The Perception

PoorismOrganized tours that bring predominantly middle and upper class people to impoverished regions.

VoluntourismA form of tourism in which travelers participate in voluntary work, typically for a charity.

Poverty tourism Financially privileged tourists visit impoverished communities for the purpose of witnessing poverty firsthand.

$2 billion annually1.6 million people

(Tourism Research & Marketing, 2008)

The Debate“While volunteer tourism has been identified as a neo-colonial development encounter, it has also been recognized as a platform for structural change” (Conran, 2011).

Advocates“…tourism also suggests opportunities for embodied engagement, counter experiences of everyday life, education, interpretation, and advocacy’’ (Pezzullo, 2007).

Volunteer tourists are a particularly apt audience from which to gain political and economic support for local issues. Volunteers often suggest that because of their volunteer experience, they have become interested in public service, at home and abroad (Conran, 2011).

DetractorsCritics decry poorism as exploitative voyeurism… “but you’ve now commodified these people, you’ve turned them into a product in the service of an industry” (Selinger, 2009).

The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights & Wellbeing of Children place a special burden on those caring for children separated from their parents and families (Richter & Norman, 2010).

Best PracticesStudies in sub-Saharan Africa have repeatedly observed the importance for children of growing up in a family environment and reaffirm that institutional care for children should only be considered as a temporary option or a measure of last resort (UN, 2006).

ExploitationSome residential care facilities [in Cambodia] exploit the problem of poverty by…recruiting children in poor families by convincing, coercing or even paying parents to give their children away. Through this kind of recruiting, many parents believe their children would be better off in care, unaware of the risks involved for children in terms of abuse, sexual and labour exploitation and even trafficking (UNICEF, 2011).

Vulnerable Children: A Special Case

Donor ImpactIf private donors continue to channel resources into residential facilities…it will be more likely that families, communities and governments will turn to these facilities as a first resort for orphans and vulnerable children (UN, 2006).

Donors Dictate ProgramsNGOs…face huge, entrenched, complex problems; due to donor pressure they are increasingly forced to respond with a discrete project with x number of deliverable outcomes…A common complaint is that the linkages of aid which NGOs deliver set a predetermined agenda on the kind of services they offer (Godrej, 2014).

Gates Foundation: Chilling Effect of FundingParticularly in the field of global health, where funding for diseases of the developing world was anemic before Gates’ $9.5 billion dollar infusion, few are willing to risk wrath by pointing out flaws in the foundation's approach (Doughton, 2008).

Donor ImpactIf private donors continue to channel resources into residential facilities…it will be more likely that families, communities and governments will turn to these facilities as a first resort for orphans and vulnerable children (UN, 2006).

Donors Dictate ProgramsNGOs…face huge, entrenched, complex problems; due to donor pressure they are increasingly forced to respond with a discrete project with x number of deliverable outcomes…A common complaint is that the linkages of aid which NGOs deliver set a predetermined agenda on the kind of services they offer (Godrej, 2014).

Gates Foundation: Chilling Effect of FundingParticularly in the field of global health, where funding for diseases of the developing world was anemic before Gates’ $9.5 billion dollar infusion, few are willing to risk wrath by pointing out flaws in the foundation's approach (Doughton, 2008).