My favourite recent story was of a very self-righteous French tourist in Senegal who decided there were too many batteries lying around damaging the environment. She paid bemused but willing Senegalese kids to collect them up. She then didn't know what to do with them, and flew off, leaving them in a large, now collectively leaking, pile...

The obvious answer is to educate tourists on what to do that would be helpful - but then when most professional developmentalists, who are in the business, after all, can't convincingly demonstrate that what they do fits the bill, isn't it a bit rich to apply unreasonable standards to naive but well-meaning (or guilty) tourists?

And, of course, the unintended consequences of irresponsible giving may, sometimes, be beneficial.

So in that sense my sympathies are with E.M. Forster: "Live in fragments no longer... Only connect!"  Therein lies the hope...




Edited by John Pollock - 23 May 2007 at 17:54

Kate..could you elaborate on your comment.."the manner of giving appears inappropriate". I assume this is in context of what Relief Riders are giving along their rides. I see that they give educational material to schools, deworm children, participate in an eye surgery camp, and on one trip, donate livestock. What do you find inappropriate?

There are so many stories! One of my favorites was a free-trade protest outside of Cancun a few years ago. The organizers wanted to be self-sufficient and brought a ton of renewable energy equipment which they left with locals. Good intentions, but they never inquired ahead of time how to organize this so that it would be put to good use after the protest.

In Oaxaca where I have lived the past six years a European agency helped ween artisans from coal and tire-fired furnaces for ceramics. Natural gas would be a better option, they insisted. After the training, the experts left and the artisans returned to the traditional fires, actually leaving some of the pieces in the stoves fired with natural gas.

As a newbie great to so much interesting discussion - was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the concpet of 'visitor gifting'? We www.coastproject.co.uk work with tourism businesses that want to help their local communities and environements and want to encourage their visitors to do the same. . . they ask visitor for voluntary contributions. . i.e. 5 pence added to the price of a cup of tea/coffee. .or maybe £1 added per person, per bed night etc. . maybe 50p added to the price of a tour. . all voluntary opt-out schemes. The  money raised then goes to a local charity/community group to help with a specific issue/habitat. For example we have one business that in the past year raised a few thousand pounds for the local wildlife trust to help with marine conservation and education. Alot of money for a small charity. .all raised from visitors willingness to give back to the areas they are visiting.  Becasue the money is channelled through registered charities that are already working in the area it avoides some of the problems mentioned above?

Hi Jemma

I wondered what you thought of the following travel advice:

 

As a tour operator we used to suggest that travelers bring pens and notebooks to give out to the local children as an alternative to money and sweets which we found the children would ask for when they saw our groups.

 

However a lot of our local guides and reps (especially in India and Africa) suggested that we stopped offering gifts to children as it encouraged begging and promoted a culture of dependency. Instead they asked that if possible our clients contribute money or supplies to a local school or community organisation.

 

Do you feel that the later is a more responsible option for our clients?