#Voluntourism

[nando161mando]

"We're doing a deep dive into the sham world for voluntourism, where people pay for the experience of charity without actually helping locals—and often even making their lives worse. Join us live on Twitch now:"

https://bird.makeup/users/vicenews/statuses/1688978145272111107

[essaysandopinionss]

Voluntourism is so interesting to me because there are definitely people who read about why it's bad or watch some video (like We're In Hell's recent one which is great) that outlines the problems with it and still be like, completely oblivious.

It's so common for middle class people to go on these trips and see absolutely no problem with their specific contribution to an exploitative system while simultaneously agreeing with arguments against the very same practice.

Just like. Think. Statistically there's gonna be at least one of you reading this. And like, fine whatever, loads of the people who go on these trips are stupid teenagers (part of the problem!).

But if you've gone on a "volunteering trip"? It was a holiday.

Like be real with yourself. Would you have paid the same amount of money for local professionals build the well or clean up the beach or whatever that you did? If your answer is no, you are the problem.

Just insane to me that people truly believe that western influence is good under these very specific set of circumstances, because so often these are not necessarily stupid people. Load of these people would immediately tell you that, yes, colonialism is wrong. And then the next week go on a holiday that both contributes to a reliance on the West while preventing any useful aid being provided.

[zwoelffarben]

Absolutely loving the spite-fueled set up of this video.

[inthemarginalized]

I'm concerned about what I see is the fetishization around entrepreneurship in Africa. It's almost like it's the next new liberal thing. Like, 'Don't worry that there's no power because, hey, you're going to do solar and innovate around that.'

 - Ory Okolloh

She is a Kenyan activist, lawyer, and blogger.

[blacklotusvinyl]

Punks are good people pretending to be bad

Hippies are bad people pretending to be good

[forgottenbones]

Trustafarians: When the Rich Pretend to be Poor

[dreamy-conceit]

Elvira’s curse, I realised, is that people desperately want to help, even when they have nothing to offer.

— Giles Tremlett, 'Three abandoned children, two missing parents and a 40-year mystery' (Guardian, Mar 28, 2023).

Elvira and her brothers, Ricard and Ramón, were left at a train station in Barcelona as children; as an adult, she is searching for her parents.

[unhotelglobal040823]

Voluntourism, Boutique Homestays and No More WiFi | Teens Predict the Big Post-Pandemic Travel Trends

Now that we’ve established that the youth are rearing to get out and travel, that they prefer lesser known haunts and that they’re starting to value peace and quiet (no no, you read all that right), what else can we piece together? Quite a bit, it turns out.

“While most of us have been working hard, we haven’t actually physically moved much in the last year,” my friend Saloni points out over video call, gesturing comically towards her chair. “I’ve been seated or sleeping for almost all of the time I’ve been cramped up here, and that doesn’t feel right.” Read More......

[govolunteerafrica]

Go Volunteer Africa invites you to join our volunteer and travel programs in Africa; explore peaceful and extremely beautiful African countries while working on meaningful projects.

Be part of the community, live like a local! #VolunteerAfrica #TravelAfrica #ExploreAfrica www.govolunteerafrica.org

[runawaywidow]

How to Help the People of Ukraine

How to Help the People of Ukraine

[monsterhospital]

are there any programs like peace corps that arent so imperialist?

[travel4change]

[dragonomatopoeia]

Air's End-of-Year Youtube Video Rec-List Round-Up

In light of recent events and also because I wanted to, I have put together a rec list of various (mostly longform) videos that I've enjoyed this year. Not all of these videos were released this year, however-- I just happened to see them for the first time in 2023. For readability and quality of life purposes, I have put this list under a readmore and divided the videos up by category, then creator, which means that some youtube channels might appear in multiple categories

I reserve the right to edit this later as I remember more videos, but I feel comfortable publishing it as is, considering it has almost 100 videos on it at this point

Cooking

Get Curried Chili Garlic Rosemary Chicken Recipe | How to Make Chili Garlic Rosemary Chicken at Home | Prateek Anardana Chicken Recipe | Delicious Himachal Style Anardana Chicken Recipe at Home | Chef Prateek Old Delhi Style Tangdi Kebab | How to Make Indian Starter Tangdi Kebab Recipe | Chef Prateek Dhawan

