No, I am not writing today about a new breed of dazzlingly
attractive vampires about to rampage across the Italian countryside...
The term, Voltourists or voluntourists is a
fairly new idiom coined to reference the new breed of travellers, keen to link
sightseeing with doing-good. I’ve written about this before but will write
again as it seems that this issue is a growing trend across the world; the
negative impact of volunteer-tourists upon communities across the globe.
The concept in itself is bred from a worthy
and virtuous consciousness, and it is a concept that should be credited with
the charity which inspires it. There are hundreds upon hundreds of wonderful
projects at work across the world; linking skilled volunteers with communities
to work together. However, there is such a great deal of negativity that comes
with this growth and I find myself facing it day in, day out here in Tanzania.
The basic concept, as mentioned, is worthy.
Many people wish to share their wealth, their time, their care and support and
(in many cases) their skill with others, and allow positives to come out of
both sides of the equation. And for many of these projects, these positives
bloom brightly. On the flip side, however, there are huge rumblings of
negativity surrounding the growing population of companies and projects supporting
voluntourism with, in my opinion, three main areas of concern arising from this
growing trend:
- In-country corruption
- The merit and sustainability of
projects
- The negative ripple effects nourishing
the telling of The Single Story and encouraging a dependency syndrome.
1. IN COUNTRY CORRUPTION
Finally appearing in the national press
this week was the unearthing of the darker side of Nepal’s emerging orphanages.
Fuelled by a growing trend in tourism, many of the orphanages developing in
popular tourist destinations have become highly successful business models
extracting money from well-meaning tourists to go, not towards the welfare and
livelihoods of the children but (more often than not) into the pocket of a
fat-cat.
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How does this work? Well, for a start, many
of the children residing in the growing number of orphanages are not technically
orphans; having one, or in some cases both, parents alive. In many instances
parents are being duped into sending their children to these centres with the
promise of an education; an education that they perhaps cannot afford or
provide due to their family circumstances. Thus, on the outset, the orphanage
centre seems a positive move for the family. On the other end of the corruption
spectrum, well-meaning tourists are coming to visit these orphanages, seeing
the large numbers of children requiring support to fund their housing, food and
education and thus provide the funds to source these needs. But, in so many
cases, the funds go no-where near the children, instead falling straight into
the pockets of the manager, owner or fat cat running the orphanage. In the
report from orphanages across Kathmandu and Pokhara (two of Nepal’s tourist
hot-spots) the findings are that tourists and voluntourism may be unwittingly complicit
in child trafficking. Read more here:
This is not an issue isolated to Nepal. It
is happening across the world. It is, for example, happening about five minutes
from where I am currently living, here in Tanzania.
One of the reasons I have come out here to
work on my books is because of the high levels of negativity surrounding aid
and development in this area of the world and the orphanage business is just
one of the groaning problems emerging.
The growth of orphanages here in Arusha,
one small town within the vast country of Tanzania, is immense. Ten, fifteen
years ago there were perhaps a smattering of orphanages across the region;
namely because of the strong sense of community that exists here. If a family tragedy
strikes and a child finds themselves orphaned, more often than not they will
simply be taken in by the wider family community. Most people here that I know would
call all children in their immediate family “their child” – not their niece or
nephew; no discerning of the fact that the child belongs to their sister or
their brother. There is no literal translatable word for niece or nephew in Swahili;
simply a phrase meaning “The child of my brother or child of my sister” or, what is most frequently used, “my child”, as community here is strong. Thus a child moving
to live in an institute outside of the family is a rarity.
The landscape today, in 2014, in this small
region in Arusha is littered with orphanages. Literally. You cannot go more
than five minutes along the main tourist route without seeing a sign for an
orphanage or a children’s centre.
Do I think it is because, all of a
sudden, community values and the strong teachings of ujamaa have left the
people of Tanzania void of the ability to take in these youth? No. I think it
is because of the growing trend of voluntourism. In fact, I know it is.
Do I think that many of these orphanages
are legitimate? No. In fact I know that they are not.
Do I think that many of these orphanages
are running in the same negative way as the ones mentioned in the press this
week? Yes I do.
One I know well: Good Hope Children’s
Centre, an orphanage that I spent a bit of time with last year. Knowing that
there were over sixty children living together in a very dark, damp and
decrepit building; many of them out of school, it was obvious from the outset
that this was not a happy place for children to be living. Many of the children
were out of school, as the orphanage did not have sufficient funds to pay for
their schooling; there were holes in the roof, a lack of sufficient food to go
around and little in the way of Hope to be found. I originally went with the intention of trying
to work with Mr Elisante, the owner, on finding more sustainable ways to bring income
into the centre beyond his reliance on tourists driving past and giving them
money. However, when I spent time with him, spent time looking at his
accounting books, spent time talking with people in the local area, I unearthed
a much darker picture; one completely void of Goodness.
