This post is part of the Better Volunteering Better Care Initiative’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. In this post, the author interviews Caroline Scheffer, former Country Director of the The Umbrella Foundation, who shares her thoughts on volunteer and orphanage tourism, and her recommendations for helping ensure the safety and well-being of vulnerable children in developing countries.

Lucia C.A. Williams, Professor at the Department of Psychology, Universidade Federal de São Carlos in Brazil, and Evelyn Eisenstein, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine and Coordinator of Telemedicine of the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, will present at this webinar, hosted by ISPCAN.

Based on an exhaustive review of the global literature and utilising an innovative theoretical framework of ‘altruistic exploitation’, the authors explore the ironic juxtaposition of benefits and harms associated with orphan tourism to the various stakeholders.

This post is part of the Better Volunteering Better Care Initiative’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. The post shines a light on orphanage voluntourism and the damage it does to children.

This post is part of the Better Volunteering Better Care Initiative’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. In this post, the author shares her own experience of visiting an orphanage as a tourist in Tanzania and what she has learned since about the harms of orphanage tourism and orphanage volunteering.

This post is part of the Better Volunteering Better Care Initiative’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. The post explains why volunteering in orphanages is NOT in the best interest of children and asks readers to consider sustainable tourism instead.

This post is part of the Better Volunteering Better Care Initiative’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. In this post, the author questions a friend’s decision to send her two teenage sons on a voluntourism trip to Uganda to help “build an orphanage.”

In this TED Talk, Tara Winkler, the Managing Director of the Cambodian Children’s Trust (CCT), discusses the detrimental impacts that family separation and orphanage placement have on children and speaks out against donating to, or supporting, orphanages in developing countries.

This post is part of the Better Volunteering Better Care Initiative’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. In this post, the author explains that, around the world, many orphanages are being run, not by government, but by church groups and individuals who start as volunteers. “The institutions are poorly regulated and they’re doing a job that could be done by the children’s families, with the right support,” says Smith.

This post is part of the Better Volunteering Better Care Initiative’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. In this post, the author describes his experiences with international volunteers in the orphanage where he lived and the larger problem of orphanage volunteering.