“Volunteers Unleashed” Re-Leashed by the CBC
Last week CBC Doc Zone released Volunteers Unleashed, a documentary that challenges the efficacy of international volunteer work and voluntourism, on national television in Canada. As a non-Canadian with limited illegal streaming abilities, I still haven’t seen the final cut, but I do know that the film’s release fanned controversy that started with it’s initial pull from air only a few weeks earlier.
I started working with Brad Quenville, the Director of Volunteers Unleashed, when he filmed me speaking at the Tourism Concern International Volunteering Conference in London this past fall. For three days, I spent upwards of 6 hours in front of the camera, across from Brad, talking voluntourism. It was a marathon, but we got some really good stuff.
Some of that footage was, it turns out, a bit too much for the CBC to handle. While I don’t know all of the details, it was released by Canadaland that the pulling of Volunteers Unleashed was due to a misuse-of-footage claim by Me to We, one of the volunteer travel companies that I criticized in the original cut of the film. Me to We, a leader in the volunteer travel space in Canada and a major player in what is a multi-billion dollar global industry, is the ‘cousin’ of non-profit organization Free the Children. Legally, the two are separate entities, Me to We being a company and Free the Children being a non-profit, but they are completely co-branded, founded and led by the same family, and it is difficult to even see a separation between the two without a good deal of research. Research that the average high school kid wouldn’t do before signing up for a trip.
While Free the Children and Me to We denied a desire to squash the documentary, they did succeed in getting the CBC to tone down what was already a soft-pitched critique. Now, it could be claimed that the cutting out of any harsh words was simply a coincidence as they coincided in the film with the contested footage, but I find it hard to believe that that is the case. It seems more likely that a powerful non-profit and it’s for-profit cousin strong armed a national television network into censoring it’s programming to keep their name out of the voluntourism debate – as long as their name isn’t mentioned they must be doing good work, right?
It is astonishing to me that Me to We, a company that claims to encourage conversation and debate among young people, that claims to strive for greater global awareness, has the hubris to think that it can pull a stunt like this and come out unscathed.
Journalistic freedom, it seems, has no place where self-absorbed and over-fluffed companies and non-profits are concerned. Which is, to me, horrifying. If we can’t openly criticize entities in a fair and measured way, not libel, criticism, then we are creating a situation in which for-profit’s and non-profit’s are empowered to do whatever they please without fear.
I am very glad that CBC finally released Volunteers Unleashed because the message, that we need to think critically about why we are encouraging young people to go on voluntourism trips and whether those trips are actually helping communities (hint: most are not), needs to be heard. But it is the full message, the complete message, the message that “names names” so to speak, that needs to get out there. Not a watered down, re-leashed version made palatable to the very organizations and companies that need to be questioned.
Well said, Pippa. CBC used to be a trusted source for investigative journalism in Canada, but this kind of “slow-pitch softball” critique seems like such a noodle-armed effort. Despite the fact that the entities involved are not-for-profits, this issue is fundamentally about business and money. Thankfully, Canadaland and people like yourself are speaking out and speaking truth to power.
Hi Pippa, as a young Canadian who has grown up admiring Me-To-We/Free the Children, following this story has given me a horrible feeling in my stomach. My boyfriend (whose sister works for Me-To-We, making this even more difficult) and I read about the story when it was first published on Canadaland, waited for the documentary, watched it, hardly believing what we were seeing. Thank you for following up on this, it gives me the final confirmation I think that this isn’t something to be taken lightly. As someone who is hoping to begin a career in International Development, this is both encouraging and disheartening.
Hi Rebecca, Thank you so much for your comments. I’ve taken note and wanted to reach out to you to clarify what Me to We offers with regards to volunteer travel.
First off, Me to We Trips shares concerns about the questionable practices of some volunteer operators. That is why we always encourage those seeking volunteer travel placement to perform adequate research to ensure the highest degree of program quality and social impact, which will result in positive experiences for participants and the communities being assisted.
We are so proud of the impacts of our trips, which have been consistently and independently reviewed by Mission Measurement and other third parties, to ensure the highest degree of integrity and quality are administered at all times. Me to We trips provide participants with the unique opportunity to volunteer in a community where our charity partner, Free The Children, puts its 20-year history of holistic, sustainable development to work.
Trip participants volunteer on a Free The Children development project support one of five pillars — clean water, food security, education, health or alternative income — that eliminate the obstacles to education, eliminate poverty and empower women in a community. All volunteer efforts are driven by the community and its needs.
Sustainability and community ownership is the goal of all of Free The Children’s development projects, and after five years, Free The Children ensures the community takes ownership over the maintenance and sustainability of these projects.
Again, we think this is a really important topic that should be properly discussed and therefore we did not ask for the documentary to be pulled. However, we did raise a concern when we determined the film included footage of the youth empowerment event We Day, when referring to the youth levels of voluntourism in Canada. In order to avoid any misunderstandings linking We Day to the operators featured in this documentary, we requested to the filmmakers the unauthorized We Day footage be removed.
We encourage you to visit http://www.metowe.com/whytrips for more information on what makes Me to We Trips different or take a look at this video. (link here)
As we’ve said to Pippa previously, no organization is perfect and we are always striving for excellence and comments and questions are extremely helpful. As I wrote to Pippa, please reach out to me at any time as I’d be more than happy to discuss this with you further.
Sincerely,
Russ McLeod