Posts categorized under Orphanage Tourism

14 October 2009 ~ 6 Comments

Questions for Your Voluntourism Operator

I wrote a guest blog post for Canada’s adventure couple, Dave and Deb about voluntourism, why I work, in part, in this field, and some ideas for how we can improve what we do. For those who don’t have time to read the whole post, here are the five key areas I would consider when […]

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05 October 2009 ~ 54 Comments

A Protest Against Orphanage Tourism

I try to avoid spending much time on “bar street”, a place in Siem Reap which is full of, yep, bars.  The main reasons I avoid it now are no longer just the noise, the embarrassing displays of lack-of-clothing on gap-year tourists, the drunken fools, nor the begging, though those reasons alone should be enough…. […]

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23 September 2009 ~ 1 Comment

Travel Operators & Development Work

Most of us who criticize, publicize, support, or question “voluntourism” follow that word on google alerts, and so we were all alerted when Abercrombie & Kent (a high-end tour operator) announced their philanthropy tours.  Alexia, aka Voluntourism Gal, put up a post about this topic which sparked a lot of discussion and asked for my […]

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10 September 2009 ~ 4 Comments

PEPY on Travelfish: What changes would YOU like to see in tourism?

Here is an interview travelfish did on PEPY: http://www.travelfish.org/feature/161 One of the questions they asked was about the changes I would love to see in tourism in Cambodia.  Here are my answers: 3) You say on your website that “PEPY Tours aims to catalyse a large-scale, transformational change in tourism.” What do you think is […]

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23 August 2009 ~ 15 Comments

What are ALL voluntourists good at?

In recent years Voluntourism it has gotten a bad name.  There are a lot of valid reasons that people have been turned off by voluntourism, including: voluntourism’s potential to foster colonialist attitudes and cause harmful side effects (as in Illich’s thoughts on Peace Corps) projects which place unskilled foreign travelers in jobs requiring skilled laborers […]

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12 June 2009 ~ 0 Comments

Non-Profit vs. For-Profit Voluntourism… is there a difference?

Our friend Voluntourism Gal (Alexia Nestora) put this post out on the Adventure Travel Trade Association’s Hub asking for others thoughts. What do YOU think? Trad. Non-Profits vs. Volunteer Sending Organizations POST BY ALEXIA NESTORA The voluntourism field seems to be divided when it comes to the non-profits versus for-profits, but what about within the […]

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26 May 2009 ~ 2 Comments

“Volunteering” or “Voluntourism” – who cares! It’s how you design it!

There is a discussion about volunteering/voluntourism going on here, Part 1 and here, Part 2. I decided to add my long-winded and opinionated post obviously tainted by working in Cambodia and being passionate about the responsibility implicit in these issues. —- As someone who has worked in Cambodia for almost five years, this is a debate I […]

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