Oh FFS, don't do that, it just encourages them to treat visiting whiteys as walking ATMs, which is bad for their tourism industry long-term.
Stay at hotels, eat at restaurants, take taxis, but don't encourage the obnoxious hawkers, no matter how young they are.
I'd suggest that any startup worth its salt is actually offering something of real value, not explicitly a charity case, so the analogy completely breaks down. I fully support encouraging the startup ecosystem.
And I'm not even sure about using a term like "top down". Hotels really do employ locals, as do restaurants, and by patronising them you send a strong signal of support to the local tourism industry. With that assurance they can make plans, invest, advertise, expand. It's not about making the rich richer, not at all. Giving a small regional tourism industry the confidence to plan for the future is a wonderful thing.
That's not the least bit true, in my experience. I've watched them come over from where their families are working and attempt to sell trinkets, then go back to their families (or friends' families).
As for "crap", yeah, it's crap. Because you don't give children appliances and automobiles to sell. It's no different than the stuff you'll buy from American children going door to door, trying to raise money for their school.
I think you're really looking down your nose at people. You have a choice when traveling in areas like this. You can either act like you have to guard your precious money from all these street urchins trying to cheat you, or you can simply accept it as part of the experience traveling in a very poor area, and embrace the reality that you can make some small difference in an individual's life.
You talk as if denying individuals some income is somehow helping their long-term tourism. Yet Thailand, which is decades ahead of Cambodia in terms of development and wealth, still sees foreigners as wealthy, pesters them for sales and rides, and they have a very healthy tourism industry in spite of this. A country can't force its way into a $500/night resort industry. Thailand has tried for years, and it's not happening anytime soon. Cambodia doesn't even have a reasonable highway infrastructure.
> Hotels really do employ locals
To give an interesting regional example, are you aware that the Thai island of Koh Phi Phi is controlled by the Chinese mafia?
The wider issue with buying stuff off Cambodian street urchins is that you really don't want to encourage a state of affairs where the most aggressive child beggars/vendors earn far more than their parents... and then need kids of their own once they hit their mid-teens and no longer appeal to tourists' sympathies.
The fact that they even have to do this speaks volumes.
So, you only want your money going to the wealthier families, many of which are foreign?
Street hawkers may be annoying, but they also represent the most basic form of entrepreneurial spirit.
