/13/the-business-of-voluntourism-do-western-do-gooders-actually-do-harm

They should actually offer these trips in a totally different, transparent and honest way.

They could offer a chance for a group visit/travel, to expand the minds of young people visiting, and a big part of it being the money spent on the trip going in to local projects. Eg. A PP mentioned people basically shadowing conservation workers - if this was advertised honestly as such "A chance to see what goes on" and the money you pay going directly to the project work, it would be ok. It's the idea that you're being helpful in any other way than fundraising that is the problem.

Over 20 years ago we had this sort of thing going on via school. It was advertised as tourism, completing a trek as part of it, and the final week "giving something back" which was the bullshit voluntourism part. Slightly better than some of these trips, but if it had been more "see some of the projects your fee is funding" I think it would have been ok.

(I didn't go. I looked into a similar thing a few years later, but thought £3000+ for 3 weeks was too much, so took myself off backpacking for 5 weeks on less than £1000! By then I was also very aware the trip was for me and sceptical of many of them.)

I know for a fact African people are sick of the brits going over to their country , raising money etc as it never gets to the right people. Inside they would like to build factories and be shown how to run small businesses so they can work which gives them a sense of pride, instead of young people telling them what to do, it's very condescending ...

No, you’re right.
I’ve had a successful business that I gave up when my late partner got poorly. I ran it for 9 years and left on a high. I still wouldn’t think I’m capable of giving business advice of any benefit to them unless I’d had experience in the field I’m offering advice in. I doubt opening a salon is going to be much use when they haven’t the funds for luxury services.

I completely agree. Going to a country that they'd never ordinarily see at that age is a wonderful experience. Should be sold as that though, rather than 16 year old them rocking up and developing Africa

Having worked for an environmental provider of these sorts of trips, I’ll just say that we used to call it “putting the con in conservation”! Don’t get me wrong it’s a fab experience for your child, and I would absolutely allow mine to do similar when they are old enough. But back in the day (20 years ago) when I worked overseas, the young adults whose parents had funded the trip never worked as hard, cared as much or learned so many things, as the ones who had worked to earn the money for the trip, so even though we could afford these sorts of things for our children, we will be making them earn at least half of the funds needed.

We did the real environmental research work in the periods of time that we didn’t have any ‘volun-tourists’ staying at our research station. While they were there we let them play at being teachers and research scientists, but they really just funded the proper work we did when they weren’t there!

I remember living in an African country and seeing these red faced, immature, kids come from a western country. Totally ditzy and clueless, questionable hygiene.
we thought they were hilarious and gullible and felt they needed more help themselves.

I totally agree OP. When school wanted all young adults to go on a similar trip I was dubious but we decided it would be good for our DC so we paid, under no illusions it would benefit the kids. No way would I have the temerity to ask others to effectively pay for my child’s school trip. As it happened the kids did much more genuine work than us parents had anticipated, but still I honestly think collectively the DC got more out of it than they were able to ‘deliver’.
I think it’s really out of order to ask other people to fund this for your child if you have the funds.
I feel very uncomfortable having to say no but have resorted to (in the same year) ‘I know it’s so expensive isn’t it, we are funding X this year’ or to just saying which charities I’m currently giving time and money to.
So I don’t ’call it out’ as such but no longer pay for other people’s children who could fund it themselves.

Maybe that particular child is actually part of a group that will learn how to advise on a particular side of business in that country?

why are you annoyed and why would you be against it?

Will that child help massively the country? Probably not…will he feel very useful? Very much so so…yeah worth it.

I think you are annoyed against people asking you to participate in crowdfunding…for their children. You don’t have to…but then don’t ask them too.

@Firethehorse , totally agree…a simple « I am funding this myself this year for X » is a clear message that you will not participate.

