Poverty is Not a Tourist Attraction
i want to change the world
i want to help people less fortunate
than i am
i want to make a difference in their
lives
those are my thoughts growing up
watching charity ads on tv
sending celebrities abroad to save
people in poverty
and being exposed to the glamour of
charity work
before i started my degree i was lucky
enough to travel the world
meet people like myself who wanted to
make the world a better place if you
wanted to end world hunger make poverty
history fight for equality and justice
you had the same passion but i wasn’t
sure how to put my passion into action
it turned out to be pretty simple i
googled it i googled how to help poor
people
and suddenly all these organizations
popped up on my screen selling me a once
in a lifetime experience a cultural
experience an experience that will make
a difference
it was an industry conveniently
combining volunteering and tourism
an industry that told me that people in
low-income countries
needed me if only a thousand pounds a
week
i could go off change their lives
relieve their suffering
add some skills to my resume but the
best part was
relevant skills or experience were not
required
and that was it i found it the way to
change the world
it’s simple isn’t it
let me introduce you to voluntourism
where i was sold
that once in a lifetime trip to travel
and contribute a few weeks of giving
back
to the communities i visited my first
trip was in india when i was 18 years
old
i participated in a teaching project
working alongside a qualified indian
teacher
the organization i was with never gave
me a set curriculum to follow so i made
up the lessons as i went along
i got back to london a few weeks later
feeling that it made a difference
i did good and i felt good it was only
until later when i started to question
my intentions and
why i was there if there was already a
qualified indian teacher on this project
why was i there
the teacher was a lot more skilled in
experience than i was at 18 years old
fresh from my a levels which i barely
did well in and now i was given a
responsibility to deliver
quality education i realised teaching
was probably not the best way to make a
difference
but surely the world needed healthcare
volunteers so i gave it another go at
changing the world and went to ghana
on a medical experience project i was
traveling around rival ghana with
volunteers some were qualified medics
and others were not
despite the skill mix we went around
villages to set up mini clinics dress
wounds donate some medical supplies
after only a few days though i decided
to leave
what i saw and experienced truly
disturbed me
the organization i was with orchestrated
parades and celebrations
whenever we arrived in a village we have
children running up to us singing songs
and pranks dancing in crowds
whilst the organization filmed this
whole entire moment
this whole spectacle was dehumanizing
and undignified
in these promo videos we were painted as
the heroes
were we really the heroes were we really
making a difference
one day i brought a child into a clinic
with suspected malaria
i remember the nurse’s reaction to me
she rolled her eyes
and said another one of you lot brought
the same girl in here yesterday
why come here when we are already here
she made a point that phrase still
resonates with me
why come here when we are already here
so why was i there i was there because i
was told i was needed
from a young age the only images of
low-income countries i had were of
children unkempt communities deprived
followed by people from higher income
countries appearing to save them from
their misery
and put a smile on their face these
images are still prevalent today
in marketing international volunteer
projects
some of these projects cost up to a
thousand pounds a week so volunteers
with good intentions would invest their
time
and their money into projects such as
teaching construction
conservation child care whilst most of
the time these organizations do not
require relevant skills or experience
and at worst they fail to run thorough
background checks
from my experience these projects are
designed for us
and not the host community and that’s a
problem
we’re paying for an experience that only
benefits us and fulfills our altruistic
desires
with limiting long-term benefits for
them
so is voluntourism doing more harm than
good
i think so here’s the elephant in the
room
we are making poverty a tourist
attraction
one way we have done this is through the
business of orphanages
orphanages are a top destination for
voluntourists where they can go and play
with kids donate some nice things
show some general love care and
affection to a vulnerable group of
children
keep in mind what i said earlier some
organizations fail to run thermal
background checks on these volunteers
orphanages are seen as business ventures
they purposely have unlivable conditions
with inadequate resources to care for
children
yet these same orphanages have a
constant stream of volunteers
donating and paying to be there research
continues
to tell us that institutionalizing
children is harmful to a child’s
development
when you think about a child running up
to you seeking affection
may be on the surface as a sweet gesture
but in reality it’s a sign of an
attachment disorder
resulting from a revolving door of
short-term volunteers
offering love leaving and never
returning
there are eight million of these
children living in orphanages
yet eighty percent of them are not real
orphans they have at least one living
parent
not only are children placed in
orphanages due to socioeconomic factors
but
children are continuing to be separated
from their families
and trafficked as income generators for
the volunteer tourism industry
this is an abuse on the rights of the
child and children have now become
commodities
in some ways we are also susceptible to
these exploitative strategies
whilst on these projects eyewitness
groups of volunteers hand out donations
to the locals with good intentions of
course
after speaking of some locals i
discovered that on a weekly basis
volunteers would come and donate books
toiletries clothes
to the point they received so many they
started to sell them
i respected their hustle and initiative
to make a business from the volunteers
charity
but what i don’t respect are these
organizations false representation of
how helpless these people are
as if they have nothing another story i
heard goes like this
volunteers fund raise thousands of
pounds to go and build a school which is
all well and good but none of them had
any construction experience
so they attempted to build this school
little do they know every evening the
local laborers would knock down their
work and rebuild it themselves overnight
once complete the volunteers took their
selfie made it to the school newsletter
and got all the credit for building this
school
that money they fundraised could have
been used a lot better
instead of paying for their flight
ticket perhaps that money could have
been given to the local labourers to
work and build a school for their
community
see by having these volunteers work for
free this puts skilled individuals out
of work
jeopardizing that community’s chance for
real growth
can you imagine what this must do to an
economy are we also culprits and keeping
the poor poor
this is what needs to change i’ve grown
tired of seeing the same poverty pawn in
the media
painting low-income countries as totally
incapable and in need of services from
volunteers who are not skilled or
experienced
this type of content is what creates
harmful stereotypes of the world’s
poorest
they deserve to be treated with dignity
and respect but we’ve exploited them
as props for the volunteer tourism
industry
these people are skilled workers they’re
activists and they deserve a platform to
celebrate the work they’re doing in
fighting for change
but it’s not too late to make a
difference
we need to take sustainability seriously
we have funded too many people to go on
their trips to offer a band-aid and we
should be focused on long-term solutions
we have 17 sustainable development goals
from the united nations to achieve by
2030
i’m concerned that volunteer tourism is
disrupting us from doing that
for example goal number three for good
health and well-being we need to stop
allowing untrained volunteers to treat
sick people
goal number four for quality education
we need to stop sending volunteers with
no experience with children to teach
goal number eight for decent work in
economic growth we need to invest in
local communities
and not replace skilled workers with
free and inefficient labour
i have a question to leave you with what
does global citizenship
mean to you for me it’s understanding
the world and my place in it it’s taking
an active role in my community for a
fair and sustainable society
i want to be a better global citizen i
want to see less corruption and
exploitation for the world’s poorest
and here’s where we can begin by
stopping poverty becoming a tourist
attraction