Voluntourism is a relatively new branch of tourism, and is considered to be quite sustainable in comparison to other forms of tourism. By researching how the voluntourists perceive the sustainable effects of the work that they have participated in, this thesis has been able to show how detectable some of these effects are. With the focus on the Philippines, this thesis has also been able to determine that the researched voluntourism organisations seems to be present in the country due to the fact that the help that they provide is really needed. By analysing the content of a number of voluntourism organisations, it has been possible to detect that the effects of the voluntourism work have several positive impacts on the local society. Out of these the main effects are the increased access to education and work for the locals. The thesis has also been able to determine that in order for organisations to be able to optimise their sustainability, they need to work with both economic, environmental, and social aspects.

Youth’s perceptions of international development and its related themes are being shaped through the messages relayed in the marketing of volunteer sending organizations. This research explores how one voluntourism sending organization, ME to WE, packages and portrays themes of international development and contributes to Heron’s “helping imperative” (2007), which is a desire to go abroad and make change by asserting one’s own values of development. It uses qualitative content analysis from ME to WE’s online youth trip pages and explores how the organization uses a discourse that focuses on the notion of “doing” development, selling adventure, the allure of the proximity to poverty, and leadership and social justice training. The research situates the findings in the scholarly debates on international volunteering and voluntourism and draws heavily on postcolonial analysis. It examines how ME to WE uses a rhetoric that promotes sustainable development, partnerships, building leaders, and global citizenship, however upon deeper analysis this promotion is superficial in that the themes in the discourse point to a lack of critical reflexivity in meaningful, thick conceptions of global citizenship education, an overwhelming support for egoistic motivations over altruism in youth going abroad, a consumer-first, consumption-based mentality, and a reinforcing of unequal power structures between the Global North and Global South, reverting back towards charity as opposed to solidarity.

This study raises the issue of the trafficking of children in favor of voluntourism and orphanage tourism. The phenomenon of tourists who engage in volunteer work during a holiday has increased into a considerable form of tourism and turned in to a profitable business.  This thesis is questioning what factors triggers children to be trafficked and sexual exploited within the phenomenon of orphanage tourism and voluntourism. To conclusion of this thesis will question how the phenomenon affects the children.  This study is an abductive, qualitative desk-study with a thematic text analysis. The analysis is based on Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six step model where themes are constructed from the findings. The elements that the children within this phenomenon are affected by were categorized into these themes. The themes were afterwards analyzed individually in order to create a holistic picture of how they impact children.  The empirical data are all from secondary and tertiary sources out of both academia and media. The findings have been analyzed with the theoretical framework of Johan Galtung and his definition of presence of violence. Galtung’s concept of structural violence has been applied to analyze what drives children to be trafficked- and sexually exploited in connection to orphanage tourism, as well as how this effected the children.  The thesis suggests that the main factor, which fuels children to be trafficked in this context, is the demand for accessible children. Orphanage tourism has become a profitable business and a loophole for the corrupt to gain money on socially vulnerable families. This by presenting them to tourist who pay money in good faith and dedicate time from their vacation in belief that they are doing good.  The thesis addresses how structural violence is present and how it contributes to the phenomenon of orphanage tourism to keep operating by trafficking children in favor of it. It is also shown that psychological stress within various dimensions, which the children are exposed to, lower their actual realization from the potential. The exploitation they live under leaves the children in a disempowered position, without control of their social condition, which is argued to make a significant difference between their potential life expectancy and actual life expectancy.

This research compared the expenditure patterns, profiles, and trip characteristics of volunteer and leisure tourists in New Orleans. Survey research methods were used to obtain a sample of voluntourists that was compared to a leisure tourist sample obtained from secondary data. Visitors’ expenditures across six types of spending, demographics, and travel information were collected. Data analysis included eight t-tests that revealed that voluntourists’ spending was lower in five out of six categories, total daily expenditures, and total trip spending. Voluntourists spent more on local transportation but preferred cheaper accommodations and dining, seldom gambled, shopped little at the destination, and rarely visited tourist attractions. Frequency analysis used to profile tourists discovered that voluntourists traveled greater distances to the destination than leisure tourists and came from northern states. While most leisure tourists were aged between 35-64 years, married, and neither students nor retired, most voluntourists were younger, single, and still in college.

While the study of volunteer tourism has been growing over the past decade, there is limited literature that takes a global approach, whereby one explores the perspective of a number of stakeholder groups in such experiences. The aim of this project was to fill this gap by looking at the volunteer tourism experience from four perspectives, namely the volunteer, the organization, the host family, and the community at large. The focus in this case was on the experiences and expectations of these groups. The research was qualitative; based primarily upon interviews. The research for this project took place in Ghana. It was found that the three local stakeholders (the organization members, the host family members and people from the broader community) generally viewed the experience similarly. Volunteers often expressed views that set them apart from the other groups. Main themes for the groups generally revolved around cultural differences, communication and progression through stages of the experience. The stages of the experience showed three main stages, those referring to the time before the volunteer, during the volunteer???s stay and the time after the volunteer???s departure. Cultural differences included discussions of culture shock, stereotypes, and mis-communications in cross-cultural dialogue. Communication was a major issue, and was to be found lacking between all groups. In regards to communication there was also a suggestion for continuing contact and relationships between the locals and volunteers beyond the volunteer???s time in the community.