Omg yes! It’s just a white saviour complex. My son who is completely useless at anything using his hands, went off to build a community centre courtesy of a government grant. that money could have been better spent paying locals to build it themselves as they would do it faster, cheaper, and it would benefit those struggling to get work.

totally ridiculous but obviously wouldn’t say no because of my principles when he wanted to go. Took 4 flights to do it, so great for the environment too. 🙄

When my youngest DSS wanted to do a scheme like this I did some research. I found that many of them are complete scams in that, it doesn’t cost anything like what is paid and the projects are often torn down & site cleared for the next group. When I said this, none of them wanted to hear it so off he went. He did enjoy it and it was an ‘experience’ but frankly he could have worked for a genuine charity at a fraction of the cost.

The only "voluntourism" I'm willing to fund is when people with actual skills go to do something worth doing. E.g i donated to a local doctor who regularly goes out to poor country with a charity and vaccinates kids in rural villages who can't get to clinics.

I can't stand stupid enterprises (usually peddled by christians ime) teaching people to use sewing machines or repair cars etc, it rarely leads to real economic improvement.

Will that child help massively the country? Probably not…will he feel very useful? Very much so so…yeah worth it

That's utter shite!
DC need to learn to differentiate between clever marketing, coaxed into spending ££££ and actually being useful by doing something worthwhile.

There is plenty of research how tourism can be of benefit to local communities and historic sites - but volunteerisem isn't included.... I wonder why.

But should we really be using residents of poorer countries as teaching tools for our teenagers?

Also a lot of these projects don’t just ‘not help’, they cause active damage to the local community. Surely benefiting the (usually white) teenager at the expense of the local (usually non-white) community is classic colonialism?

And that’s without the racism (no, untrained Tarquin and Jacinta are not automatically better at doing things/ building things than a local just because they are white / from Western countries).

I think these are great opportunities for young people but we have to stop pretending they’re of huge benefit to the communities they visit. My son wanted to do a £5000 trip to help with building work for four weeks but £5000 would pay the salaries of two professional builders in that country for an entire year which is a completely different scenario to an 17-year-old with no experience of building at all. I told him that, if he wanted to do it, then he should develop some useful skills and volunteer as an adult.

All these parents saying it sounds like such a great opportunity they couldn't possibly say no. Please say no.
Send them on a fabulous holiday and have them assemble some ikea ĺfurniture for their nan instead. Same experience, without the damage.
You're not doing your kids (let alone anyone else) any favours by feeding into the delusion that they are helping.

I would like to add that when DC participated, it was practically mandated the year group should ALL go by 6th Form Head and we are not in Europe so about 10 white faces out of 100+. I think we need to take the ‘white’ out of this and be more considering the other important points raised. We already knew it was no longer a stepping stone to get into Uni/job as do most people now.
At least the 6th Form did a lot of work to check out the company the kids would be ‘helping’, they made the kids do the unskilled quite hard work and they were v honest about how much of the cost went to supplying materials, local tradespeople etc. They will work with the same Company for a minimum of 5 years and other fundraising is done. It’s not perfect, I still have reservations but the point made earlier is valid, maybe these countries could do the things themselves but they are not and so the locals do benefit.

There is a better less glamorous way:

https://traveltrade.visitwales.com/fact-sheets/wellbeing-outdoors/volunteering-holidays

I have been supporting a young girl who is having to raise £2000 to pay for her school trip to Tanzania. She’s arranged walks, quizzes, tours of historic villages, raffles, cream teas. She’s done menial jobs for neighbours for minimal money and has put in all her savings. If she needs money after all her efforts I will gladly contribute. I am not so sure I would have been willing to contribute to someone who is not willing to do anything to help themselves and is just asking for crowdfunding, or asking for money for sponsoring something that is only enjoyable to them.

DC need to learn to differentiate between clever marketing, coaxed into spending ££££ and actually being useful by doing something worthwhile

Spot on, @DancefloorAcrobatics, and this is an important life skill in itself, but it doesn't lend itself to Insta pics so isn't likely to be so appealing

I'm reminded of a couple of teens I know who went, and while their parents jabbered about how much they got out of it and how worthwhile it all was - which was to be expected given how much they'd spent - most of the kids' takeaway was that they couldn't get a good enough signal on their phones