Backpacking verses “Voluntourism”
Backpacking v’s “Voluntourism”
Judith Brodie, director of VSO UK, one of Britians leading charities, caused a storm last week when she said that “voluntourism” was a waste of money.
“Voluntourism” is mainly aimed at students taking gap years. While previous generations have generally gone backpacking, one new trend is for people to undertake volunteer work organized by a specialist company. Brodie said, “While there are many good gap-year providers, we are increasingly concerned about the number of badly planned and supported schemes that are spurious – ultimately benefiting no one other than the travel companies that organize them.”
Brodie was referring to organizations who charge £3000 ($6000) for just three months volunteer work. This could include teaching English in South America, conservation work in India or maybe mucking out in an elephant sanctuary in Africa.
I believe it comes down to the personal choice of the individual and while there is obviously a lot of good volunteer work out there, I have seen many reports of volunteers being made to do mostly manual labour. For me, nothing beats the feeling of independent travel.
