Tag: #Voluntourism

Online Volunteering – Squaring the Development Circle

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Globalization has brought about a new dimension to our lives since everything is to hand in this shrinking world where technology is making a real difference (for the better?). However, when you think of volunteering, the first image that springs to mind is this stereotype of young and idealistic Westerners who, eager to live the real story, embark themselves in a fascinating overseas adventure. (I beg the reader’s pardon, perhaps I should have written down voluntourism instead of volunteering).

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At the edge of the abyss – A volunteering movie

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I always remember this Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece while having to deal with an unpleasant situation from which I would rather stay away. His dolly zoom effect replicates perfectly the uncomfortable sensation that you experience when your stomach flinches and the subsequent spinning of the head begins.

Vertigo

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Forced to volunteering – A story of politics in the aid industry

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Marta was about to finish her studies in medicine when she, along with a bundle of fellow doctors-to-be, decided to spend her summer holidays in the Philippines. Blue-eyed and blonde, short and fragile, she is my little niece and the apple of my eye. But she is also self-assured and far stronger than the initial impression that her fragile appearance conveys… And when she felt the spur-of-the-moment drive for joining a humanitarian cause, for living the volunteering experience, and finally, for enjoying two additional weeks in the paradisiacal archipelago, no one in the world was capable of stopping her from crossing the planet. Once back home, she brought her baggage full of countless emotive stories, joy and tears, gratitude from and towards the Filipino people, a worrying sunburn, and hundreds of digital pictures already posted on Facebook and Instagram.          

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Voluntourism in orphanages: The love you give campaign

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Today I want to discuss with you the issue of volunteering with children and more specifically in orphanages. Although the debate around orphanage tourism is not new, it has lately reached new heights with orphanages being linked to cases of sexual abuse, modern slavery and human trafficking (see here). The bigger audience is thus becoming aware of its practices. The entire industry is based on what Leigh Mathews calls the ‘orphan myth’, which ‘is designed to ensure that there is a ready-made source of people, money and resources to support these children. However, the orphan myth is exactly that – a myth’ (Mathews, 2019, p. 46). It is estimated that over 80% of the children in orphanages have living parents.

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