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| Short-term volunteers may have good intentions, but childcare experts say they are putting some of the most vulnerable children at risk. — Photo by AFP |
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
AFP
SIEM REAP: Pictures of hundreds of former volunteers line the walls of a muddy courtyard in Cambodia’s tourist hub of Siem Reap, their faces once familiar to the orphans playing there but now long gone.
The colourful gallery at the Acodo orphanage illustrates a growing trend of holidaymakers donating their time and skills to children in the impoverished country — but experts fear they could be doing more harm than good.
Marissa Soroudi, a student in her 20s from New York, is one of the many volunteers teaching English at Acodo, near the famed temples of Angkor and home to more than 60 orphans between the ages of three and 18.
The young American, who pays $50 a week to work at the orphanage, plans to stay for a few days before travelling on but she knows it is tough on the children to watch volunteers like her come and go.
“There are so many people volunteering that it’s kind of like, one leaves and another swoops in,” she said.
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