My friend and pen pal of nearly 6 years @tarawinkler gave an incredible @ted talk in Sydney, Australia about the rise of ‘volunteer tourism’ in developing countries.
I myself fell into the trap when I was 18, thinking I was doing the right thing by volunteering in an orphanage in Cambodia, but I have since learned through Tara and my own research that in fact I was only contributing to the problem. I strongly urge you to watch her talk, and educate yourself on what you can do to help families and orphans in need that doesn’t involve supporting the institutionalizing of children.
We Need to End the Era of Orphanages | Tara Winkler
Tara Winkler speaks out against the spread of orphanages in developing countries, caused by the good intentions of foreign donors, and of harm that comes to children when they are separated from family and left to grow up in institutions.
Tara is the Managing Director of the Cambodian Children’s Trust (CCT) which she established with Jedtha Pon in 2007 in order to rescue fourteen children from a corrupt and abusive orphanage. She has led CCT through a number of significant organisational changes, including the closure of the initial CCT orphanage in favour of a family-based care model to empower Cambodian families to escape poverty, assist institutionalised children return to families, and help orphanages transform to a family-based care model. Her first book, ‘How (NOT) to Start an Orphanage – by a woman who did’ was published in April 2016.