Commercial Voluntourism is unfortunately a worldwide phenomenon. Developing countries are getting swamped by unskilled, untrained, unqualified young people from industrial countries. In many cases those so-called volunteers do have the honest intention to help people in need. But most of the time they have decided to volunteer with an organisation or company that does not follow the goal of providing sustainable and effective aid.
The degrading term “voluntourism” embodies the marketization of volunteering work into a travel experience. Traditional volunteering work has now become a tourist adventure package where people from the Western world travel to exotic countries.
Unethical volunteering agencies misuse the poverty of developing countries and the naivety of young people by constructing travel packages to make a fortune. Those international companies sell only the experience/feeling of volunteering work. Their goal is not to provide help to people in need. But to use those people in need to attract more and more paying customers. Their income depends on the amount of travelers who seek to volunteer. Hence, those companies will take anyone as a volunteer without checking their backgrounds. They do not show any moral and social responsibility – everything is only subject to profit.
In the recent past critical scientific and journalistic work on voluntourism has massively increased.
Check our List Of Literature And Articles for more illuminating facts.
Most common downsides of Commercial Voluntourism
We know about the danger of Commercial Voluntourism and the harm it does to societies and cultures.
Following Our Vision and Our Philosophy, we have a responsibility to educate and to inform you about the Danger Of Commercial Voluntourism. Only if you understand what those organisations do, you are able to make better decisions.
Check out Who We Do Not Want To Be to learn the differences between our non-profit organisation and the many other commercial volunteering organisations.