Now usually I try to be impartial, but I can’t do this here. There are so many great organizations out there, who help so many people, but these are not those organizations. These ones, they’re the liars, the cheats and abusers of people’s kindness and generosity.
If you are anything like me, you have probably spent a sizable amount of time volunteering. I’ve volunteered since I was in primary (or elementary) school. When I first heard about trips that allow you to volunteer while you travel, I thought it was great. It gives you a chance to help people and organizations while finding out about the location and travelling
Then I did some research and what I found, to be completely honest, disgusted me.
So today I wanted to talk about what exactly voluntourism claims to be, what it actually is, and what it could be if we demanded better from these operators.

What is it on paper?
On paper, it is a combination of Tourism and volunteering, which sounds fantastic to most of us.
It provides Travellers with the opportunity to do some good while experiencing the local culture and interacting with locals.
In almost all cases you must pay to do this, anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, per person.
What is it in practice?
This one may be a bit hard to read and maybe follow, so I’ll break it down into a few categories for simplicity. Everything I’m pulling information from will be linked below as usual.

The fake orphans
This is one of the biggest scams of all.
I grew up seeing the ads of starving children, being held or laying in beds, I also saw some about orphans. Well, the voluntourism industry has capitalized on those images in a truly despicable way. You see, many of the children you’ll see on the sites or in brochures, they’re not really orphans.
According to “Save the Children,” an international NGO, there are approximately 8 million kids in orphanages worldwide, up to 90% are not orphans at all.
There have been numerous reports of parents selling or leasing their kids to allow them to go to school. They do this to let their kids get a better education & give them a chance at a better life. Instead, they’re taken to an orphanage. They do this to try to get more money, the more kids the tourists see, the more they’re likely to donate because they think these they need it to help more kids. When in fact it’s a massive scam on all ends, and the parents have no idea what’s really happening.
Because most places don’t run background checks, there is also the risk of nefarious individuals slipping through the cracks. People who could potentially abuse the kids, one even allowing an (undercover) Al Jazeera Journalist to take 4 kids from a Cambodian orphanage overnight without showing any ID or Paperwork back in 2012.
Many of the people who end up at orphanages end up looking like they have a white saviour complex, posting photo after photo of themselves with children.
I would like to believe this isn’t intentional, that they were sharing a genuine moment of joy with kids wherever they happen to be. That likely is not true of everyone, though.
This phenomenon can be found most easily by looking at the Barbie Savior Instagram page and website. They create & recreate images of people acting like they’re doing “Gods work” as many describe themselves as doing when really they’re making the situation worse. I also really love the No White Saviors page and how educational it is.

The fake animal sanctuary
You’ve probably either seen this one on your friend’s social media or on pages about animal abuse. Travellers posing with beautiful, exotic creatures who look like they’re all but dead.
Many places, mostly in Asia, use animals, including big cats & elephants. They give visitors the chance to take photos with cats that are laying down, many don’t realize that those big cats are drugged so you can get close. They also recognize the elephants have been beaten into submission, like the ones to from circuses.
And I have to be honest here, in the past as a little kid I would ride elephants and Camels at Granby Zoo. I have also gone swimming with dolphins about 3 times, which I know I should have known better, and I wish I could take it back.
Like many others, I fell for the greenwashing. The conservation BS that the animals were being cared for and would be released back into the ocean to live out their days in freedom when that rarely happens.
There have been reports of animals getting too big or aggressive or those who get old or sick because of the poor treatment being slaughtered & sold.
Countries that think these animals parts can be used as an aphrodisiac buy them in droves, nearly driving some to extinction.

The unexpected consequences
There are so many other types of voluntourism, like Medical, that can be so integral, but don’t always help. Some of the people volunteering don’t have the skill set needed to effectively support the other staff or volunteers who do have the training. They can also be deadly, like when American Nurse Renee Bach went to Uganda to help children through a charity she set up. Over the course of 5 years 105 children died while in her care, the Ugandan Government is scheduled to hear a civil lawsuit case against her in 2020.

Some tours build things from water wells to schools & homes, which sounds great. However every week or two they have to retrain people who don’t know what they’re doing. It takes so much longer than just hiring and paying locals who can get it done faster and with less instruction.
All of this isn’t taking into consideration things that don’t always benefit locals like tours of slums or favelas. Places like Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Cairo or Mumbai bring you through areas of poverty. In some cases into the homes of residents to show you how they live. The community doesn’t always see the proceeds of the tours, some allegedly being run by gangs, who provide security for the tours.
But even these tours aren’t all bad, many locals want visitors to see because it’s better than seeing it as a serene paradise, or possibly worse, a shithole that no one cares for, when that is not the case.

What could it be in an ideal world?
Well, in an entirely ideal world, we wouldn’t need it. If everyone had what’s needed, from food to water and the help that is required for any given project, there would be no need for this industry.
In a mostly Ideal world, the industry that exists would do what they claim. Organizations would take volunteers to real places that need real help. The people showing up would already know how to do what they were there for. They would get to use part of the time to display to the volunteers the local culture and way of life, as well as helping them. The volunteers would get to play with the local kids, not for a white saviour photo-op way, but because they want to play and enjoy themselves… Playing, I don’t know tag or Simon says or whatever game the kids teach them or dancing or something.

So, what can we do?
How do we stop this from happening and protect the people involved? The only real answer I’m sure of is research. Look up the places and people you plan to visit and tour with. Look for local companies who understand what they community needs, and look at what you have to offer and if you’re giving more than you’re getting.
Make sure that if you plan to volunteer on a trip, it is within your scope of knowledge, and take a look at the checklist put out by Raid Aid (Below).