What is it about?
Voluntourism is a booming and largely unregulated industry where individuals from all walks of life get to take a break from day to day life, try something new and give something back. While this has wonderful potential to help projects working with vulnerable people, this article reminds us that we must also practice caution if we want the communities receiving support to be protected from exploitation.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
Under the umbrella of volunteourism, projects are able to work with communities of, at times, extremely vulnerable people with little or no child protection procedures in place. Regulation must start to consider the appropriateness of allowing foreign tourists to spend two week holidays "playing dress-up" as social workers in developing countries when they have no relevant training, qualifications or experience. A checklist of minimum standards is suggested as a starting point for future policy.
Perspectives
I feel that voluntourism has a huge amount of potential and I know that my own experiences volunteering when I was younger, without a doubt, instilled a passion for working in Latin America and shaped my future career. However, the communities we work with deserve the same respect and protection that we would offer vulnerable people anywhere. It is not good enough to say, "well at least we are doing something" when children are being put at risk. Implementing basic child protection procedures does not have to be complex and there are already great resources to help, it's just a matter of organisations recognising that this should be a priority.
Ms Liz Wilson
SKIP
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Finding the win-win, Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, April 2015, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/whatt-12-2014-0045.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
