WE has turned into something of a national scandal, but the truth is that there have been a lot of questions about the way WE does business for a long time, and only some of it’s been recently exposed. The little non-profit that could, fighting child labour and promoting sustainability around the world, is now at the centre of the biggest political story in Canada in 2020, but what about the personal story?

This week on the podcast, Eli Ridder will take over hosting duties and talk to Humber grad and Guelphite Abi Dube, who, like hundreds of thousands of young people across Canada, was encouraged to get involved with WE and volunteer to support international development projects in developing countries around the world.

While at Rickson Ridge Public School, Abi volunteered for two WE trips, one to Kenya and one to India. These experiences were eye-opening in more ways than one because while she volunteered abroad, Abi did not see a charity that was leading by its best, most idealistic aspirations. In the wake of the new level of scrutiny brought to WE Charities, its affiliates and partners, Abi reached out to Guelph Politico to tell her story, and this it.

On this week’s edition of the podcast, Abi Dube will walk through her WE experiences, from helping to build schools in Kenya where it seemed like not all children there were treated equally, and India where a hotel used by WE Charities to house volunteers seemed to use child labour. Abi will also talk about how she tried to bring her concerns to the attention of the people running those programs, and how she believes that her concerns were never really addressed. Also, Abi will discuss her concern that some of the real issues with WE are getting lost among the louder political scandal.

So let’s talk about one volunteer’s experience with WE on this week’s Guelph Politicast!

There will be a companion piece to this podcast, which includes Abi’s trip diary entries and a response from WE Charities, and it should be posted later today on the Politico website.

The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify.

Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.

Photo Courtesy of WE.org.