Pinkngreentv wrote:dontmakememakeyou wrote:What exactly are these "service trips" she's going on? ..... if she's engaging in voluntourism, that's absolutely disgusting and she should be ashamed of promoting that.
The previous poster was saying aspen and the others are opportunist voluntourists (different than volunteering). They go for a week or two for a “project”. They are sun-seeking vacationers who stay at beachside resorts but who also want to see “the real (name your country).” So they go into a community for an afternoon to help local women make beads, jewelry or clothes etc..
Collectively they may spend thousands of dollars to fly to that country to do a job that the local bricklayers or regular workers could have done far more quickly.
Imagine how many classrooms might have been built if they had donated that money rather than spending it to fly down themselves. Perhaps those local masons could have found weeks of employment with a decent wage. Instead, at least for several days, they were out of a job because people like aspen is using it as an opportunity to promote their channel because of more "cute" pictures and a sense that she is a "goalz" jet setter..
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/m ... oogle.com/
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Exactly
there's lots of information online about why voluntourism is detrimental to lesser privileged countries/cultures. JK Rowling actually has a whole foundation dedicated to putting an end to it -- especially those who "volunteer" in orphanages (play games with disenfranchised children for a few hours and then post selfies to facebook about how "life changing the experience was" and how they've "changed the kid's life") are continuing to fund these damaging institutions that promote the idea of "white saviours." Orphanages that actually try to advance the wellbeing of these kids don't allow for these foreign volunteer programs. The reason these kids cling to these "volunteers" isn't because their lives have been changed, it's because they have such severe attachment issues that they'll cling to anyone giving them any attention. It's incredibly psychologically damaging for the kids and incredibly narcissistic for the volunteers.
And when it's something like building a school, for example, instead of spending that money on the resort (like mentioned above), they could donate that money to actual PEOPLE in those societies to train for those jobs and do it themselves. Not only do most volunteer building projects have to be demolished and re-built (since none of these people have actual experience doing any of this and yet think they're qualified), but have you ever heard the expression "if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day but if you teach a man to fish, he eats for life"? Barely any of this travel money they're putting out goes into the actual projects and just because they've handed a classroom over to a society doesn't mean much -- they still don't have the resources to build another or maintain theirs. If we help people acquire jobs, that's what really stimulates an economy and gives people purpose and income for themselves and their families. Giving a society the mentality that the only way they can have nice things is if rich white people come in and do it for them -- not even do it well -- that perpetuates systemic racism all over the world.
I hope that cleared things up!