Company promotes Jakarta slum tours
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An Indonesian tour operator is offeringtourists the chance to see a different side of Jakarta from the usual five-star hotels andshopping malls. According to a ChannelNewsAsia report, Jakarta Hidden Tours istaking foreign tourists to see the slums of the city’s warrens, river banks andrail lines, with a chance to see “the real people”.
‘Poverty tourism’, as it is often known, has come into the spotlight recently,with Mumbai seeing a surge in such tours since the release of the movie,Slumdog Millionaire.
Robert Finlayson, from Volunteering forInternational Development from Australia,who helps run the tours, believes that the tours help social understanding.”Guilt is like pity, it stops you from seeing people as they actually are,”Finlayson was reported saying. “What we wanted to say is… ‘People are thesame all over the world’.”
However there are plenty who woulddisagree. Wardah Hafidz, who heads Jakarta’sUrban Poor Consortium advocacy group, argues that slum tours are the wrongapproach.
“It creates more problems for us than it helps,” Ms Hafidz said. “If you comewith money then it’s a complete language of money. It doesn’t develop theunderstanding that they (the slum dwellers) are powerful, that they can helpthemselves.”
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