Browsing the morning headlines, I came across a 
This is what many critics dub the efforts of groups that give tours of slums and impoverished areas, a service that is apparently already offered in other countries including Brazil and the Netherlands. The Saalam Baalak Trust is a charitable organization that offers "Poorism" in New Delhi, where loads of primarily wealthy European tourists pay about $5 each to see the disturbing daily lives of India's street children up close. Groups of visitors crowd into train stations to watch impoverished children inhale correction fluid, sleep in holes and gather rubbish from incoming trains.
As I mentioned I was fairly taken aback by this business at first glance, but the Guardian article does a decent job of getting the sponsoring organization's point of view. The Trust is a charitable organization that also runs schools and health care programs for the children it puts on display. It also caters to the BOP theory by employing actual former street children to run these tours who would claim that they are designed to "build awareness" of the plight of India's poor.
I would be interested to hear other comments, and I am always open to innovative solutions to poverty issues. I still have to say, though, I am fairly unconvinced. Even with the positive accounts given by visitors and Trust representatives, I can't help but feel like this is reality-TV style voyeurism at its worst. Maybe I'm wrong and these groups will help develop awareness as well as some much needed revenue for a community-based group. I still believe that the best local development comes from productive creation, not short-term services like this. Thoughts?
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At first blush, this does appear to be a bit tasteless. The question it forces us to ask is: is anything that improves the standard of living of those living in extreme, abject poverty justifiable and acceptable?
I'm reminded of an interview that I heard on the radio here in Canada where a researcher at the Fraser Institute argued that Sweatshops are good for the world and that we need more of them. The argument was that even though the working conditions in these sweatshops is less than ideal (at best), they are a force for positive change, in that the little income that they provide to workers does lead to a measurable improvement in the workers' lives. Read the brief note on the event here - http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp?sNav=ev&id=366. He went onto say that yes, conditions must be improved, yes, proper workplace and environmental legislation must be passed and enforced. He used the example of poor rural women in Bangladesh who had no educational or work opportunities back in the villages, but whose propects improved measurably when they went to the big cities and started working in "sweatshops". They did have better opportunities for education, they were able to provide better food and medical care for their families.
So, from the Guardian article, it appears that these kids in Delhi are benefiting at least a little from this tourism. And if that is the case, then if the lives of these kids is being made even just a little less miserable, how can it not be acceptable? If they do get to eat once more a day by parading in front of some pampered, rich Northerners, then why not? If no one else is offering them an alternative way of improving their lives, then how can you tell the kids it isn't right? Maybe the ends do justify any means. Anyhow, I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced either.