The purpose of this study was to explore the reasons and motivations behind voluntourism in reference to working with children, and how these can be understood and analyzed within the framework of voluntourism research. A qualitative approach was used, and data was collected through semi-structured interviews and then evaluated with the use of a thematic analysis. This data was then analyzed in correlation to previous voluntourism research and through the theoretical frameworks of postcolonialism and neocolonialism. Eight interviews were conducted, with six voluntourists and two representatives from voluntourist organizations. Our findings were that the respondents had well-meaning intentions, along with complex and nuanced thoughts in relation to culture shocks, reflections, relationships with the children and rules and regulations given by the voluntourism organizations they traveled with. The conclusions drawn from these findings were that while intent does not trump impact, this phenomenon should be examined in relation to power dynamics and the privatization of development work.

The diploma thesis deals with short-term volunteering called volunteer tourism (VT) or also known as "voluntourism". This type of volunteering has gained its popularity but has also been criticized by experts on volunteering. The aim of this work is to introduce the issue of VT to examine critical views from the side of experts to analyze the perception of VT by Czech volunteers who have completed the VT project and compare these reflections with expert criticism. The theoretical part is focused on the introduction of VT and analysis of scientific texts, dealing with criticism of VT. The empirical part is focused on the statements of volunteers themselves and their subsequent comparison with professional criticism. In conclusion of the diploma thesis there is a summary of research results and discussion of the differences in the reflection of two levels of participants. Keywords: volunteering, volunteer tourism, short-term volunteering, voluntourism.

Orphanage volunteering in the Global South has experienced worldwide criticism in recent years as children’s rights violations have surfaced. This thesis examines the discourse of two organizations (“Global Crossroad” and“uVolunteer) that still offer orphanage voluntourism and assesses in what ways they display neo-colonial characteristics on their websites. The theoretical framework entails Said’s Orientalism, development aid critiques, and colonial discourse theorizing to contextualize interpretations. With Fairclough’s CDA method, this thesis aims to highlight how orphanage voluntourism is portrayed and how it may influence addressees to engage in short-term help, contributing to perpetuating orphanage voluntourism and its negative effects as well as unequal power structures. The CDA findings indicate the discourse primarily benefits the organizations, which profit from the erection of neocolonial power structures and ideological “truths” about the Global South, which are not in the best interest of the children. Finally, this thesis discusses the social implications of this discourse promotion and ways to improve child protection.

Given the tormented history of development projects around the globe and the fact that global service learning and engineering-for-development often engages students in development interventions, it is critically important to explore the impact of global service learning projects and partnerships not only on student learning, which has received ample attention, but also on the international host communities. Although there is increasing research on student outcomes of participation in service-learning, there is a lack of research focusing on the outcomes related to the community where the service takes place. Research focused on the impact on communities should include the wide range of perspectives that compose the community- participants, organization leaders, residents, and others. This study responds to this need by exploring the community participants’ perspectives in Waslala, Nicaragua about the projects and partnership with Villanova University’s College of Engineering. The two research questions explore the community participants’ perspectives about: (1) outcomes of the projects or partnership, and (2) educational goals. Community participants’ perspectives call for a broader conceptualization of what counts as outcomes and highlight the importance of participation in all phases of the research process. Supporting existing scholarship about host community motivations to serve as co-educators, my findings describe what the community participants want to teach university students. Community participants’ perspectives describe a desired shift in students and a move towards critical global citizenship education. This study highlights the utility of Fraser’s (2009) theory of social justice and Andreotti’s (2006) framework for critical global citizenship education as useful tools to analyze and understand GSL partnerships. / Urban Education

This study explores the construction of the orphanage child and the helper in the context of voluntourism, orphanage tourism, support and establishment of orphanages. Since residential care is rarely put forward as a “good solution” for children without parental care in Sweden or other Western countries, the purpose of this study is to understand how orphanages for children from the South are legitimised as a solution in narratives about the helpers and the orphans. Through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) I have studied the widespread narrative about the helper and the orphan and its relation to larger global development strands, such as neo-liberal discourses, post-colonial discourses and globalization discourses. The study found that the narratives about the helper and the orphanage child are constructed in a way that reinforces stereotypes about the active, caring helper from the global North and the passive and needy yet happy orphanage child from the South. The underlying assumption in the testimonials and stories about the helper is that there are no other options and that the orphanage placement is in the best interest of the child