How we will visit: small, slow and on the record

Oriel plans one field visit every quarter, in Korea or abroad. The photos, the short films and the notes from those visits will be the heart of what we share. So the most important question to answer before the first trip is not where we go, but how.

Good intentions can go wrong

Visitors who want to help children have, without meaning to, kept a harmful system running. In Cambodia, a 2015 study by the social affairs ministry found that more than 77% of children living in residential care institutions had at least one living parent, and UNICEF research in 2011 found that almost every family with a child in such a place named poverty as a reason (Ballard Brief, 2020). When visits and donations flow to institutions, they can create a demand for children to fill them. Groups working on the ground, such as Friends-International with UNICEF, have long asked travellers to stop visiting orphanages and to support family- and community-based programmes instead (Friends-International).

The rules we will keep

We go where we are invited. A local partner, a school or a community group, asks for the visit and sets the agenda. We support work they already run.
We go to work, not to be seen working. Teacher training, books for a reading corner, a repair the school asked for, the logistics of a meal programme. Not a performance.
Children are never the attraction. No orphanage visits, no sessions to play with children, and no visitor is ever alone with a child.
Every photo has consent. A guardian's written consent, never a child at their lowest moment, never a name next to a school and a place.
Every visit is on the record. Each trip will have its own line in our public ledger, so anyone can see what it cost and who paid for it.

What you will see from us

Within a week of each visit: a short field note, the photos we have permission to share, and the ledger entry. If something went wrong, the note will say so.

Our first visit is planned for 2027. Until then, we are writing the rules down, so they are on the record before the first ticket is bought.