It’s the
end of your three week vacation in Southeast Asia. You did good. You managed to
hit all the locations on the backpacker’s circuit; lounging on the tropical
Islands off the Thai Peninsula, experiencing the street food of Bangkok,
exploring the temples of Siem Reap, and shopping on the floating markets of the
Mekong River. Now, with just a few days left before your flight home, you’d
like to do something selfless, something worthwhile. You decide to volunteer in
one of Cambodia’s orphanages.
The problem
is finding one that isn’t a scam.
Since 2005,
Cambodia has seen a 75 percent increase in its number of orphanages. It’s no
coincidence that the growth matches the explosion of tourism in the country;
foreign arrivals have increased 250% in the same period. The orphanages run on
foreign volunteers and dollars.
Yet of the
two million tourists who will pass through Cambodia this year, many aren’t
aware that 71% percent of children in its orphanages still have living parents.
They aren’t orphans in fact, but have been recruited by the centers with
promises to parents for better education and care. “So what we have is this
huge discrepancy between supply and demand,” explains Sean Looney, director of
SISHA – an organization that investigates human trafficking and living
conditions in residential care centers. “Such a proliferation of orphanages in
Cambodia makes you wonder, what’s the missing variable here? It’s Money.”
The money
trail has sprung an entire industry around child care centers. While Cambodia
still has many legitimate NGO’s and orphanages working in the best interests of
children, just trying to find one in tourist areas such as Phnom Penh and Siem
Reap can be a challenge. Our own search for a reputable institution in Phnom
Penh was a comedy of errors.
“You want
orphanage? Yes sir! Come with me.”
The Tuk tuk
drivers outside our guesthouse were the first to spring for our business. They
were eager. Most of them receive commissions from orphanages that bring
tourists to the centers, and some get them by stopping at specific markets on
the way so that you can buy school supplies for the kids. The most
entrepreneurial organize daily orphanage tours. A tuk tuk driver named Manny
told us he could take us to five centers in a single afternoon for $20 – lunch
included!
These are
not the places you want to volunteer with; we heard that most orphanages
commissioning tuk tuk drivers are scams. We made a note of their
recommendations and scratched them off our list.
The next
place we looked was at a hostel called Monkey Bar. Upon hearing the word
“orphanage,” the waitress behind the bar pulled out a binder of “adventure
activities” the hostel organizes for its guests. On the third page, we found a
brochure for a day trip to an orphanage for $30 a person. Activities included:
teaching children English, playing games, singing songs, and making friends.
The bus left at 9 in the morning and returned in time for happy hour. But the
advertisement made no mention of what kind of material donations the center
needed, or if a volunteer could stay longer than a day. It also said the kids
performed costumed aspara dances for guests on Saturdays and Sundays. It
sounded sketchy.
So we
turned to the internet, coming up with a few names but little information on
them. There is no easy to find directory of orphanages because many aren’t
registered. The reason is corruption. One center’s director told us he paid
over $1000 to government officials and police officers to register his
orphanage, and hundreds more to keep an inspector’s mouth shut.
With little
else to go off, we decided to check out the orphanages that came up on our
Google Maps search of Phnom Penh.
The first,
called Light House Orphanage, invited us through the front gate with no
appoint, no questions asked, and no hesitation to let us tour the kids’
bedrooms. Then, before asking us what kind of skills we could provide, they
pulled out a price list and discussed how much money we would pay to volunteer
there. $15 dollars a day, each. Preferably cash.
These fees
are common, and generate healthy margins for the orphanages since all they
provide to volunteers is electricity and a couple of meals, mostly rice. They
also exclude the donations that often come at the end of a volunteer’s stay –
running anywhere from one hundred to a thousand dollars.
The second
place we visited, called the “Children’s Center to Happiness,” wasn’t much
better. They didn’t have any adult supervisors when we were there. Instead, the
children flocked around us and started hugging our arms. We asked the kids when
the staff might return, and they said that evening. When we came back hours
later, there was still no one to look after them.
Finally
though, we did find a legitimate place. On our third try we discovered SCAO,
which despite its unfortunate name “Save the Poor Children in Asia Organization,”
turned out to have a well-intentioned staff and a solid team of a dozen
volunteers from around the world. We ended up volunteering there a week.
In our
search, we learned that even among the scams and corruption and ancillary
businesses created by Cambodia’s orphanage boom, a volunteer can find a worthy
organization if they practice due diligence. The two important things to
consider are: how trustworthy is the organization I’m volunteering for, and how
will I impact the lives of the children once I’m there?
Even after
finding a proper orphanage, it’s important remember to that children are not
tourist attractions.
To learn
how you can best help in Cambodia’s orphanages, please refer to ChildSafe’s
recommendations for volunteers.
Source: Forbes
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