Volunteering has become a huge market. Many young people take a gap year to work with children in Africa, Asia or Latin America - very often in orphanages. On social media, they post pictures of themselves with a group of happy children. But unfortunately, it is mostly the volunteers who benefit from this experience. Agencies who organize these volunteering trips exploit the children and the young adults who are very often uninformed. 

Kristen Cheney is an expert on volunteering, voluntourism, international adoption and the white saviour complex and in this episode, she explains what is currently wrong in all these broken systems that exist worldwide.

More information provided by Kristen Cheney:

https://www.faithtoaction.org/BarnaStudy2021/ 

bit.ly/orphanindustrialcomplex https://blogsmedia.lse.ac.uk/blogs.dir/16/files/2021/11/The-Power-Behind-Good-Intentions_Toolkit.pdf 

https://rethinkorphanages.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/Interactive%20PDF_Divestment%20resource%20for%20the%20travel%20and%20volunteering%20secctors.pdf

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/author/C/K/au25338628.html

iss.academia.edu/KristenCheney