Focus Podcast: Ending Volunteering in Orphanages

Focus Podcast is an audio project from Comhlámh, the association of returned development workers and volunteers.  Produced and hosted by Mark Malone, Focus is a mix of documentaries and and interviews. The series takes a varied look at issues and themes around global inequality and talks to people involved in different ways in challenging inequality and injustices wherever they are.

Ending Volunteering in Orphanages

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Episode Info

It is estimated that around 80% of children and young people living in orphanages and other institutional settings, have at least one parent alive.  It is known now that institutional living is really damaging for children and young people.  They are more vulnerable to abuse and very often forced to live in situations that are detrimental to emotional, social and educational development.  Yet across the globe, people continue to travel to the global south, with the best of intentions, to volunteer in orphanages. 

Focus speaks to Gerry O Donoghue from Maintain Hope and Gemma Kelly from Tearfund Ireland about the need to change how we think about volunteering on orphanages. 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:39 — 63.3MB)

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You can find the entire podcast archive feed via NearCast on NearFM below

• Focus: Eilish Dillon on rethinking the divide between community and international development
• Focus: Extinction Rebellion, Civil Disobedience and Social Change
• Focus: Children First, Ending Volunteering In Orphanages
• Focus: Ethical Living and Social Change
• Focus: Conor McCabe talks about his book ‘Money’