Orphanage volunteers may have the best of intentions - but they may unwittingly be doing more harm than good, as one ex-volunteer discovered.
At the age of 17, the idea of volunteering in an orphanage seemed like a rewarding, ethical and helpful thing to do. She found an organisation to travel with and booked on a trip to Kenya.
Looking back, she now questions the ease at which was able to sign up to volunteer in an orphanage, and the unsupervised access, without any child protection checks, to vulnerable children. Today, she feels that her trip was form of exploitation - not just of the children in the orphanages but herself - and her good intentions - too.
Read this former orphanage volunteer's full blog post on Lumos' website.
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