How to Cook That The $10 Million dollar lie (Betty Crocker) Debunking the Pink Sauce Controversy | How To Cook That Ann Reardon Top 7 Best Easy Lemon Recipes 🍋 | How To Cook That Ann Reardon Toxic Foods promoted on TikTok! | How To Cook That Ann Reardon Why is Pyrex exploding? | How To Cook That Ann Reardon

Library of Congress' Youtube Channel El Camino del Mole a New Orleans El Camino del Pan a Baltimore

Immaculate Bites LEMON BUNDT CAKE FIRECRACKER SHRIMP

Simply Mamá Cooks 3 EASY Beef Pot Roast Recipes perfect for the cold weather EASY Chicken Tamales Recipe | How To Make Tamales Easy NO-KNEAD Soft Dinner Rolls + FLUFFY From Scratch Milk Rolls Recipe Zuppa Toscana Recipe EASY | Olive Garden Potato Sausage Soup Recipe

Fraud, Grifts, and Scams

FoldingIdeas Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse In Search Of A Flat Earth This is Financial Advice

Maggie Mae Fish Is the "Off-Grid" Lifestyle a Lie??

Münecat I Debunked Every "Body Language Expert" on Youtube The Problem with Tony Robbins (Deep-Dive - Pt.1) The Problem with Tony Robbins (Deep-Dive - Pt. 2)

Super Eyepatch Wolf The Bizarre World of Fake Martial Arts The Bizarre World of Fake Psychics, Faith Healers, and Mediums Influencer Courses are Garbage: The Dark Side of Content Creation Tom Nicholas Griftonomics: Why Scams are Everywhere Now

We're In Hell A History of Spam on the Internet Hustling America: I Can't Believe This Show Is Real The Problem with Voluntourism WE Charity & the Nonprofit Industrial Complex

Gaming

Hbomberguy Halcyon Dreams: The Legacy of Dragon's Lair

Jacob Geller Games that Aren't Games How Can We Bear to Throw Anything Away?

Li Speaks An Exploration of the Avata Star Sue-niverse It's Time For You To Play Flash Games Again The Strange Case of Kissing and Flirting Games Untangling the Lore of Devilish Hairdresser

Mandaloregaming The Mystery of the Druids: A Bizarre Adventure Game

People Make Games The Games Industry Must Not Stay Silent on Palestine Investigation: Who’s Telling the Truth about Disco Elysium? Working at Valve: 'A Fearless Adventure' or 'Lord of the Flies'?

PowerPak Dead Space 3 Is Worse Than I Thought King's Quest - The First Adventure Game King's Quest 2 - A Bridge Too Far... MyHouse.WAD - Inside Doom's Most Terrifying Mod Squirrel Stapler is Absolutely Nuts Tunic is Deceptively Brilliant

Super Bunnyhop Perusing Pentiment's Boisterous Bibliography

History

BobbyBroccoli The image you can't submit to journals anymore

Cambrian Chronicles Wikipedia's King who Doesn't Exist

Defunctland Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History

Elliot Sang How Tea Became European McMindfulness: When Capitalism Goes Buddhist

Intelexual Media Creating The Conservative New Right In The 1970s A Buffet of Black Food History

Kaz Rowe A Deep Dive into the Deadly World of Victorian Patent Medicine Why Have So Many People Seen Ghost Ships? Why the Myth of the Library of Alexandria Is Wrong

Kendra Gaylord 500 years of dollhouses and what it meant to teach girls Alice Austen, the 1880s photographer: her house, her photos, her love life What happened to cheap food? Diners, Automats, and affordable eating

Nerdsync Bonkers origins of superhero memes The Scandalous REAL Origin of Superman's Lois Lane Superman's Uncomfortable History with Nuclear Weapons

Premodernist Advice for time traveling to medieval Europe

Stepback History How The Vietnam War Birthed a Generation of White Terrorists OK Fine I’ll Talk About Ancient Apocalypse

Tantacrul Notation Must Die: The Battle For How We Read Music

Film and Television

Be Kind Rewind How Breakfast at Tiffany's Turned into a Totally Different Movie | Adapting a Classic Casting the Women of Valley of the Dolls | PT 1 The Making of Valley of the Dolls | PT 2 How the "Old Ladies N' Hijinks" Subgenre Became a Thing How a "Sacrilegious" Film Changed Hollywood Forever... So I watched BLONDE... Why Tallulah Bankhead Never Became a Movie Star

Big Joel The Song That Broke West Side Story

Cherrybepsi Can We Kill the Final Girl Trope Already?