It appears that Mr Elisante had duped the
assistance of a well-meaning German lady seven years ago, who set up a
fundraising website for him to gain funds to build a school. The school – built
and furnished by wonderfully generous friends of this German woman – is now Mr
Elisante’s house.
It appears also, when angered Germans
stopped helping the orphanage, that Mr Elisante then duped the assistance of a
well-meaning American family, who (again) started a fundraising website for him
to provide money for food, for better housing and for education for the
children. Lots of money was raised through the website (now shut down, but
records standing) but none of this money was in the accounts; none of this
money was visible in the shoddy housing; all of this money was in Mr Elisante’s
pocket.
One of the first things Mr Elisante asked
me to help with on the day we first met was starting up a fundraising website…!
And yet, for many of the tourists driving
past and stopping on the way up to the Arusha National Park for their day’s
safari, it seems a desperately needy place; a place that encourages them to
give their money to help. Because, like it or not, corrupt foundations or not,
it remains that there are sixty kids living there who are suffering every
single day. Not, however, because they are orphans in need of a family, but
because they are a product of a very corrupt yet highly successful
business-model.
This is just one example of one “orphanage”
in one small street in one small town in one country of the world and I do not
for a second think it is in any way unique in its corrupt practices.
2 SUSTAINABILITY AND MERIT
Come back to the world of voluntourism. The
second issue I feel that forms negative ripple effects is the un-sustainability
of so many projects that are at work across the world. It is so very frequent
to find projects where students are flying in to “dig a well” or “build a
school”, “lay a water pipe”, “build some toilets” or “teach”. Volunteers spend
one week, two, sometimes four weeks hard at work, doing their best to “help”
and then, when the time comes to continue their journey, go on their safari, or head back home, the work stops. And then what? In so many cases, nothing.
Nothing, that is, until the next load of volunteers flies in.
Often there are weeks, months, sometimes years between groups, meaning that in
many cases the work has to be started again from scratch. There are hundreds upon hundreds of half-built
schools, crumbling wells, rusty water pipes, broken toilets and empty
classrooms across the world; so many of them products of non-sustainable
projects made for the sake of pleasing tourists and making them feel that they
are doing something good.
Beyond that, I have seen so many cases of
people being put out of a job in order for a well-meaning tourist to come in
and do the job instead. In many countries that I have spent time in, I have
known teachers who have been “temporarily relieved of their duties” by young
eighteen year olds who have come to “teach”. The teachers are sent home for one
week, two weeks etc, and are often not paid during their absence. Meanwhile,
the unskilled youth is left in charge of their class for the duration; with no
knowledge of the local education system, no training in pedagogy and frequently
no understanding of the local language or curriculum. How can we be selling
this to anyone as a good thing?
Add to this the influx of young people
entering voluntourism projects to “build” or “design” houses, schools, wells,
water pipes, irrigation systems etc. How many of these people have any skill, training
or expertise in engineering, architecture, water-systems or agriculture, never
mind any relevant knowledge of the problems of the local area? And, more to the
point, why are local people, local skilled people, not being employed to do
this work? Because we cannot for a second be naïve enough to think that there
are not hundreds of builders, carpenters, architects, engineers,
agriculturalists living out here in these communities. Surely providing local
employment to solve a local problem is much more helpful in the longer term
than flying unskilled youth across the world to do a half hearted, half finished
job?
Here in Arusha, there are hundreds of
volunteers - they are “teaching” or “building”
or “skill sharing” in some shape or form, and so many of them have paid an
extortionate amount of money to come out here. But the merit of so many of the projects
that they are involved in is so weak.
Here is an interesting article about the
negative ripple effects of voluntourism in Cambodia:
3 RIPPLE EFFECTS OF
SUSTAINING A SINGLE STORY AND DEPENDENCY SYNDROME
As I keep saying, I do not for a second
doubt the good intentions behind this industry. There are so many good people
in the world who want to help others, and this is seemingly a great way to do
that; giving back and gaining at the same time. And yet, the ripple effects of
what is happening on both sides of the fence are so very disturbing.
