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?

Totally agree, OP. Absolutely in agreement with everything you say. I would not donate to any such request.

I don't know about 'calling out', but it's certainly an opportunity for discussion and information sharing.
Some people are very unaware of the undercurrents and realities of the situations.
Similar to poverty porn, in that things are better depicted, represented and understood than they were 20-30 years ago, but really haven't come as far as they should.
https://frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/is-poverty-porn-a-thing-of-the-past-yes-and-no/

Because Ireland was long colonised by UK so this was a chance for her to feel superior.

Not to mention 80s Ireland had none of those drug problems etc because everyone was a saint 😇

When I worked at an independent school, they organised a trip to South Africa to visit townships and play football and hockey with ‘underprivileged’ children. The £3000 cost included £800 worth of new branded sports kit and a two-day safari. I suggested that each of the 40 kids who were on the list each donate the money and go to Woburn instead. Or at least wear their regular sports kit and donate that portion of the cost. The organiser was mightily offended.

YANBU

I suspect Fabian won’t be doing much harm but won’t be doing any good.

Im sure I read somewhere that a lot of these teen construction projects need to be taken down and rebuilt as they are so shoddy. I suppose removing the building component saves time and effort.

The whole thing is an Industry.
A couple of schools local to me had a scheme where Pupils needed to raise £3000 to go to Burma to do "charity" work. I looked into it and the profits of the company involved were pretty high.
DD decided agianst it when we broke down what she would have to earn on a weekly basis to do it but some kids did and when Covid hit they had a hell of a job to get the mony they had already paid back

Hard agree. World travel is a fabulous experience. Go on safari, visit by all means. But tell teenagers they have anything to offer. The cycle of dependency is so damaging (though by no means unique to Africa), and the profit doesn't go anywhere near a person in any kind of need.
We're moving back to DHs home country (East Africa) next year. Africa isn't all what people think.

Lol. And has a couple of centuries of foreign nose sticking done any good? Surely if we were the magic bullet, the problems would all be solved by now?

Yes! So awful.
and young people teaching English when their own English is subpar. Anyone can get a TEFL qualification (I have one!) but that doesn’t make you a teacher.
It’s all just MC white saviour bullshit and also condescending to the extreme. Hate it. I wouldn’t give any money for this.
I did volunteering in Europe when I was their age for a couple of years. Made much more sense and I am so glad I don’t have the embarrassment now of having to say I did XYZ in Africa 20 years ago.

I am wondering if charitable status if it applies to such organisations should be withdrawn.

I got annoyed about this years ago, people basically asking you to pay for their child to have a holiday of a lifetime! Pay for it yourself!

Completely agree mostly (with the exception for those who have a genuine skill eg my dd was offered the opportunity to teach violin in South Africa to underprivileged children but she was (a) a concert standard player with experience of coaching primary aged children and (b) it was for 6 month and (c) they were offering her room, board and an allowance to do it as they genuinely wanted her! She didn’t do it do to Covid happening alas.) Taking a class of apprentices from a building college is so different to a group of a level students who don’t know one end of a trowel from the other

YABU.

Africa has plenty of successful business men and women, and this narrative that it is a poor and undeveloped continent needing (mostly white) saviours is not particularly helpful. It’s a shame schools and colleges can’t teach their students this, but I guess that wouldn’t fit the imperial wests agenda.

I stopped contributing to these ages ago. In virtually every case, the work could be done better, faster and more cheaply by locals. I suppose the kids might be able to help with English conversation practice, but the idea that they can teach English - with no training or experience - is a joke.
Having said that, a niece did one of these, thoroughly enjoyed it - even the ‘roughing it’ aspect, and IMO it really did open her eyes as to how so much of the much poorer world lives.
But her dad is loaded and nobody was asked to contribute to the costs of her ‘jolly’.

I just don't donate. A child doing A level business studies should learn by shadowing someone who runs a business, or perhaps by setting one up themselves. I do regularly donate to Practical Action, who support people in other countries to develop low impact and appropriate technologies. They're almost entirely run locally and these days the UK is mostly about fundraising.

Yeh it’s another form of “white saviour” I have a few friends who grew up in Kenya / Botswana and the Africa we see is the west isn’t what they associate with Africa.

Could have written this post! It’s so elitist and full of white privilege (and I’m literally not woke at all generally!)

Does that make a difference? Would you let a bunch of kids build your extension "under the guidance of someone who knows how"? Or is it just people in developing countries who have to put up with this shite?

Poor people aren't a teachable moment for spoiled rich kids.

I don’t think these companies are charities or CICs. When the company rocked up to my kids school I checked them out on companies house, the accounts were rather healthy to say the least and privately owned.

Lol. Wasn't there a whole exposé a few years ago about "building schools" where other workers were brought into fix/finish/restart the work overnight. There was a girl who paid thousands to do it & discovered it was all for nothing (& that actually you need experience as a builder to do something like that)

Now I look at all those things like 🤨

It's a con to get money from guilt-ridden and delusional middle class parents and their naive well-meaning kids. The implicit racism is extremely offensive and most schemes put very little money into the local economy.
I know several young people who went on these schemes, teaching English in Nepal: no teaching experience or local language skills. Helping tree planting in Africa: the locals did all the back-breaking labour while the white saviours sat in an air-conditioned jeep. Animal conservation in Africa: shadowing some very skilled and experienced African workers but actually doing eff all work.
I'd have no problem calling it out if the opportunity presented itself. People in the developing world are being used as props for rich kids to feel good about themselves.

A group of unskilled, inexperienced teenagers turning up at a 'third world' village to build a school would be an insult to local men who would welcome the work. A young man asked if he could do some jobs for me as he had to raise thousands to go to Columbia to build a school. I asked him if safety boots and hard hats would be provided and he didn't know what I was talking about. I asked him if he knew how to put up scaffolding safely and the correct mix for concrete. He had no idea. I think kids like him would be a menace on any building site. But I gave him the job of weeding my L shaped vegetable patch for £20. He missed a whole leg of the L shape and dug up my leeks!

One of the worst things about these programmes is that a lot of them are run by Christian charities, and they will actively try to convert people as well.