Hazel weird & kinda scary tokusatsu girls

Jane Mulcahy The Lunacy of Teen Wolf (Part 1) What is the 'psycho biddy' genre?

Maggie Mae Fish BLACK CHRISTMAS Before & After "Me Too" The War on "Woke" Hollywood: A History of Blacklists and Strikes Why is Clint Eastwood

Princess Weekes Black Trauma vs. Black Horror Why Are There So Many Confederate Vampires? Why Don't Worry Darling Doesn't Work ...

Shanspeare EUPHORIA: Sam Levinson’s Unfulfilled Fantasy The Girlboss-ification of the Horror Genre TikTok Femininity Coaching and Aestheticizing Racism

Science and Technology

BobbyBroccoli The $21,000,000,000 hole in Texas The man who faked human cloning How to catch a criminal cloner

Eastman Museum's Youtube Channel Photographic Processes Series

Technology Connections What's the deal with the popcorn button?

Practical Engineering How Flood Tunnels Work What's the Difference Between Paint and Coatings? Why Is Desalination So Difficult? Why Railroads Don't Need Expansion Joints

[duchessofostergotlands]

Hi, good morning, I was the person who sent in the question about voluntourism and I apologize in advance that this message is a little different than the one I sent in. So I just got back after reading the archives of your blog(but not in a stalker-ish way if you know what I mean.) to read some of your personal think pieces. So yesterday I just came across a post you did way back in Feb. 2017 about the importance of differentiating voluntourism vs charity work. And I'd like to ask you, as someone who was an accidental voluntourist before, how can we tell the difference between the two? What are the signs that indicate that something is a part of voluntourism rather than charity work, and how can we avoid being a voluntourist? Thank you. (P.S. I'm sorry about not thanking you for your reply to the question that I sent in three years ago, so if it's not too late, I'd like to thank you for answering that and all the other stuff that you do that makes Royal Tumblr an enjoyable place to be in.)

Voluntourism is a portmanteau of volunteering and tourism. Essentially it is volunteering but abroad, you paid for it, and it’s billed as being part of an “experience.”

Perhaps controversially I would say in 90% of cases people should just not volunteer abroad. Unless you are a highly skilled professional who is volunteering to address a specific gap in expertise or resource - like a doctor in an area with a natural disaster - we aren’t needed. When I was 16 or 17 I went to Borneo for a month, classic voluntourism. We volunteered to build a path to this beautiful waterfall. Theoretically sounds good, it was to help the community by increasing access for tourists. But we were a group of teenage girls who had never done hard labour in our lives. We were ten times slower than the men in the community who had been working on it and in fact they had to come in and correct what we did as it was unsafe! We had good intentions but we did not help in any way and it was actually embarrassing to look back on. And that's just a tame example. I know of projects where entirely untrained teenagers are placed in teaching roles with severely traumatised children. Often there are no background checks, there are volunteers strolling in and out of these children's lives which interrupts their ability to form healthy attachments, the volunteer knows nothing about the local cultural context etc.

If people are considering volunteering abroad - whether it's classed as voluntourism or not - I would ask them to think about whether their motivation is really to help or to feel like they helped. Do you have a skill that is needed in that community but isn’t currently provided for by local people? Is the charity asking you to help because you are genuinely better equipped or is it because they don’t want to pay local people to do the work?

I don’t condemn people because I have been there myself. I thought I was helping! And I do think you can do volunteer abroad ethically. I volunteered for a refugee charity in Calais and my friend and I put a lot of effort into doing it as responsibly as possible: we agreed parameters to minimise contact with vulnerable people, we were purely helping with back office processes so not working in the camp, at the time there was a genuine risk of violence from the local community so it was safer not to have refugees in the warehouse and therefore we weren't taking a job from them etc. But it is very hard to get right and takes a lot of time and thought.

This is a great article about voluntourism and volunteering abroad: https://www.gooverseas.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-voluntourism-and-volunteering

And thank you so much for your lovely words! Always weird when people read your old posts. Like reading your old diary haha.

[mistsofavalon13]

ed’s little speech while “fishing” and his blessing at dinner was so white woman voluntourism lifestyle vlog coded