There is an alternative

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In recent years I have become concerned that High school groups have been visiting Cambodia and spending significant time, or all their time, in orphanages ‘helping’ – playing with the kids, teaching English, and do work tasks like painting and building. 

The overall impression they get of Cambodia and Cambodian kids is very limited.  The vast majority of children in Cambodia live with their parents, extended family and community. To spend any time in an orphanage or children’s home is harmful to both the kids living there (attachment disorders and other psychological issues in the children are exacerbated) and those visiting (who develop misunderstandings about appropriate responses to poverty and disadvantage).

Trips to many other countries by Australian school groups never include visiting orphanages. When a school group goes to Europe, for example, the emphasis is language, history and culture. But rather than coming to learn these same things in Cambodia they so often follow the well-trod pathway of volun-tourism and orphanage tourism. It is easy to do, and is encouraged by the orphanage managers for whom a constant stream of visitors amuses the kids, gets a few jobs done around the property and the volunteers, emotionally moved by being with the kids, will often leave money with the managers before they depart.

Of course the volunteers are doing what seems needed and with the best intentions. But it is not all about them. It should be all about the kids in orphanages and Children’s homes and it is clear visiting such places anywhere in the world does harm to the most vulnerable kids of all.

In Cambodia, if you build an orphanage you will fill it, not with orphans but with kids from poor families sent for a “better life”. But what kind of life is it away from mum and dad, family and friends? (See website on institutional care issues internationally)

There is an alternative. Emmaus Christian College from South Australia have recently visited Vietnam and Cambodia and focused on history and social justice. During their time in Cambodia they have learnt Khmer language each day, learnt from key members of the ‘emerging’ civil society in Cambodia, and sat with young people deeply committed to empowering the youth of Cambodia to find their voice and bring change to a country desperately in need of transformation from within. In the process the students from Australia have been changed and challenged in many ways. When Cambodian people heard the students were learning ‘their language’ each day they were surprised and often asked “but why are they learning our language when they are only here 10 days? When they realized that the programme was to ‘learn’ rather than ‘help’, and to ‘engage and understand’ they were impressed.

So, Australian educators, please re-think what you do when you send a group of your students to poor countries to ‘experience’ poverty and ‘serve’ the poor.  There is damage done to those you meet and your own kids get a warped view of both themselves and their place in the world. There is an alternative.