OUGD403 Studio Brief 3

Studio Brief 03 - Message & Delivery - Research

Module ID: OUGD403
Module Leader: Simon Harrison 

Module Deadline: 17/11/14 (14:00)
Brief Deadline: 31/10/14 (09:30) 

Outcomes Assessed: 4A4, 4B3, 4C3, 4C4, 4D3


Studio Brief


Create a body of visual research in response to a story, issue or theme found in the national press tomorrow, Saturday 25th October..



Background / Considerations


The willingness and ability to formulate informed opinions about your subject matter is an essential skill for a graphic designer.

In addition to being aware of events, concerns and the (un)popularly held opinions of the world around you, you also need to consider the tone of voice with which they are reported.

It is important that you read the stories thoroughly and research issues that are raised fully before committing your self to a visual opinion.

You can be serious, humorous, questioning, opinionated, bold, or subtle.

Your research should be broad and varied and should include but not be limited to; statistical, empirical (opinions), and personal.

Use a variety of approaches to your gathering of research, including editorial coverage in local, national and international press via both print and web. You should aim to observe the trends and differences between different formats of communication. Be aware of and include in your research and documentation the tone of voice, the use of images, typography and layout/composition.


Mandatory Requirements

The story, issue or theme must come from a newspaper published on Saturday 25th October..


Deliverables


A body of research into the story, issue or theme of your choice.

A physical copy of the newspaper.

Chosen Story: 'Voluntourism' - Does it do more harm than good? 

Saturday Newspaper Articles 

i On Saturday Newspaper - 'Volunteering in Third World 'can harm, not help'

- Become Fashionable 

- Rite of passage for a generation of young Britons

- Gap Year trend is being blamed for potentially fueling child abuse in the host communities 

- Rise of tourists wanting to work in orphanages in countries such as Nepal and Cambodia could actually be leading to children being abandoned or abducted, just to meet the demand

- Many expensive, commercial volunteering opportunities ended up exploiting those offering help, as well as harming the lives of those who are meant to be on the receiving end

- Volunteers often have unfulfilling and disappointing experiences 

- Volunteer projects can prevent local workers from getting much-needed jobs

- Institutions waste time and money looking after volunteers and upgrading facilities 

- Abused or abandoned children form emotional attachments to the visitors, who increase their trauma by disappearing back home after a few weeks

- In most cases people would be far better (and have more rewarding experience) volunteering at home and spending their money travelling 

Bad Gap Year 

Volunteers are urged to avoid travelling to work in orphanages after a United Nations Children's Fund report found the number of children being put into care was soaring to cater for the demand of wealthy tourists seeking to help them. The study said that the number of orphanages in Cambodia had risen by 75% in five years, while up to 80% of children in orphanages in Nepal had a least one parent still alive. 

Good Volunteering 

Age UK offers a raft of opportunities for young people to help older members of their own communities. Isolation is one of the most damaging factors to the physical and mental well being of senior citizens. Volunteers are urged to spend time visiting older neighbours, doing household chores, working in the garden or helping them get online.   

The Independent - 'Gap-year volunteer projects could do more harm than good' 

-Its become fashionable, or a rite of passage for young Britons
- Gap year trend is fuelling child abuse
- Local children are being abandoned or abducted to meet the demand of 'voluntourism'
- Tourism Concerned's executive director Mark Watson, said while it was commendable, volunteer opportunities end up exploiting both those offering to help and harming the lives of those meant to be on the receiving end 
- Placement can prevent local workers from getting much needed job
- Institutions waste time looking after the volunteers and spend money on upgrading their facilities
- Children form emotional attachments to the visitors who increase their trauma by disappearing back home
- A study in Unicef in Nepal found that 85% of children in the orphanages they visited had a least one parent still alive

Online Articles and Information 

The Guardian -  Before you pay to volunteer abroad, think of the harm you might do

