Voluntourism is Exploitation

Two weeks ago, I was one of a group of about 16 meeting in Kibera to review the success of a few development projects and look for a variety of ways to get involved.

About 10 in the group were foreign students – 8 white Europeans and 2 Chinese – and the rest of us were African. The group spilt into two groups where each group would inspect a couple of projects, meet back at a central location and then swap projects to inspect. It emerged however, that the (almost entirely white) group didn’t want to inspect a project but preferred to walk around “just to see”. Now, this is where the hair stood on the back of my neck and a part of my spirit cried, “No!”