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Voluntourism
During a discussion the other day about what states and countries folks on Ricochet have visited, I mentioned that one of the few foreign countries I’ve been to was Uganda. Rico member The Reticulator said that there was probably an interesting story in that. I responded with a link to an article that I ran across recently about “Voluntourism,” and he suggested it could make for an interesting post, so here goes.
I joined a group of high school kids from our church (including my daughter) in 2009 on a short term (one month) mission trip to Uganda. I’ve been a Christian for about 32 years (making that decision at age 23), and for whatever reason, I had always viewed these types of mission trips dubiously. My wife had been on one to Honduras when she was in high school and it had a lifelong impact on her, but I always thought that there were plenty of opportunities to help people here at home. Being a protective dad, however, when my teenage daughter felt the call to join this trip, I certainly wasn’t going to let her go without me!
My skepticism continued right up to the day we crawled on the plane. Prior to leaving, I spoke with a man who had been a missionary in Uganda for 19 years. He told me that the trip would have much more impact on me than it would on anyone in Uganda. He said that the people there often treat the evangelism efforts as a game – they know that if they tell the white people that they’ve accepted Jesus, they’ll get more stuff – so they’ve likely accepted Jesus many times before. Interestingly, however, he told me that I’d leave a piece of my heart in Africa and would forever pine to go back for it. He was correct on all counts.
The trip had a huge impact on my worldview. We visited an orphanage run by a woman and her two sons. Twenty-two lovely children laughing and playing. Until I read the article above, the thought that any of them might not be actual orphans never crossed my mind. Now I’m not sure. Upon my return, I put together a fundraising campaign for that orphanage and managed to raise almost $10,000.
About a year after my return, however, I got a bit of a shock. I had coffee with the young man who had led our group one day after he had returned from being over there for several months. He told me the orphanage was doing well. VERY well, in fact. It seems that there were at least three other groups or individuals like myself conducting fundraising efforts. The woman who runs it doesn’t tell anyone about the other groups providing funding because she’s afraid it will all be cut off, but suffice it to say that the kids were well taken care of. Shortly thereafter, she handed control over to a U.S. organization that runs several orphanages there, so I suspended the fundraising campaign and switched efforts to another organization with which I had become familiar.
I could type for hours about my experiences and the impacts they had on me, but primarily I wanted to start a discussion on this concept of Voluntourism and the misguided practices of the West to “help” the Third World. Virtually all of the “foreign aid” sent by the U.S., Canada and European countries goes directly to the bank accounts of the leaders of the country. Interestingly, I saw numerous infrastructure development projects going on – all of them run either by the Chinese or Arab entities. Rather than sending checks to the government, they send people in and provide them with the resources to build roads, water systems, sewers, etc. The Arab entities are trying to bring Islam to the people. The Chinese are just putting in the infrastructure they need to develop factories.
I’d love to hear thoughts from other Rico members on any experiences or thoughts you might have.
Published in General
I don’t remember the name of the organization or who sponsored it, but many years ago I was involved in something like that in Detroit. The goal was to help people reclaim and remodel houses. One that I remember, we were replacing a tub, because the while the home had earlier been vacant, squatters had come in, and since the tub was fireproof, that was where they lit a fire to keep warm.
Amazing. We do what we need to to survive.
On a world scale I’m willing to bet than anyone on Ricochet is already a “One Percenter”.
From three years ago: $34,000 annual income makes one a global 1%er.
So I just recently entered the one percent. I’m in the club! Woohoo!
Voluntourism at orphanages is a bad idea because it gets the incentives wrong. Most countries have moved away from the orphanage model because it is not an effective way to raise children. In Cambodia, orphanages attract sexual predators and con-artists who abuse the orphans and take a cut from the donations provided by generous travelers. Moreover, poor parents have incentive to make their children orphans for the day as a means to increase family income.
