As someone who loves to explore the world and make an impact, I often look for ways that I can volunteer. Though I want to avoid the pitfalls of becoming a voluntourist.
Globalization has increased the demands on animal and social volutourism due to increased abilities to travel. In Thailand, they reversed the negative impacts of tourists on animals in recent years, and now, newly established Thai laws prevent tigers on display and it discourages anyone from riding on top of an elephants’ gentle spine. Initially, business drastically declined, but I saw the tourist industry shift and recover. No longer are ads everywhere enticing people to visit Tiger Kingdom in Chiang Mai, and new elephant sanctuaries have been established all around the country due to these amazing shifts. The benefit of protecting animals such as these has become common understanding today. Now if you want to see any of the hundreds of elephants still remaining in Thailand, the shift has allowed for the least amount of harm on these animals by offering tourists the ability to feed bananas or sugar cane sticks to the elephants. Loopholes will always exist and unfortunately, some companies will still offer abusive practices despite the growing awareness of harm on these precious animals. When something fuels a business, and there’s a demand, the bending of best-practice takes place, such as offers to bathe [with] the elephants or ride behind the elephants’ head, instead of a sitting on a dangerous seat on top of its’ spine. How many baths are really necessary for an elephant in a day and are you actually helping the animal by cleaning it that often? These loopholes are not best practice solutions needed to make a real lasting change to help protect them.
Seeing this example of Thailand’s precious animals being exploited in the business of tourism mimics a similar outcome that has taken place through orphan voluntourism. I used to live in Asia for 8 years and I had participated in voluntourism before I became aware of the harm it caused. Now I know how to do better and I would like to share how this can apply to new country exploration.
I have seen a lot of the world already having travelled through 45+ countries, and my family continues to travel and live outside of our home nation! Last month I just moved to another part of the world with my family. We chose a place just south of San Diego, across the border into Mexico! We are excited to explore this new land and all that it has to offer. It’s not long after we set up a new home base, that we plan to take more local trips to see what the country has to offer! Soon, we are planning to drive 22 hr 28 min (1,008.7 mi) to the southernmost point of the Baja Penninsula!
As someone who knows the harm that can be done through voluntourism, I deeply research tourism opportunities when we decide to take a trip. It is so easy to find the wrong ways to do more harm than good when trying to explore the world. I find this to be true when searching for many opportunities to interact with animals while on vacation. Most recently, I saw a promotion offering to help release baby sea turtles in south Baja, Mexico. I admit, I don’t know a lot about turtles except how cute they are. Of course that sounds like an incredible experience but then I began to read blogs and research more about the harm that can be caused by such tourism: these baby turtles can become easily confused by light from a cell phone (thinking it’s the light from the moon) and they can be misdirected away from entering the sea! How horrible to consider this or many other negative impacts on these animals if the demand of tourists causes harm to them at their earliest start in life. When I consider all the ways we are able to investigate the potential harm that we can cause by simply being tourists, I can relate to the feeling of just not knowing what we don’t know. How could I have known those things unless I look deeper at potential negative outcomes of my involvement?
Outside the USA, the use of orphanages is much more common. You can do a couple simple google searches that shows their presence, literally in proximity across the border into Mexico! Donors often establish them in close proximity to where they can easily visit. Does that mean the prevalence of orphanhood is increased near the border or is it the donor’s presence that is increased? Look up: “orphanages in the USA,” orphanages in Mexico,” or even “how to start an orphanage in Mexico” to see the drastic plethora of results. Exercises like these on google searches will often not mention the harm done to children. Volunteering seems common when you search through google, but is that harmful to children?. Orphanages take unskilled volunteers easily as it stated in one of the top search results: “No skills are required to volunteer in an orphanage in Mexico, only the passion to help orphaned children.” It’s shocking to see this on display from a child welfare and child protection standpoint; there are many skills necessary to care for children, especially when they are not your own and these orphans have been placed under the care of an orphanage that is their ‘home’. That’s like suggesting that anyone can ride an elephant in Thailand. It is possible, yes, but is it good to do: no. Why is it so easy for someone to volunteer with children at orphanages? Here is another real page that was easy to find after clicking further into my online research that said: “Make a grand difference in the lives of orphan children for as low as $308” (see photo below):
This page describes an unbelievable description of how a volunteer can ‘help’ others– what is the physiological damage being done through this ‘help’?. These business marketing ads persuade people to buy into the idea that unskilled people should work with children in orphanages. When exploring a new country, ask: “Will a company fueled by tourism, or an orphanage caring for children, provide easy access to children for unskilled and untrained volunteers?” Professionals who care for the well being of children will not provide tourists the opportunity to interact with them, to truly protect and care for their psychological needs.