- The most direct attempt to lure tourists, is children seducing them with wide eyes and heart-wrenching stories of abandonment
- Orphanages are a booming business trading on guilt
- Westerners take pity on the children and end up creating a grotesque market that capitalises on their concerns. This is the dark side of our desire to help the developing world.
- An official study found just a quarter of children in these so-called orphanages have actually lost both parents. And these private ventures are proliferating fast: the numbers increased by 65% in just three years.
- Encouraging a dependency culture
- Wealthy tourists prevent local workers from getting much-needed jobs, especially when they pay to volunteer; hard-pressed institutions waste time looking after them and money upgrading facilities
- Abused or abandoned children form emotional attachments to the visitors, who increase their trauma by disappearing back home
- Voluntary Service Overseas even condemned this burgeoning industry as a new form of colonialism. VSO asked what right unqualified British teenagers had to impose their desire to do good at schools in developing countries.
- these trips raise profound questions about misplaced idealism and misconceived attitudes.
- Critics argue that dropping in to take photographs of orphaned children, who may have seen parents recently waste to death, reduces them to the status of lions and zebras on the veld.
- What would we say if unchecked foreigners went into our children's homes to cuddle and care for the kids? We would be shocked, so why should standards be lowered in the developing world? Yes, resources might be in short supply, but just as here, experts want children in the family environment or fostered in loving homes, not in the exploding number of substandard institutions
- The harsh truth is that "voluntourism" is more about the self-fulfilment of westerners than the needs of developing nations
- In Ghana, just as in South Africa and Cambodia, there has been a boom in unregistered orphanages
- Last year, police investigated one after the rape of an eight-month-old boy and discovered 27 of the 32 children were not orphans
- A government study found up to 90% of the estimated 4,500 children in orphanages had at least one parent and only eight of the 148 orphanages were licensed
- Unicef officials said children's welfare was secondary to profits and it is thought less than one-third of income goes on child care
- Unless we have time and transferable skills, we might do better to travel, trade and spend money in developing countries

The New York Times - Can 'Voluntourism' Make a Difference? 

Debates:

Rafia Zakaria - Poverty Is Not a Spectacle


- The problem with voluntourism is that it treats receiving communities as passive objects of the visiting Westerner’s quest for saviordom
- Poverty and its very real indignities give way to a new form of exploitation, those suffering put on stage to provoke a lucky-me gratitude for the voluntourist’s ordinary life back home
- survivors of domestic violence do not have to parade their scars before donors to access shelters. If their dignity is protected, so must that of those in other exotic places whose pain is just as complicated and as embedded in larger narratives as our own and deserves just as much respect


Chris Johnson - Work Hard; Enjoy the Experience


- Our Global Builders volunteers have the opportunity to see the world beyond the beaten tourist paths and immerse themselves in other cultures in ways few other Americans do
- Building homes is hardly easy or token work
- If our volunteers want to kick up their feet at the end of the day to take in a sunset on the Nicaraguan coast or snap some selfies with smiling children in India, they’ve earned that right.
- We see nothing wrong with volunteers enjoying their work, so long as it yields tangible and enduring results


Pippa Biddle - Find Real Ways to Help


- The problem with many volunteer trips is that good intentions are often not enough. Wanting to create change does not necessarily mean that you have the skills or access to the resources needed to make that happen
- Young volunteers offer unique sets of skills and experiences that most current placement organizations don’t do enough to take advantage of
- By sending volunteers to do complicated tasks, we set them up for failure and increase the likelihood that their trips become poverty tourism rather than productive service work


Amy Ernst - Volunteer Abroad, but Evaluate the Needs


- Umbrella organizations work on a larger scale because they have solid funding and bureaucratic systems in place, but those systems can also be limiting
- Volunteering alone requires long-term commitment, follow-through and a higher level of personal accountability
- Having more freedom to help others also offers more opportunities to cause them harm
- Accountability and humility are key. You may not have a training booklet telling you what’s right or wrong, but local experts exist everywhere. And if you look hard enough, you will find that all skills are needed; you just need to figure out where and how to apply them in the appropriate context


Linda Richter - The Problem With a Short Term Presence


- Examples of misguided volunteering efforts abound, especially when people want to help AIDS orphans in southern and eastern Africa
- About 86 percent have a surviving parent, usually their mother. Of the remaining children, almost all live within their extended families, cared for by grandparents, aunts, older siblings and others
- The majority of children in orphanages are there because of poverty rather than because their parents have died. Destitute parents may place their children in orphanages in the hope that their child will receive meals, clothing and schooling
- The better way to help such desperate families is to support them to keep their children at home, where a child can be part of their community for the rest of their lives
- A characteristic of children who are placed in orphanages at a young age is that they have disturbed attachments with caring adults. This is associated with the changing volunteer staff, with children becoming attached to one person after another in their quest for intimacy and security. This causes their relationships with other people to be disturbed and can result in a range of adjustment and mental health problems. When volunteers stay in orphanages for short periods of time, children become attached to them too, and later it becomes another broken relationship in a long line of disappointments
- While children in orphanages long for affection and cling to any adult who responds to them, these short-term relationships are very unhelpful to the child in the longer term. What we all should be working for are secure family placements for children in residential care

The Independent - Voluntourism is a 'waste of time and money' - and gappers are better off working in Britain