In my view, we should encourage travel to poor countries but not as voluntourism. Go to Cambodia or Uganda and stay at local hotels, eat at local restaurants, hire local guides, and buy locally produced goods. Leave the cities and travel to smaller villages and do the same. This increases demand for local products and services probably does a lot more good than an orphanage visit.
And visit the temples to take your pictures without clothing. Then you can get a tour of the jails for free.
Were they jailed or just deported?
I find that whole situation laughable since the temples at Angkor are nothing but a monument to sex. Before Buddhism arrived in the Khmer Empire, the towers housed linga and the stone walls depict hundreds of buxom apsaras.
It may depend on the case and whether they are caught in the act. Still, I’m sure if caught they will be processed at a police facility on the way out the door, even if they are only deported.
As for the other, Buddhism has many paths. There was a fantasy novel I read several years ago that had a nine-fold path, which practiced enlightenment through sex. But it was all fiction, I’m sure.
That’s good to know. The usual complaint about food aid from the United States to Somolia or whatever is that it a) is a way of funding politically-connected farming associations, and b) destroys the local economies in Africa, driving rural farmers out of business, because how are they going to compete against free food?
I hadn’t paid attention to this issue for many years, and certainly didn’t know that Canada had addressed it.
Canadians are sneaky that way. They go off addressing the world’s problems, quietly and humbly, and next thing you know, there’s nothing left to do.
But there’s the rub – many are not spending their own money. In our church, mission trips have a high priority with the result that more and more people, including high schoolers, are going on trips to Africa and Asia. These trips are preceded by letters sent to church members telling how the would-be missionary has been “called” to this particular trip but cannot go without the prayer and financial support of the letter recipient. My husband and I used to give generously to all such requests, but have changed our minds in the last several years.
We realized that the vast majority of our giving was going to airline tickets; not exactly the mission field. It is often said that the goer is more changed than the people he or she is ministering to. So? I’m now funding a 16-year old’s world changing experience? My child was greatly changed by 4 years at a small Christian college. Should I ask for donations to the Lord’s work there, too?
I know I sound cynical. But much of what passes for mission work, I fear, is about making the cozy Westerner feel better about himself.
As long as we’re making portmanteaus, another one seems apropos here:
One of the points that struck me on reading the web article that was linked to by The Great Adventure! was that this is one of the same arguments we’ve been having with the left over the past 50 years or so as they’ve tried to drive out private charity and replace it with government entitlements. They say private charity is 1) demeaning to the recipient and 2) doesn’t address root causes. By “root causes” they usually mean capitalism, which they want to overthrow. Lacking that, they’ll be glad to corrupt or weaken it.
Of course one of the problems is that they intend government social welfare to be even more demeaning. (Ask Clarence Thomas what happens to anyone who doesn’t show sufficient gratitude or submission.) And if you look closely at their safety net, you’ll see it’s actually the kind of net used to capture prey.
Anyhow, it was interesting to hear conservatives diss charity as not addressing root causes. I’m not sure what I think about it, but it struck me as being quite a twist on the old debates.
Sure, individuals would be foolish not to spread adoration on other individuals giving out free stuff.
That’s a far cry from governments allowing colonial devils into the country to “exploit the workers”.
Fair point, but North American donors are still handing over the money of their own free will. Nobody’s putting a gun to their head (unlike government aid).
African charities that receive funding from well-meaning North Americans are themselves an example of free-market commerce, no different from any North American charity.
The fact that it’s harder to keep tabs on how one’s money is actually being spent should be factored in by the donor when making the decision to give.
“The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.” – Milton Friedman
The “orphanage” receives cash. The donors receive a sense of righteousness. The missionaries receive experience and something for the resume. They are entrepreneurs, serving a lucrative market. Good for them.
The critics are not dissing “charity”. They are dissing particular charities that they feel are operating dishonestly.
Nobody who thinks charity is superior to government in general will also argue that every charitable organization is created equal.
On the contrary, the main reason charity is superior is that donors can study where the money goes and how it is spend, and make free choices about how best to direct their own money.
