Hug-an-orphan vacations
Posted on June 30, 2011 at 8:00 am
While I’m on “sabbatical” I’m reposting articles that readers may have missed.
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The growing popularity of short-term international volunteering (voluntourism) has led to the disturbing trend of hug-an-orphan vacations. While visiting a foreign country people take time to volunteer at an orphanage or else are persuaded to visit orphanages while on vacation. Volunteers and donors alike should immediately question the motivations and professionalism of any orphanage that allows or promotes this.
Orphanages may purposefully maintain substandard conditions to attract foreign donors
Orphanages can bring in a lot of foreign donations, and the best way to keep those donations rolling in is to keep the children at a substandard level so that any volunteer or donor showing up will see with their own eyes how “critical” it is to donate to the orphanage. This not only brings in immediate money, but may also lead to the donor/volunteer raising money or collecting donated goods from friends and family back home. A portion of these funds may be put into caring for the children while large percentages could easily be pocketed for personal profit with few the wiser. Because most volunteers do not speak the local language, they may be completely unaware of what is actually happening while they are there.
Any orphanage that allows a steady stream of strangers to interact with orphans are not looking out for the best interest of the child
Although foreign volunteers may feel that spending their time playing and interacting with orphans is a great way to give back, in the long run it may do more harm than good. One of the key principles laid out by the United Nations Draft Guidelines for the alternative care of children is the need for reliable long term relationships.
“Decisions regarding children in alternative care, including those in informal care, should have due regard for the importance of ensuring children a stable home and of meeting their basic need for safe and continuous attachment to their caregivers, with permanency generally being a key goal.”
An orphanage that regularly allows strangers to interact with children is doing just the opposite. Generally volunteers will only stay at the orphanage for a few days, weeks, or at best months. While at the orphanage most volunteers seek to build emotional bonds with the children so they can feel they made a difference. Unfortunately, although well intended, this leads to a never ending round of abandonment for the orphans. For while some volunteers may continue to correspond with the orphanage after they leave, few are willing or able to maintain a stable emotional bond with the children throughout their childhoods.
Does the orphanage do background checks on volunteers
While many volunteers have the best intentions at heart, there may be some people that are attracted to vulnerable children for other reasons. By allowing a steady stream of volunteers access to the children an orphanage puts the children at risk of greater harm.
Hug-an-orphan vacations are never a good idea
While the appeal for volunteers to help at international orphanages may sound real, any orphanage that allows a steady stream of volunteers to interact with the children are not putting the needs of the child first and may in fact be preying on well-intentioned but ill informed foreigners.
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Update: A new research report just came out talking about the damage that may be done by orphanage voluntourism programs
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Related Posts:
Does funding orphanages create orphans?
Be cautious when funding orphanages
New Research on Orphanages
Other Resources:
A protest against orphanage tourism – Lessons I Learned blog
EthioTube Fly Away Children – The Commericialization of Children
IRIN article West Africa: Protecting children from orphan dealers
IRIN article Africa: Why family is best for orphans
United Nations Draft Guidelines for the alternative care of children
UNICEF - Social Protection Strategy in Eastern and Southern Africa
United Nations working paper Reconstructing well-being after a disaster: Bringing public service to those who need it the most in China
United Nations report Human Rights in Liberia’s Orphanages
« Increasing International Dialogue and Engagement • “We Always Give What We Have, Not What People Need” »
“and may in fact be praying on well-intentioned but ill informed foreigners”.. do you mean “preying”?
informative article. Personally I would add don’t support any orphanages that wish to keep their status quo, ie. being dependent on donations and not trying to reunite orphans with (extended) family members. An orphanage is a last resort, when everything else has failed.
That said, there are very tough cases that need our help – precisely because all the official support goes to mismanaged or even corrupt orphanages.
On our independent volunteering site kindmankind.net you will find some small orphan homes, that are invisible because unlike some savvy scams they don’t have a fancy web site. Unannounced visits should help independent volunteers to understand the real situation on the ground. Ask yourself if you found out about the misery yourself or if it was presented to you in an attempt to solicit your donation. If you support the home, buy educational materials or equipment for income generating, such as a sewing machine. Make sure they know how to use them. Follow them over the years if you can and if you are convinced of the sustainable benefit for the children – vouch for it (for example using kindmankind.net, or idealist.org, or linkedIn, or even facebook)
[...] with her style! On a similar theme, Good Intentions Are Not Enough has a repost of an article on Hug-an-Orphan-Vacations. I’ll give a short quote from this one: While the appeal for volunteers to help at [...]
[...] be hard pressed to find an aid blogger that thinks supporting orphanages are a good idea. Over and over and over again aid bloggers and Western-centric aid professionals have been pushing the notion that [...]
[...] wily business people. (“Service-learning” marketed by unreflective private sector companies and orphanage tourism with no strategic planning or concern for the long term interest of the children and communities [...]
Your article is informative. And yeah, I also have realized same cases that have been mentioned here.
[...] Some standards that I’ve read also suggest a background check of all people working with children. Thus, any orphanage that allows you to walk off the street and interact with the children should be suspect. In addition, you should be cautious of funding any orphanage that relies heavily on foreign volunteers or staff if they do not have the ability to develop long term, meaningful relationships with the children (see Hug-an-orphan vacations). [...]
[...] http://goodintents.org/orphanages/hug-an-orphan-vacations-3 [...]
[...] strangers coming into your life for a short amount of time positively or negatively impact you? Research supports the idea that you would be negatively [...]
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