The Risks of Orphanage Voluntourism and How to Really Help Children

Despite the extensive research and reporting on the risks of voluntourism, people from all over the world, of any gender and age group, still come to volunteer at schools and orphanages in developing countries. Most visitors and volunteers have the best intentions, only wanting to help or do something useful to keep busy during their holidays. These volunteers can be anyone, from gap year students who want some type of work experience to retirees who want to use their skills for good. In an ideal world, voluntourism would consist of ethical practices such as extensive background checks, following safeguarding practices such as not permitting any lone contact with children, contracts and agreements for volunteers, and photo consent forms for the use of children’s images. However, in reality, these practices aren’t always followed. While these well-intentioned people want to do good and help, their very presence at orphanages perpetuates an exploitative business that doesn’t benefit the children at all.

Orphanages and other types of residential care centers are often run like businesses, using the children to bring money from donors and volunteers to the directors’ pockets rather than the care of the children and the upkeep of their living spaces. Many children are told to lie to the volunteers that come about the level of poverty they’re in or how bad their own personal situations are as a way to garner sympathy and money from donors. Volunteers often believe they are doing the right thing by giving money to these centers, believing that it’s in the best interest of the children. Many believe that their presence and services of fun, love and teaching are vital for the children, when actually, they’re doing more harm than good.

Rather than benefitting the children they want to help; the volunteer’s visits can actually cause children to develop Reactive Attachment Disorder. This disorder negatively impacts children’s abilities to form trusting and emotional connections with caregivers and peers. This impact on their development and emotional health will stay with them into adulthood, where they often find it very difficult to form healthy bonds with those around them. Volunteering at orphanages tends to be short term, with people only staying for a few days or weeks at a time, and sometimes only hours. While the volunteers have fun with the children, playing games, giving lessons, gifting toys, the children get attached to them very quickly, but then the volunteers suddenly leave and are never seen again. This leaves children feeling abandoned over and over again, and they are prone to developing Reactive Attachment Disorder as a result, especially as many already feel abandoned by their parents. Some children who have become used to volunteers coming and going constantly will avoid interacting with them and keep to themselves, while other children have the opposite reaction, becoming overly friendly with complete strangers, growing up to become adults who struggle to form healthy relationships.

Decades of research also tells us that children living in residential care are hyper-vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, and voluntourism adds to this vulnerability, especially when the volunteers coming into the orphanages were never given background checks of any kind. Volunteers are often put to work playing with the children, teaching or doing menial manual labour jobs like painting walls and building fences, when they don’t actually have the skills to do that. Why should people be allowed to work with children, teach English or do skilled manual labour when they have had no prior experience or the right qualifications? Would they be allowed to do this in their own countries in residential care centers and schools without background checks and qualifications or proof of experience? So why are people allowed to do those things in developing countries? This lack of background checks for visitors also puts children at risk of coming into contact with ill-intentioned people such as child predators who can hide behind the mask of ‘volunteer’.

In the past, volunteers have voiced their concerns about the orphanages they visit, citing poor living conditions, physical and emotional abuse, poor quality of food, and money hungry directors. There have been instances where children have been taken out of the orphanages by volunteers during the day with no checks on the volunteers and no staff accompanying them. Unfortunately, there have also been cases where the children have been taken out for the evening and never returned. Without background checks for volunteers and team members or the implementation of minimum standards of care and safeguarding policies, there are even more risks posed to the children.

So, how does M’lup Russey help with these issues? MRO’s priority is to support the development and implementation of alternative care regulations as well as reintegration procedures. MRO helps the directors of residential care centers to understand and follow the Government Policy on the Alternative Care of Children and the Minimum Standards of Alternative Care, by supporting them to attain the Child Safe Organization certificate, drafting and activating child protection policies, developing effective safeguarding practices for volunteers and staff and following official orphanage management protocol. We support these NGOs to follow the process of reintegration, supporting them in the transition to family-based care and community support programmes. MRO also focuses on advocacy, helping people research and understand the danger and risks to children through voluntourism through talks and presentations to groups sent from schools and churches around the world.

MRO hopes that raising awareness of the risks to children will compel people who want to volunteer to thoroughly research where they’re going, the companies they book through and other opportunities they can participate in to help vulnerable children. People are urged to research and support NGOs which focus on family strengthening, family reintegration and supporting family-based care, and should not expect to work with children directly. The ways volunteers can help can be through assisting staff and admin like IT and PR, as well as helping to set up fundraising events. However, people also need to be aware of their own qualifications. If someone were to volunteer with an NGO or orphanage, they should apply for ‘jobs’ that align with their existing qualifications, just like they would need to in their own countries. People should be aware of the red flags that may appear when applying to volunteer through a company - if you are not asked to do a background check, asked to show proof of identity or references and not made to sign child protection policies, you should not volunteer with them. This is vital to keep children safe from harm and to reduce the opportunities for abuse or exploitation.