That these donors sometimes have second thoughts after the fact simply means they will likely do more research the next time. It’s no different from any other form of free exchange.
Well, it’s usually a Conservative government that goes and does it, so it’s not like the media is going to work very hard to promote said success stories.
Remember acid rain? The Canada-US Acid Rain Treaty was signed by Ronald Reagan and Brian Mulroney. Good luck as a conservative getting any credit from the media for that one.
Really good conversation here!
Misthiocracy:Instead of poo-poohing people who choose to spend their own money on packaged beach vacations masquerading as foreign aid, maybe we should see their existence as a business opportunity instead.
There is something weirdly encouraging about the scams voluntourists are subject to. In a land flooded with donated clothing, there’s no point in becoming a tailor or shoemaker. Can’t sell sugar to the world’s …uh…fat-cats because U.S. sugar wants protection from competition. It will be awhile before the Chinese can get everybody set up in a sweatshop, so what’ve they got to sell in the meantime?
Pathos! Broken windows! Adorable kiddies in raggedy “Modesto Junior College” t-shirts! Whole communities who are willing to invent native dances, get born again (and again and again) and generally put on a fine show, all to provide the children of the world’s 1% with the life-changing, guilt-soothing, resume-padding experience of helping.
Still, I wouldn’t like to think that selling pathos may be so profitable that poor people and poor countries, competing with one another for the intermittent attentions of the guilty rich, become like the beggars Ambrose Pare described in On Monsters and Marvels. These would go to great lengths to appear ever more disgustingly and horrifically afflicted—cultivating little infected sores on their faces, dangling animal entrails from under their clothing, and when these proved insufficient, deliberately maiming themselves or their children.
Luckily (or is it?) college-bound rich kids are bound to be too squeamish to serve as a market for real suffering.
I agree. The poverty has to be of the nice, clean, and (most importantly) safe variety, in order to attract the really lucrative package tours. Genuine hell-holes where safety cannot be guaranteed aren’t going to attract enough customers in order to break even. The countries have to be members of the poor-but-functional club (with nice beaches and/or ecotourism opportunities).
I am reminded of Ivan Illitch’s 1968 speech “The Hell with Good Intentions” which ends:
“If you have any sense of responsibility at all, stay with your riots here at home. Work for the coming elections: You will know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how to communicate with those to whom you speak. And you will know when you fail. If you insist on working with the poor, if this is your vocation, then at least work among the poor who can tell you to go to hell. It is incredibly unfair for you to impose yourselves on a village where you are so linguistically deaf and dumb that you don’t even understand what you are doing, or what people think of you. And it is profoundly damaging to yourselves when you define something that you want to do as “good,” a “sacrifice” and “help.”
I am here to suggest that you voluntarily renounce exercising the power which being an American gives you. I am here to entreat you to freely, consciously and humbly give up the legal right you have to impose your benevolence on Mexico. I am here to challenge you to recognize your inability, your powerlessness and your incapacity to do the “good” which you intended to do.
I am here to entreat you to use your money, your status and your education to travel in Latin America. Come to look, come to climb our mountains, to enjoy our flowers. Come to study. But do not come to help.”
I hadn’t known about that speech. Thanks. I’d say it would have applied to leftwing meddling in people’s lives at home, too – back in the days when they still had good intentions.
Darn, looks like I’m late to the conversation. Here’s my 2 cents anyway.
I’m sincerely glad that you had the great experience that you did, TGA. However, I remain a skeptic in general about mission trips, particularly for youth. They seem to be more focused on feeling good than doing lasting good. Don’t get me wrong, building positive feelings in youth towards service is important, but these go about it the wrong way. For one thing, it’s a flash in the pan, and more likely to encourage kids to appreciate the novelty of it than the service in it. For another, the service is often of questionable benefit. It would be far better to have smaller, yet regular, service activities in the youth’s own community. That way the youth realize that charity is a habit (not a one time good dead), and the value (and method) of building a community.
