catapult magazine

a friend sent me an interesting article about ‘philanthropic travel’, where wealthy families take a luxury vacation that includes a visit to a humanitarian project and a sizable donation. this is in contrast to ‘voluntourism’, where the traveler actually does work in an economically unstable community (taking jobs away from locals). I’m simultaneously uncomfortable and hopeful about this kind of travel. what are the pros and cons from your perspective? does it do more good than harm?

Hi Kirsten -

Thanks for posing some excellent questions. So…how would you answer the questions yourself?

What makes you hopeful?
What are the pros and cons from your perspective?
Do you think it will harm more than it helps?

Regards,
David

well, I’m hoping to start discussion rather than just answer my own questions, but since you asked…

travel philanthropy seems more honest than ‘voluntourism’, but still runs the risk of the traveler patronizing the natives and assuming he/she is the only one with anything to give—the imperialist attitude that we are wealthy because we are civilized and they are poor because they are uncivilized. I hope there’s also a focus on what native people have to offer in the way of life experience and unique wisdom—more than just people returning home with the gem, "They’re poor…but they were so happy!" this can definitely be true, but the presence of joy doesn’t justify the situation. I would hope there could be an honesty about the universality of injustice—wealth can definitely be stewarded in positive ways, but there’s something fundamentally wrong with the world when some people have so much while others are dying for lack of food and medicine. I don’t suppose ‘guilting’ wealthy travelers would be productive, but it still would be frustrating to coddle people who deliberately ignored injustice to make themselves feel better about their lifestyle. but hey, take the money and run to the nearest rural health clinic, right? in sheer volume of dollars being generated for struggling communities, I think this kind of tourism is more good than bad, and the fact that there’s an ongoing relationship that develops (as opposed to blind giving) is healthy. I also appreciate the reference to putting money into communities and projects to be able to pay native people to swing hammers, rather than the tourists swinging hammers as a ‘gesture’ of help.

there are some similar themes in an article we published a while back about the cost of short term missions.

okay, back to you—what are your thoughts?