Chris Selley: This toxic voluntourism is not how to change the world
I don’t think there would be much academic debate about WE’s basic pitch to young people, however: It’s toxic. It’s voluntourism most foul.
“If you’re itching to explore the globe, learn new skills and make a difference in the lives of others, then you’re in for the trip of a lifetime,” WE’s travel website promises.
Helping other people comes third, you’ll notice; elsewhere, it hardly even gets a nod. Instead it promises you’ll get to “explore your passions” and “take your adventure to the next level” and “level up your leadership skills.” It doesn’t actually say “it’ll look good on your resumé,” but it might well be less offensive if it did.
The grant program doesn’t make a lot of sense, regardless of who’s administering it
Quoted trip veterans don’t talk much about changing the world either. “You’d get off the boat and see all the kids lined up at the shore waiting for you, with massive smiles on their faces,” says Kaira, who went to the Amazon. “You can read about poverty or watch documentaries on it,” says Darby, who went to Kenya, “but seeing it firsthand is very different.”
“A ME to WE Trip serves as a meaningful step into adulthood as young people gain an increased sense of independence and responsibility,” parents are assured. “They might even take out the garbage when they get home!”
This grotesque vision essentially conquered Canadian officialdom. Tens of thousands of Canadian children were jammed into arenas on school days to be pumped full of it, and sent home with armloads of corporate-branded swag and travel brochures.
At some point schools need to come to grips with how the hell that happened. And the do-gooder community needs to have a similar rethink about how best to improve the world. Bill Morneau has paid WE a total of $93,000 (that we know of) for trips to Ecuador and Kenya. That’s 40 times Kenya’s per-capita GDP. It seems very unlikely Morneau got the maximum world-changing bang for his buck.
nationalpost.com/opinion/chris-selley-this-toxic-voluntourism-is-not-how-to-change-the-world/