Remember Thailand’s shift to make a shift away from the harm on animals to protecting them through laws, and changing mindsets, to care for the animals? Globalization has given us more opportunities to see the world but should we take every opportunity to interact with orphans as we travel? The benefit of protecting children will hopefully become common understanding and these ads for unskilled volunteer to have access to children will hopefully shift and be removed from our society. Loopholes will always exist and unfortunately, some companies will still offer abusive practices despite the growing awareness of harm on these precious children. When something fuels a business, and there’s a demand, the bending of best-practice takes place, such as offers to feed or play with children. How many volunteers do these children actually have to say goodbye to before we learn that they are actually heartbroken over the feeling of abandonment, and desiring not to be raised in such an environment in the first place! Helping These loopholes are not best practice solutions needed to make a real lasting change to help protect them. An orphans best solution is a long lasting and safe family instead of the love of a short term volunteer. If I wanted to volunteer at an orphanage, the connection shown from google results that it could actually harm a child, may not appear at first. Though there is a lot of evidence showing the children need to attach to caregivers. Short term volunteers often increase the risk of harm to deter healthy attachment. It also is not good from a child protection standpoint to not vet people who interact with children as they could physically, sexually or emotionally do harm to a child. A safe family can provide a place for a child: their most natural habitat, without the interruption of psychological harm from short term volunteers, and a family is a child’s sanctuary for rescue from an orphanage.
My family is now living in Mexico where the opportunity to do more harm than good is rife. Without strict regulation into practice, the opportunities to volunteer can lead you to wrongdoing more easily. Checking online to see what other ways I could be a tourist or have a social impact here in Mexico may not be able to reveal what is ‘better’! The problems are deep and can sometimes be seen more obviously, when you live and see what’s going on around you — rather than visiting a place on a short term trip. There is a pretty significant rise in migrant and asylum seekers here in Mexico, especially near where we have a house by the US-Mexico border. Strategic solutions are needed for this migration crisis, but the immediate needs of people must be met in the interim, especially to protect children. Local solutions in our surroundings in Mexico are underway already but volunteers can really help to manage to provide physical comforts for those waiting outside in the cold. Often it’s best to work with larger organizations or churches already working with migrants and asylum seekers. Seeing these needs in our immediate surroundings, allows us the luxury of time to invest as a family, into the lives of others as we have a home base here. We know that simply showing up with blankets may not be the best way to volunteers, because they may have just received blankets and actually need food. Coordinating with the organizations who have registered their needs and are meeting them through an effort longer than us, will provide better care to these people longer term. The inaction provides us without the feeling of helping but we actually are doing more good this way!
Knowing how to do better can help us separate what it means to be on a vacation. We don’t have guilt of the feeling that we need to act immediately. We know that inaction and deeper investigation is key for longer term results. Not all vacations must require we help others: we can simply enjoy travels and be tourists. After all, one of the best ways to help is to pour money into a local economy through tourism to help people rise out of poverty through buying from small, family-owned businesses! As a family of explorers we want to avoid the pitfalls of becoming voluntourists by assuming we are ‘helping’ as untrained, unskilled, visitors who are pouring into the sometime dangerous ‘economy of tourism,’ rather than the people, animals or things we hoped to help. We are ready to explore the country further, keeping in mind how we can avoid doing more harm than good as tourists here in Mexico. If you want to follow our journey you can connect to our family blog livesimplyandtravel.wordpress.com
1MILLIONHOME offers a great resource to learn more about how to Love Wisely and avoid the pitfalls of voluntourism on their free, onlin elearnign platform JOURNEYHOME. Enroll in this video course today by clicking here
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jenna has traveled to 45+ countries and was based in Asia for the past 8 years. Working in the field as a practitioner in the OVC space, Jenna implemented new country projects, supported local solutions in the orphan care reform movement, and is a boy-mama 2 times over. Now living in Mexico, she is the Communications Coordinator at 1MILLIONHOME.