I was accused of being a ‘white saviour’: here’s my response.

Home » Blog » I was accused of being a ‘white saviour’: here’s my response.

A few weeks ago a stranger messaged me to tell me I had white saviour complex and was ‘virtue signalling’, simply because I said I was looking forward to returning to Asia after the pandemic, and my tourist dollars helping families and communities rebuild.

Yes, being trolled is one of the risks of being on social media, and I was so, so upset about being accused of doing what I try my best to avoid, and then I went down into a hole worrying. What if what I do when I travel is wrong? What if parts of what we do when we travel aren’t actually helpful to anyone and we are causing problems? It didn’t help that we are in the midst of a long lockdown and so my mind isn’t strong enough to block and move on, but this wasn’t a bad thing. I needed to do the work to find out and reassuer myself that we travelled ethically and as well as we can (we are always learning).

I don’t think any of us realise how hard covid is hitting across Asia – my friends there tell me how they are struggling, especially those who rely on tourists for income to feed their families, like the tuk tuk drivers, taxi drivers, family restaurants and family home stays. They rarely have any kind of government support, there is limited employment and often medical care is non-existent for those who are sick or who have contracted the virus. It’s heartbreaking and tragic, and honestly what person with a heart wouldn’t want to help? Especially if you’re in a better position and surviving, and financially okay.

Background

As a bit of background, I’m a solo mum, and my 11 year old daughter Emmie and I have always tried to travel as responsibly and carefully as we can. We left Australia for Asia in 2016 and spent most of the next four years pre-covid backpacking around this fascinating region. I left a lot of my heart there when we had to come back to Australia because of the pandemic, and there’s not a day I don’t think of it and worry and want to be back.

We both learnt so, so much during our travels and we made a lot of mistakes that taught us and allowed us to share and teach others too. I talk about many of them in the book we wrote about our travels in 2019 – Backyard to Backpack: A solo mum, a six year old and a life-changing adventure and will share more below.

What is a White Saviour?

So what exactly is a White Saviour? I’m going to use sources here because I am not an expert in this to explain it myself. If you have any further information or anything to contribute on this please comment below so I can add it and learn more.

Wikipendia states: The term white savior refers to a white person who provides help to non-white people in a self-serving manner.”

Examples may include:

People who go to poverty stricken countries and take photos with children and caption with cringeworthy statements like ‘Even in poverty the children still smile.”
People who make themselves the hero of an interaction with those who have less.
People who feel they deserve praise for providing a little support.
People who use children as accessories for photographs and charity.

ChildSafe has excellent resources – download their 7 Tips for Travellers here.

You can find out more here and you can also follow a page called No White Saviours on Instagram.

Here’s one of their posts below which explains the concept very simply:

Voluntourism

Voluntourism is similar. This is where people help at orphanages or schools (more on our experience with this following) and most likely thinking they are doing a good thing, but more likely doing more harm than good. The often pay for the experience, thinking the money goes to support the orphanage, but in reality it is going into the operators pockets. Often the children aren’t orphans, but are sourced from poor villages and taken with a promise to the parents that their children will receive an education and healthy food if they go to the orphanage. But they just become pawns in the business of making money. In Cambodia they call it The Angelina Effect, after Angelina Jolie drew attention to developing world orphans, the number of orphanages grew as people discovered they could make money from tourists.

Visiting orphanages or schools on a tour is also detrimental to children’s wellbeing and education. When you do this you take valuable time from children who are trying to learn and better their opportunities. See the below infographic from Childsafe.

We have done the wrong this, and I share attempted to teach English in a school in Cambodia – but we didn’t really teach English, I am not an English teacher simply because I speak English. The school has educated locals there doing a much better job than we could. It was embarrassing that I had assumed that we could teach.

This experience was encouraged on a world schooling Facebook page and we did it because we thought we were helping. After two days we realised we were hindering more than helping and purchased workbooks and pens which we gave to the students instead of interrupting their lessons, and left. This is probably a good example of being a White Saviour – thinking that we can help based on our privilege. And while I didn’t share any on it on social media – because I just felt in my heart that was we were doing was wrong – the assumption that we could help just because we could speak English was so misguided.

It was a huge learning moment for us, and it’s something we would never do again.

Other things we do that are actually helpful include:

donating blood at local hospitals
staying in family owned and run guesthouses
eating local
using tuk tuk drivers
using local guides – super important, just pay the few dollars at the tourist site and get valuable local knowledge and help a family
share places we love and encourage other to stay there too
NEVER taking photos of children or local people. The only way we take photos of adults is if it is a professional relationship or agreement, and always with explicit permission – and never children.