BRAVEAURORA fights against illegal orphanages and rejects the billion-dollar Volunteer Business!
For some years now, “volunteer tourism” has been booming as a new and critical industry. For volunteers, it has created a tourism offer that combines the comfort of travel with the good feeling of helping. Qualification is not needed – which needs to be seen critically. Such well-intentioned acts typically have fatal consequences in developing countries. Because the sooner the product meets the needs of the customer, the greater the commercial success. The agencies require high placement fees and often provide inadequate care for the volunteers. An offer is created and demand is satisfied by children or supposed orphans in developing countries.
The bestseller “Help for Children” attracts volunteers like a magnet and short-term assignments at the orphanage are sold most successfully. In Ghana, international visitors with their demand for vulnerable children, are creating the framework for the continuous “production” of ever new – mostly illegal – orphanages filled with alleged orphans as soon as the volunteers arrive. At other times, these houses are mostly empty. The children who are victims of this cycle will be demoted to a marketable product.
BRAVEAURORA is clearly opposed to this trend and is actively promoting awareness through workshops with young people, networking with diverse organizations and educational work in Ghana. In addition, a sustainable concept of volunteering has been developed for our projects in Ghana: BRAVEAURORA selects the volunteers according to their qualifications, experience and reviews or compares their qualifications with local needs. There are no fees required. Volunteers who are involved in BRAVEAURORA projects ideally stay for 6 months and sometimes longer.
Here an interesting broadcast (german) about volunteer business: “Abiturienten als Entwicklungshelfer: sinnlose Kurztrips ins Elend”!
Weiterführende Literatur:
– Jonnson, Cecilia: The Volunteers – From missionary organizations to volunteers travel agencies. Dissertation, Linnaeus University (2012)
– Maag et. al: Commercial VolunTourism. A modern industry. Scandinavian College of Travel and Tourism (2012)
– Hanna Voelkl: Where are the children? Orphanage volontourism in Ghana. In: Children, Youth and International Development”. Master Thesis, Brunel University (2013)
– Lauren Kascak, Laura; Dasgupta, Sayantani: #InstagrammingAfrica: The Narcissism of Global Voluntourism (2014)
– Daniel Rössler: Das Gegenteil von gut… ist gut gemeint. Seifert Verlag (2015)