At the risk of tooting our own horn, I strongly recommend that my fellow Christians look into how we Mormons approach missionary work. It requires tremendous work and sacrifice, but it changes lives profoundly (both those serving and those served). I’m not exaggerating when I say that every good thing in my life has come because I served a mission when I was 19.
Africa is an interesting topic in and of itself. Our own Peter Robinson interviewed Dambisa Moyo on Uncommon Knowledge a few years back about the right way to provide aid to Africa. She was very skeptical of Western efforts, but lauded the Chinese. My brother-in-law is African (Ghanaian, specifically) and when I talked with him about it, he agreed. I think most efforts to help Africa are mostly do-gooderism, though generally well-intentioned.
-E
That and they seem to be embracing capitalism as we move away from it. And this could end up being a great example of how capitalism works and liberalism doesn’t. Of course if it does work that probably means we will all be speaking Mandarin by the end of the century…
The Mormon missionary experience’s longer duration and immersion teaches its youth how to fail and be resilient, how to learn about and trust yourself, how to depend on each other and those in their community of faith–the process is as much about developing the maturity of the person on the “mission” as it is about whomever the person interacts with or helps.
I think more young people might be better off immersing themselves in a place strange to them (away from close family and friends) on a job or helping someone else even if it isn’t very, very far away. The person who comes back will be much readier to be serious about higher education (if that is their next step) or about life in general.
I like the idea of sending 17-year-olds to places they only see through the media, so they can see first hand what the situation on the ground is really like.
The issue with voluntourism seems to be that the “missionaries” are given a fictionalized version of the facts, like a guided tour of Pyongyang.
How about instead of a trip to a Cambodian “orphanage”, somebody offer a working tour of the northern Alberta oilsands, so kids can see for themselves what Neil Young claims is a landscape “worse than Hiroshima”?
Northern Alberta IS worse than Hiroshima. With the exception of a very brief time in 1945, it always has been. That is why people have always historically moved away from the inland arctic whenever they can.
Big John
The Mormon missionary experience’s longer duration and immersion teaches its youth how to fail and be resilient, how to learn about and trust yourself, how to depend on each other and those in their community of faith–the process is as much about developing the maturity of the person on the “mission” as it is about whomever the person interacts with or helps.
I think more young people might be better off immersing themselves in a place strange to them (away from close family and friends) on a job or helping someone else even if it isn’t very, very far away. The person who comes back will be much readier to be serious about higher education (if that is their next step) or about life in general.
Please forgive my ignorance – I live in a relatively affluent suburb of Portland and there is an ever rotating pair of Mormon Missionaries in the neighborhood. We never see them at community events or workday projects. Never see them helping out at the local food pantry. Near as we can tell, they go around knocking on people’s doors and going to dinner at the homes of local Mormon families. The families in question are great – active in the community, helping out coaching, organizing different projects for the schools, etc. But I just don’t see the missionaries involved in much.
I’m honestly not trying to be snarky – I just don’t see what impact they are trying to have.
From the link I provided above:
“A typical missionary day begins by waking at 6:30 a.m. for personal study. The day is spent proselytizing by following up on appointments, visiting homes or meeting people in the street or other public places. Missionaries end their day by 10:30 p.m.”
For their 2 years, the missionaries work only to fulfill the Lord’s last commission: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” The missionaries’ time is focused on preaching and proselyting, just as Paul and Silas did. There are occasions where missionaries will lend a hand – where I live they are always the first to volunteer to help move a family – but it’s not their priority. Ideally, they would be teaching instead of knocking on doors, but if you don’t have someone to teach then you go find them. As far as dinners go, it’s our way of supporting them; their time is valuable and they don’t have much money. Besides, it’s a blessing for us to have them in our home for a hour or so.
-E
P.S. I bet if you invited them to some of your workday projects or to take a shift at the food pantry they’d say yes. As you noted, the missionaries rotate a lot and are often simply not aware of service activities in the community, especially those organized by other churches.