- Volunteers would often do more good staying at home and assisting communities on their own doorstep
- Work in a developing country has become one of the fastest-growing phenomena in the global travel industry
- Altruistic young travellers can end up doing more harm than good to their host communities, even potentially fuelling child abuse
- Mounting concern that the desire to work in orphanages in countries such as Cambodia and Nepal is actually be leading to the abandonment or even abduction of children from their parents
- Philippa Biddle, who described taking part in a development project building an orphanage and library in Tanzania. She said each night local men dismantled the structurally unsound work they had done – relaying bricks and resetting timbers whilst the students slept. “Basically, we failed at the sole purpose of our being there. It would have been more cost effective, stimulative of the local economy, and efficient for the orphanage to take our money and hire locals to do the work, but there we were trying to build straight walls without a level,” she recalled.

Verge Magazine - Does Volunteering abroad do more harm than good? 

- According to the South Africa-based Human Sciences Research Council, short-term 'voluntourism' trips undertaken by people with excess funds but limited relevant skill sets can actually undermine local workers and, since these are usually short-term placements, they can also create a sense of abandonment for many of the impoverished children who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the work
- Meanwhile, a piece by National Public Radio (NPR) investigated a similar concern by the South African government over "AIDS orphan tourism," where - despite their good intentions - overseas volunteers build bonds with children in orphanages and childcare centres that ultimately result in feelings of abandonment on the part of the kids when the voluntourists return home with a sense of having made their contribution
- The sad truth is that real, sustainable, long-term development requires a lot of hard work from people with specific skill sets and involvement from the communities themselves, among other things. For many volunteer programs in developing countries, the main attraction is the money that paying voluntourists can provide, not necessarily the help that they can offer
- Consider a long-term volunteer placement and make sure that the program is sustainable, and especially if you're volunteering with children, make the effort to continue the relationships you've created once you've returned home

The Telegraph - Volunteer holidays do more harm than good- Gap year volunteers risk undermining local workers and hindering long-term development in impoverished countries, according to a new study
- Students who volunteered abroad risked undermining local workers and exploiting the victims of poverty
- Because 'voluntourist' contributions are often brief, the work that can be done is usually low-skilled. As a result, there is a real danger of voluntourists crowding out local workers, especially when people are prepared to pay for the privilege to volunteer
- Unfortunately, many of the children they leave behind have experienced another abandonment to the detriment of their short- and long-term emotional and social development
- Prof Richter said Western gap-year students should be discouraged from trying to boost their own self-esteem at the expense of the lives their volunteering would touch

CNN Travel - Does Voluntourism do more harm than good?

- A system has emerged in which parents will rent their children out for the day to play with gullible backpackers, creating fraudulent orphanages in response to visitors’ demand for them
- Even activities as banal as painting walls or building houses are fraught with ethical concerns
- Are building materials and technical skills sourced locally, to benefit merchants and artisans in the community, or are they simply shipped in from outside?
- Children can go back to their families instead of being pimped out as objects of affection, and are likely to emerge as psychologically healthier adults when not treated as an emotional plaything
- It's difficult to measure the value of this first-hand understanding against the wish to help needy communities as efficiently as possible
- there is a world of difference between ill-considered decisions taken for the purpose of stroking a traveler's ego, and subjective decisions to volunteer after properly considering as much of the moral and practical detail of your engagement as possible

The Seattle Globalist - Want to volunteer abroad? How to actually make a difference

- There’s plenty of valuable work to be done, travel and living expenses are low, and even the most challenging volunteer position might look easy compared to trying to find a job right out of college these days
- At best, it’s opportunity for a broadened perspective on a vast and complex world, and a chance to empower others
- The first step to any effective volunteer experience is honestly asking yourself why you want to go. For professional experience in international development? To learn a particular hard skill? To work on a social justice issue close to your heart? For adventure?
- Skill-based volunteering is often the best way of avoiding an experience that drains resources of the host organization with no added benefit to their project.
- As westerners, we come equipped with many skills and assets we may not even be aware of; our English language proficiency, our comfort with technology and the internet, our experience with organizational tools like excel, powerpoint, and word processing, perhaps even grantwriting or medical or legal expertise
- Look for organizations with local staff, or who partner with local grassroots groups. They’re more likely to be in touch with the realities and needs of the communities on the ground
- A 2010 report on Orphan Tourism by the Human Sciences Research Council called orphanhood a ‘globally circulated commodity’, and expressed concerns about the effectiveness of orphanages that catered to the needs of tourists rather than the orphans themselves, many traumatized by the constant ebb and flow of personal attachments as volunteers cycle through facilities
- It takes time to work through the awkwardness of cultural difference, and the painful histories of colonialism, racism, and ethnocentrism. But the relationships you build when investing real time and energy in a local community are probably the greatest reward you can get out of international volunteerism
- Volunteering abroad is a privilege. If you have the education and skills required to land a good volunteer gig, and the time, money, required to actually go, you are one of a lucky few. Take a humble, flexible and thoughtful approach about your volunteer experience. It will mean the difference between a well-intentioned failure and a truly meaningful experience for everyone involved.

