In underserved parts of the world such as Nairobi, Kenya, and Paharganj, India, individuals and select organizations conduct poverty tours.
During these tours, mostly foreigners visiting the country are guided through areas where residents are poor, their families sleep several to a bed, homes lack adequate essentials like electricity and plumbing, and food is scarce. In addition, acts of crime in the “slums” are rampant. While participating in these guided tours, tourists are instructed not to speak to residents and to stay with the group at all times.
As I try to visualize the tours, I imagine a guide and curious tourists gawking at the slum residents with pity in their eyes and then quickly walking off to the next “attraction.”
It makes me question the relevancy of these tours.
On one hand poverty tours are great awareness tools: while being exposed to the struggle of a particular area or group of people, a tourist may realize how fortunate they actually are. I remember reading how one man took his teenage son on a poverty tour so that the young boy, who, while accustomed to a great standard of living was a bit ungrateful and not very nice to his parents. The tour showed the teen how millions of poor people live every day. The father said it was the best thing he could have exposed his son to because upon returning to the United States, the teenager had a different outlook on life and he has since become more grateful and respectful to his parents.
That is the good effect poverty tours can have.
Here is the bad.
Try to put yourself in the role of the slum resident. Imagine that you are the poor parent of a young child and you know that you were doing your absolute best to provide for your family yet it isn’t enough. How would you feel if people from another country came to your neighborhood looking at you with wide, pity-filled eyes, but never even addressed you?
How would you feel?
Angry?
Ashamed?
Defeated?
Taken advantage of?
Exposed?
I would probably feel all of the above emotions.
Are the tourists who participate in these poverty tours getting a renewed sense of fulfillment and thankfulness for their lives at the expense of poor people who live in the slums?
Probably so.
The only way these poverty tours can be good and beneficial is through action. If upon returning home the tourists do something that evokes positive change in the lives of the people they saw, then that would be a great act. If the money made from the tours goes towards the poverty-stricken residents that would be an even greater act.
There has to be a “do-good” deed on the part of tourists as well as the organizations so as not to take advantage of someone’s misfortune. Additionally, the do-good deed would also eliminate the “exploitation” and “entertainment” aspects of the tours.
As long as money obtained from the tours is reinvested in the destitute areas, the tours are a win-win for everyone: the tourists get a renewed sense of how blessed they are and the residents of the slum get much-needed assistance.
With the influx of reality television shows and the various documentaries that show how people live throughout the world, Americans have become a bit desensitized. Some of us are simply less likely to feel shock or sympathy to cruelty, violence, or suffering simply because we are overexposed to these images and realities.
The first step in making this world a better place is to first become a more empathetic society.
You can email comments to Shannon Williams at shannonw@indyrecorder.com.
