A much larger charity than Hands Around the World has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons. (I hope I get the facts correct ... ) but it would seem that some of Oxfam's workers ? volunteers ? who were sent to Haiti after the recent disaster there, were abusing their status by visiting prostitutes and behaving in a thoroughly stupid way while working as representatives of an humanitarian organisation.
This concerns me for two reasons; firstly, the obvious knock-on effect for other humanitarian charities, but also it seems to be part of a larger wider loosening of morals generally in all sorts of organisations and industries, both in the UK and USA .... and possibly other places too. In the last year or so there have been numerous cases and accusations coming to light of film stars being abused by film directors; politicians are being accused of 'touching up' their secretaries and advisors, and even clergy have acted unwisely towards those in their care. Many of these cases are 'historical' and I have no idea how the police can investigate them ....
But my main interest is how on earth can volunteers be proved to be 'squeaky clean' before they are sent to a third world country ? At HATW, we insist that all our volunteers are checked by what used to be called 'police checks' but are nowadays known as DBS checks. However, these checks only state that a person is OK on the date of the check and that they have no convictions up to that date. It does not and cannot certify a person will not behave stupidly in the future when they are abroad. This is one reason why we do not risk sending 'gap year' students to work in Africa or India.
There are various organisations, including some in the church, who provide 'safe guarding' courses .... but .... in the end, volunteers for charities have to be trusted to behave responsibly. Risky, but what else can be done other than not send people abroad, and who suffers then ?
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