Poverty tours: A learning experience or simply gawking?

[SarasotaRepub]

Amazing what some dipshits will pay for...

By Moni Basu, CNN
updated 8:50 AM EDT, Tue May 22, 2012


New Delhi (CNN) -- On a recent trip home to India, I heard a German man on my flight remark to another passenger that he'd taken his son on a tour of a Kolkata slum.

I believe the man was well-intentioned -- he wanted his child, accustomed to a comfortable existence, to get a firsthand look at how millions of poor people live.

Later, I discovered that slum tours in India are often organized and can cost quite a bit of money. Reality Tours and Travel takes tourists on slum and sightseeing tours in Mumbai. For almost $200, you get to see Dharavi, Asia's largest slum, and the red light district of Kamathipura, as well as other more traditional tourist areas.

Reality Tours founders say the tours were set up "primarily to show the positive side of the slums and break down negative stereotypes about its people and residents" who occupy cramped huts in unending stretches of squalor.

JHC!! What's next??

Wolud you like to "experience" having Aids or Ebola??? We have bery good special today!!!!

[Rockntractor]

This is one way Wei Wei could get laid!

[JB]

You can take my "Only $1,000 to experience what it feels like to be hit over the head with a baseball hat" at the end of the tour.

[Madisonian]

Silly thing to pay for, but the concept is not that far fetched.
Every now and again I take DW for a tour of the decrepit neighborhoods in Detroit, Pontiac or Flint when she complains about not having enough money for some silly thing or another to remind both of us of how good we have it and how much worse it could be.

[noonwitch]

I agree with Madisonian that it is good to show your kids poverty, whether it's urban or rural, and teach them that 1. you have it good, 2. lots of people are only one or two paychecks away from this and 3. there are ways to help people who live in these conditions, either with volunteer work or donating money to charities and churches that serve those areas.


When my nieces visit me, I take them on Detroit tours, so they can see urban poverty. They live near Benton Harbor, so they've seen rural poverty.

[NJCardFan]

My grandparents, God rest them, used to travel the world and my grandmother would tell me that when she would see the Statue of Liberty she would cry. She's seen real poverty in India, Africa, and even Europe. These idiot OWS who cry poor don't know what poor is.

[Gina]

My grandparents, God rest them, used to travel the world and my grandmother would tell me that when she would see the Statue of Liberty she would cry. She's seen real poverty in India, Africa, and even Europe. These idiot OWS who cry poor don't know what poor is.

AMEN!

[noonwitch]

My grandparents, God rest them, used to travel the world and my grandmother would tell me that when she would see the Statue of Liberty she would cry. She's seen real poverty in India, Africa, and even Europe. These idiot OWS who cry poor don't know what poor is.

My grandparents took a Carribean cruise once, that stopped at Haiti. My grandmother gave money to the children she saw begging, even though all the tour guides told her not to do it. Grandpa was mad at her for giving them money, but she said that she just couldn't turn her back on them, they were all very thin and looked hungry.


I don't think conditions in Detroit, as bad as they are, could ever be as bad as somewhere like Haiti. At least not without a natural disaster compounding the economic problems. We still have charities and other resources, especially for food. There's no good reason outside of discipline for a child to go to bed without dinner in Detroit.