Thank you Simone for another excellent article. You have provided some practical and helpful suggestions for how we can move forward in Nepal with systems to regulate volunteering to ensure it is ethical and does not harm children.
I would like to add a point of clarification though in relation to your comment: “NGN advocates for ‘a last resort option’ when we talk about orphanage volunteering”. This is in fact not quite what we are saying.
By talking about orphanage volunteering as a “last resort” it gives the impression that it is okay to do it so long as all other options have been exhausted, which is not in fact what we advocate for. To clarify our position I am enclosing an extract from our report:
"Avoid orphanage voluntourism (in the majority of cases): Orphanage voluntourism creates long-term attachment problems and psychological disorders for children, denies them of their right to grow up in family-based care setting, leaves them at risk of physical and sexual abuse, and fuels a corrupt profit-making trafficking industry. Orphanage voluntourism is not an ethical option in the vast majority of cases. It is only suitable for a very few skilled volunteers and, even then, there are only a few orphanages in Nepal at which NGN would consider it ethical to volunteer at. In the vast majority of cases, NGN does not endorse orphanage voluntourism. NGN advises that the only people suitable to volunteer in orphanages and children's homes are: (i) those with appropriate professional skills (such as child-care qualifications, social work, child psychology, or similarly related skills); and (ii) those who can volunteer for long enough to have a meaningful and sustainable benefit for the children and staff. These are the standards which most developed countries would expect from people wishing to volunteer with vulnerable children, and there is no reason why these standards should be any different for Nepal."
So we do not consider orphanage volunteering to be a "last resort" but to be only suitable in a very few cases where the volunteers have the appropriate professional skills and the orphanage meets all legal standards.
However, I do not wish for this technical detail to detract from what is otherwise a thoughtful and useful article on an important subject. Thank you once again for helping spread awareness and offering intelligent suggestions for a way forward.
Martin Punaks
NGN Country Director
Lead Author of "The Paradox of Orphanage Volunteering"
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