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This toolkit is the outcome of four seminars organised by the Service Civil International (SCI), an international peace organisation dedicated to promoting a culture of peace by organising international voluntary projects.
The toolkit asks the questions:
- 'How can we make volunteers reflect on the colonial power structures that are behind their ideas of “development” and “help”?
- How can we make them lose their unconscious or even conscious imperial and white supremacist approaches, seeing countries in the Global North as superior to those in the Global South…
This animated video from Alternative Care Thailand tells the story of a boy in Thailand who is sent to live in an orphanage because his mother feels she is unable to care for him at home and his experiences with volunteers once he arrives at the orphanage. In the story, the leader of the orphanage attends a training where he learns about how to use donations to help the children's families and support children at home, instead of taking them into the orphanage. The orphanage slowly transitions to become a family support center.
This report from Lumos defines the global problem of institutionalization of children - including the factors that drive it and the harmful impacts it has on children's physical and cognitive development - and proposes global solutions in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. Featuring a variety of global thought leaders, the publication comprises twelve articles which tackle the major issues fueling institutionalization and how to achieve transformative change for affected children.
Chapters include:
- Children in Institutions: A Neglected Group in Monitoring…
This thematic paper from ECPAT's Global Study on Sexual Exploitation of Children in Travel and Tourism highlights the risks of sexual exploitation of children associated with volunteering and voluntourism, including orphanage voluntourism. The paper defines the term "voluntourism" and outlines several risks connected with this practice, including:
1. Lack of appropriate regulations and supervision
2. Normalized irregular interactions with strangers
3. Imbalance of power
4. Violation of children’s privacy
The paper offers recommendations for addressing these issues,…
The London School of Economics (LSE) Volunteer Centre and the Better Volunteering Better Care Initiative have collaborated to develop a pledge that can be adopted by universities and other institutions of higher or further education. By adding this pledge to their websites, universities and other supporters promise not to advertise orphanage volunteering trips to students and to “endeavour to ensure that such opportunities are neither facilitated nor promoted within our institution.” Supporters of the pledge include Royal Holloway University of London, University of East London, London…
While many scholars and activists from multiple disciplines have reported on various aspects of orphan policy and the international adoption industry, there has been little synthesis of this information and its implications for global child protection. This chapter asserts that the misidentification of “orphans” as a category for development and humanitarian intervention has subsequently been misappropriated by many Western individuals and charitable organizations. Promoting a discourse of orphan rescue, they foster the growth of an “orphan industrial complex.” In developing countries…