On the one hand, young people across the world
are being told that communities in non-industrialised countries need help. They
need help with their schools, their orphans, their water supplies and their
farms. And companies across the world (a growing market: there are now over one
hundred companies operating in the UK alone who offer volunteer opportunities just in Tanzania, never mind across the rest of the world) offer students a comprehensive package of How To Help. It often involves
paying a HUGE amount of money (where does the money go? Not very often to the people
on the ground); often involves a month-long trip with time for lots of
recreational activities in country too; often involves a project in one of the
above fields and often involves no requirement of skill, language proficiency or
in-country knowledge.
Flip this around – we in the UK need help
with our schools, with our youth, with our unemployed, with our flooding and
with our farms. Imagine for a second that we were inundated with plane-loads
full of eighteen year olds from unknown lands, none of them with any skill,
training, qualification in any of the fields of help; none of them speaking
English or knowing more than few vague facts about our country. We’d be
appalled, we’d laugh, we’d turn them on their heels and send them home. And
yet, somehow we have allowed this to become a growing model to dish out to the
rest of the world.
On my journey out here in April, there was
a large crowd of volunteers (all wearing big t-shirts that said “Project Africa”) at the check-in area at Heathrow airport. They took the same plane as I did and,
sitting in a row in front of some of them, I listened in to a conversation they
were having with a fellow passenger.
PASSENGER:
So, what are you guys doing?
VOLUNTEER:
We’re going to volunteer in Africa for a month.
PASSENGER:
Wow, so where in Africa are you going?
VOLUNTEER:
Well, we were going to Kenya, but it is now far too dangerous for us so we’re
now going to work in Tanzania instead.
PASSENGER:
Oh, ok, so what are you doing there?
VOLUNTEER: (laughing) We don’t actually know! In Kenya, we were going to be
digging a well, but now that the project has changed, it’s not been sorted out
for us yet. It will either be teaching, or building I think but I’m not too
sure. But something helpful anyway.
I know this is just one little instance,
but the idea of 30 sixteen year old school children (none of whom, I’d bet my
life on it, are either teachers or builders or have any discernible
qualifications in either field) flying out to a country they know nothing
about, to do god knows what, but still thinking that this is a great and
helpful thing just really pains me.
What these projects do is serve to fuel The
Single Story that exists about non-industrialised countries; that they are all
in desperate need of help in so many areas, and even a little unskilled sixteen
year old can do good there. This is a lie. I know it because I was once
involved with an unsustainable project and have seen the very real side of this
farce. I know because I have seen the negative results of these projects in so
many countries that I have been to. I know because, surrounding me every day
here in Tanzania, I can see this happening.
On the flip side of this, a dependency syndrome
is starting to emerge from local communities; relying on tourist money, relying
on an influx of donations, relying on hand outs and fuelling a “dollar signs in
flashing in the eyes” view of anyone from the west. Young kids here frequently
walk past me in the streets and say “Give me Money”. This has not come from
nowhere and saddens me to the very core every time I hear it; for so many
reasons.
So why do I care so much? Partly because of
all of the above reasons; partly because of the huge ripple effects that this
model of business is having, on both sides of the ocean. And partly because it
is only going to grow. Aside from the growing trend of “Gap Years” that has hit
countries across recent years, it is now a common occurrence to find these
projects being advertised and frequently implemented in secondary schools
across the UK and (I am sure) countries across the world. There are, after all,
volunteers roaming the streets here in Arusha, whose accents stem from all
far-flung corners of the world.
Being on the ground in this area, I can see
first-hand the negative impact of bad voluntourism. Listening to the volunteers
speak about their work, I can hear first-hand the negative impact of bad
voluntourism. Listening to the local community speak about these projects, I
can hear first-hand the negative impact of bad voluntourism.
Knowing how young people back in the UK
alone are being encouraged to take up these volunteer projects, being seen as “good
for the CV”, I feel impelled to do something. Part of the work I was doing with
Bright Green Enterprise was working on a new programme, teaching sixth form
students about some of these issues. Part of the lecture I worked on for
schools was surrounding the ripple effects of this system. Part of the book I
am working on is focused on the scars of this model. I am not for a second
wanting to take away from the good intentions surrounding volunteering, or for
a second blight the wonderful models of sustainable and positive opportunities
and projects that exist across the world. But I am not able to sit back and
ignore the negatives; especially as they are growing as I speak.
For those of you who’ve come across the Twilight Saga, you’ll know that the
Volturi are a powerful coven of Vampires who enforce the laws of the vampire
world (yes, I know!) They are not supposed to be villains; they are supposed to
be the foundations of peace and civilisation, people (well, vampires) who work to help and support communities around
the world. And yet, the ripple effects of their self-serving methods are quite
worrying; making them more of a curse than a cure.
Volturi…voltourist…. sound rather similar to me...
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