Voluntourism is a multibillion dollar industry.
It sells wealthier people
access to impoverished and struggling communities
in exchange for
a life-affirming experience.
Kids would see vans of volunteers pulling towards them,
and they’d quickly rub dirt on their faces
so that they’d be more appealing, ironically, to the volunteers
and look like they needed more help.
Each of us paid thousands of dollars to go on this trip.
Of that trip fee,
almost none of it
went to the orphanage.
The primary goal, we were told, was to build a library.
Our work was so bad
that the local builders who were working alongside us
would come back while we were sleeping
and undo our work and redo it.
They abused children
in orphanages
while under the guise of being a volunteer.
What you’re being sold is the idea that you’ll help a community.
What you’re really buying is an opportunity to help yourself.
[INFORMER]
[VOLUNTOURISM]
I’ve been involved in voluntourism for over a decade.
The language used by voluntourism tends to be along the lines of,
“You can change the world
and find yourself
all at the same time.”
I wanted to physically go out to be that change,
make a difference, be a global citizen.
I definitely was thinking about
how it would look when I applied to college
and how it would look on my resume.
I convinced my parents to pay a couple thousand dollars
for me to be able to go on this trip to Tanzania.
It was about three weeks long.
For $3,000, we would get to volunteer in an orphanage,
teach some English lessons,
play with some kids, go on a safari.
I was entirely unqualified and unprepared
and should not have been allowed to do this.
You are going to be working with young children
who are extremely vulnerable.
I came from an all-girls school where I had a walk-in closet,
and I was pulling up to this all-girls orphanage
where they shared bunk rooms without running water.
The primary goal of our time at the orphanage
was to build a library.
We believed that we’d be able to
build the whole thing while we were there—
until you realized that none of us had ever done any construction work.
There was a general feeling that the local workmen were lazy at times
because they were showing up late.
One morning, I woke up and decided to go outside.
I started walking up where we were building the library,
and I saw that there were men working at the construction site.
I realized that they were taking apart what we’d done...
and redoing it.
And then they’d let it set.
And by the time that we would show up to work in a few more hours,
we'd be none the wiser.
I told one of the chaperones from my school on the trip
about what I’d seen
and was advised to keep it to myself.
You have stories of people donating bags full of toys
that the orphanage director then goes and gives to his own kids
or sells or locks in a closet
so the next group of volunteers will donate bags of toys.
Because if they see kids playing with tons of toys,
they won’t bring toys.
If they see kids sleeping on a good bed with a good mattress,
they won’t donate money for better beds and better mattresses.
We did not eat our meals with the children in the orphanage.
We ate separately,
which was a rule at that orphanage.
It was so we wouldn’t know what they were eating.
My typical breakfast at the orphanage
would include fresh fruit juice, hard-boiled eggs,
toast, jams, butter.
The children were most often having beans and rice
that they cooked themselves.
We also would help them sort the pebbles out of the beans.
A number of times,
the girls were expected to sing for us.
The exchange for them having a really good meal
was to sing and dance.
We were a predominantly white group.
When I was in Tanzania,
a young woman was questioning her sexuality
and was being encouraged by this volunteer to live openly.
The reality of this young woman’s life
was that she lived in a community where doing so would put her at
very great physical danger.
And so this volunteer was so focused on her own moral compass
and moral values
that she couldn’t quite see
how the advice she was giving
this young woman
could potentially kill her.
The directors of the orphanage
did not see the children’s health as a priority.
We were advised by other long-term volunteers at the orphanage
that when residents did get malaria,
despite there being money to pay for them to get medical care,
they were not provided
with medical care.
The leadership of the orphanage were unwilling to spend the money.
Eighty percent of children who live at orphanages
have not lost one or both parents.
They are not orphans.
They don't have birth certificates. They don't have IDs.
No one knows who they are or where they are.
These children are anonymous.
The thing that really haunts me
is the connection between orphanages and child sex trafficking.
There are Brits, there are Americans,
there are Australians who’ve been arrested.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg
for exploiting children
and abusing them sexually and physically
while making money from people like me
who wanted to do good.
They abused children
in orphanages
while under the guise of being
a volunteer.
Voluntourism is continuing to grow as an industry.
During the pandemic,
the trip providers who were the most successful
were actively marketing trips to Tanzania
as an opportunity to escape COVID and pretend like it didn’t exist.
You can say that you are
giving 100 percent of fees back to a community without doing that.
You can say those things
because no one's checking up on you.
No one’s verifying
that this is happening.
The reason why it continues to increase
is that many of the experiences
that are similar to what I had as a volunteer,
of having children running towards me
and wanting to sit on my lap and wanting me to carry them,
are still so emotionally compelling.
They’re still so alluring.
It feels so good
that it’s really easy for someone to apply exceptionalism.