A Broader View has Trafficked Kids in Orphanages, Beats Them and Houses Them in Awful Conditions
By: Catherine Cottam
Program: A Broader View
Location: Makuyu Village in Kenya (north of Nairobi)
Accommodations: I did sleep at the orphanage. They had a block of rooms for volunteers to share.
I utilized ABV back in the summer of 2012 before I knew how damaging voluntourism is to communities and, specifically, to children in orphanages. I paid A Broader View over $1,100 for the “privilege” of staying at an orphanage for a week and a half. While I was there, I saw and heard some very troubling things about the orphanage.
After I returned home, I learned even more heartbreaking things, like a story of a child being beaten so severely that his leg was broken and the details of people being fired from the orphanage for standing up for the children. It turned out that the orphanage was really more like a work camp for the children and that almost every child at the orphanage had living relatives (and even parents for many of them) living close by.
These children were trafficked to the orphanage for the purpose of providing labor and attracting donations from volunteers like myself. When I went to A Broader View with my concerns and urged them to stop sending people to the orphanage I went to, they wouldn’t even respond to my e-mail.
The orphanage has subsequently been shut down with the help of some truly amazing people and most of the children have been reunified with their family members. I know that the kids are mostly back with their families now because I volunteer for the NGO that reunified them, Stahili.
I was working on a Master’s Degree in Education at the time I volunteered, so I was somewhat qualified for being around the kids, but not at all prepared for the appalling conditions the children were living in and I was certainly taking work away from locals who could have painted walls much more quickly, easily, and accurately than I did.
Please PLEASE don’t use A Broader View if you want to volunteer responsibly.