Ethical Volunteering

It was 2010, I was just finishing my A levels and had two months before starting university. I knew I wanted to go away and do something different. I was interested in development work and as an eager and naïve 17-year-old, volunteering abroad in an orphanage seemed like a rewarding, helpful and ethical thing to do.

As someone from Nigeria, I usually have mixed feelings when my friends announce they are planning to go volunteer in a country with a high poverty rate. The whole process is a little, well, uncomfortable. I am from Nigeria, and I have family that live there. To me, the idea of someone flying to some African country and offering them help is truly bizarre — probably as strange as it would be for an American to see someone from Nigeria travel here for two weeks to do the same. It also seems more than a little unproductive. I have never understood brief one-time volunteer trips. If you care about a community of people, shouldn’t helping them be a lifelong goal, and not a glorified vacation?

I was born in a village in far west Nepal – a remote area near a jungle. There was just my mum, my dad and me when I was born, I had had two siblings but they had died in infancy. My family wasn’t bad to me – although of course we had some problems. My father was alcoholic, and behaved irresponsibly towards the family. He never harmed me or my mum, but he was harming himself. I ended up spending most of my early childhood with my mum.

A historic modern slavery bill in Australia is being praised as the country takes the lead in ending the practice. Australia has become the first country in the world to recognise the popular tourism practice of visiting overseas orphanages is forcing young children into slavery in many cases.

Gap year students who volunteer at orphanages overseas are propping up a system that “irreparably harms children”, JK Rowling has said. The author, who founded children’s welfare charity Lumos, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that while students may have the “best of intentions”, they could be funding orphanages that abuse vulnerable children and sell them into sex work.

What’s your idea of a break? Whether you’re in college, or working a monotonous 9 to 5, some time off is always welcome to shake yourself and give your brain some new stimuli. If you're considering a sabbatical or looking forward to summer, you're probably looking to make some cheap travel plans. We’re all wistfully sighing at blogs and vlogs of solo travelers who ventured into a community far away to make a world of difference.

Hit the road and save the world! It’s a brilliant idea… but just how easy is it to actually make a difference whilst traveling? I have a confession to make… I have extremely mixed feelings about people volunteering abroad for a week here or a week there and then filling their Facebook page with pictures of them and beaming crowds of children. Do they have any child-care experience? Are they really able to make a difference to a child’s life in just one week or do they risk forming a connection with an at-risk individual and then, simply, leaving?

Volunteer tourism, or voluntourism, is no stranger to criticism. Media reports regularly support claims that profits and visitor experience are trumping the needs of host communities. Volunteer tourism is the intersection between tourism and volunteering. It involves travellers participating in organised short-term voluntary work to help communities, the environment and/or research in the places they visit.