The Huffington Post - The Gap Year Dilemma: To Volunteer or Not Volunteer 

- Last month, tour operator ResponsibleTravel.com made the bold choice of removing all orphanage volunteering holidays from their site. Co-founder Justin Francis took to the site's blog to explain the company's growing concerns about child welfare and care standards. Are these orphanage volunteering projects were actually doing more harm than good?Justin said they are now working with industry leaders to develop best practice guidelines and criteria for child-focused volunteer trips. "We want to ensure we only market volunteer trips that we have 100% trust in. We hope that by being independently created, the new criteria will help sustain the exemplary operators while removing those that may potentially tarnish the sector."
- Booking a volunteering holiday with a bad - or often just not 'responsible' - travel operator could mean your month spent helping local school children in Mali amounts to nothing more than a glorified package holiday. A trip characterised in the worst terms: first world do-gooders embarking on a kind of 'poverty tourism', the experience of which they share solemnly with friends on their comfortable return
- The desire to take holidays that make a difference, or to volunteer one's time and skills overseas, shouldn't be mocked as a Western, middle-class cliché - responsible travel can benefit everyone
- Real reviews on independent forums are a good start. Word of mouth is still the greatest marketing tool so genuine first-hand reviews and recommendations from travellers can begin to sort the good from the bad

Responsible Volunteering - What makes a successful volunteer placement?

- Spend some time researching the different organisations offering volunteering placements and think about what type of organisation suits you best
- Try to read between the lines of the glossy images and marketing-language to really understand what these organisations are offering and how they work. There are many different types of volunteering opportunities so take some time to think about what interests you, what skills you have which you could contribute to a project and what you want to get out of the experience. You should also consider your own needs and limitations in terms of the location of your placement, living conditions and level of support
- One key thing that any overseas volunteering placement should do is benefit the local people who live in the area where you are volunteering. You are giving your time (and usually money) to volunteer and it is vital that what you are doing is needed and wanted and that your presence brings some economic benefits to the local community
- Think about the role you will be doing, how it might be of use and how sustainable it is – when you leave, what will happen next? It is also essential that by volunteering, you are not displacing paid jobs and taking employment opportunities away from local people
- If you are volunteering in a developing country, a successful placement will need to have some kind of measurable impact. This could be the number of people trained in a certain skill, or the amount of funds raised for a community project, the installation of a new water tank or setting up an accounting system for a micro-enterprise and most importantly, training a staff member how to continue using it
- Being able to solve practical problems, set-up simple administrative systems, be good with computers or knowing how to write a proposal and many other skills that you may use in your day to day work are all extremely useful for volunteering
- Look for an organisation who will take the time to review what skills you have and actively match you to placements based on this. By using your skills, you will go a long way to having a successful placement
- Try to find a placement that has very specific objectives that can be realistically achieved in the timeframe and do as much as you can to prepare in advance, the longer you can commit to volunteering overseas, the more you can achieve and the more satisfying the experience will be. You will have more time to get to know local people, the culture and learn the language, allowing you to communicate and gain a better understanding of the local context
- Research and read as much as possible about where you are going. Learn about the history, culture, development issues and practicalities of living there and learn some key phrases and words of the local language. Find out about appropriate dress code, what kind of food will be available and what facilities you will have in your accommodation. This will help you prepare yourself and take the right things with you
- Having the right attitude and personal qualities can go a long way towards a successful volunteering experience
- It helps to start out with a realistic attitude and manage your expectations of what you can achieve during your placement and focus on small-steps and identifying sustainable solutions

Opinions

- 'I think its true as people make connections, causing more emotional pain

- 'I think its more about self fulfilment rather than helping them'

- 'Its Exposing them to things they can never have'

- 'Unhealthy for people to keep leaving orphans once they have visited'

- Helps if passing on education, not necessarily money'

- It helps initially but I think they might become too reliant on charity and their corrupt governments need to be taught how to help their people'

'I was going to volunteer while I was in South East Asia, we wanted to go to a local based project so we knew it has a good cause and is not a money making thing, but when we got to one in Cambodia we didn't feel comfortable as it seemed quite dodgy and a money making scheme, so we didn't do it in the end'

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