International Coordinator of Communication team, Friends International

James Sutherland

James mentioned about the work of Friends international, Childsafe Movement, and childsafe alliance

He mentioned research studies about orphans in Cambodia. 72% orphans are faked and many orphanages are illegal without license. He also mentioned to us the policy of Cambodia government that aims to end all orphanages by 2014 but it fails to do so. Still, they are trying to eliminate orphanages.

He explained to us why orphanage is the last resort and harmful for children on the ground that there are other ways more important than putting a kid to orphanage. The ways Include extended family and community members. He also argued that setting is harmful for children’s development.

On the issue of orphanage tourism, he urges people please think before they visit the orphanages because it will make the issue worst. He also warns overseas volunteers to think more about their service in the local community. Can your service bring sustainable impacts on the service target? Are you qualified to provide the service you are going to offer? Do you have any other better plan to bring better impact on the local community? He finds that many volunteers went to Cambodia to build something but the truth is those volunteers are actually useless for the construction at all. They could make better use of their monetary resource instead of traveling from their home country to Cambodia to build something.

He lastly recommended overseas volunteers to help local NGOs conduct Research or survey to collect data if they really want to serve in Cambodia.⁠⁠⁠    

#FriendsInternational #STIR #NoOrphanageTourism #RethinkVolunteering #LearnBeforeYouServe #ChildSafeMovement

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