Voluntourism has had a bad rap. And I think it deserves it. Why? Because often the people that get involved in voluntourism get involved for the wrong reasons: to make themselves feel good, to get into medical school, because they want an excuse to continue traveling to exotic and interesting places but feel guilty just lying on a beach, because they feel this overwhelming need to “help those less fortunate.”
I fell into this field. I have a background in education. I lived, worked, studied, volunteered, and travelled overseas. I happened to know the right people. And the little project I worked at never had any funding, so we started an international volunteer program to help create a regular flow of funding. And before we knew it the project fell to the wayside, and all our attention was focused on the volunteer program.
A few years later one of the smartest students I have ever met came to work for us. And when I asked her why, she told me it was basically to keep a close eye on us! I loved that. This is so important to me- to constantly challenge and evaluate what I do. She is my organization’s program director and I asked her again the other week why she is still in this racket- and she said because someone has to do it right.
Yesterday @TalesFromthHood wrote “TOTALLY believe that structured, appropriate intercultural exchange is a good thing. But I seriously question the volunteer bit.”
Quite honestly I have to agree with him. I have written about this before. There are multiple challenges with short and long term volunteers. It is very easy for things to go wrong. There have been too many situations where people end up painting walls or playing with orphans. There have been too many volunteers that have quite literally taken paid jobs away from local people. And there have been too many cases of new wells, new schools, or new health clinics being built that cannot be sustained, or even worse that take business away from existing enterprises.
A few years back a group of students where I worked (not under my guidance) built a new “free” well 100 feet down the road from an existing well. The existing well was maintained by a man that charged a nominal fee to cover the cost of maintaining the well and to earn a little profit. What right had these students to come into this community and effectively put this man out of business?
One of the biggest problems with voluntourism is it reinforces the stereotype of the pathetic person that needs to be “helped” or “saved.” We are going there to fix things. We have the solutions. We are the heroes.
Not to mention how disappointed people are when they realize the little impact they have made. One of the most common reflections of returned volunteers is that they felt like they couldn’t or didn’t accomplish enough when they were volunteering overseas.
What I want to see happen is people going overseas to learn from the communities they visit. Isn’t it way more interesting and amazing to visit existing organizations that are already doing good work?
Volunteering can still be an important part of the experience. Definitely, get your hands dirty. There is no better way to learn about what an organization does than to experience it first hand. But it needs to have context built around it. What kind of community development already exists? What is working? What needs to change? What can we learn from this experience? What is my role as a visitor to this community? What can I bring home with me? And how will this experience shape the decisions I make going forward?
Jane,
Great post. I think you are right in the value of the cultural exchange. One point I would add is the fact that these types of trips will continue to take place regardless of how critical we all are. So, as you have done, a more constructive way to go is to encourage more mindfulness and better developed programs.
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I think this raises very important points. However, it is a good thing for our planet that people of all ages want to get involved in something that doesn’t directly benefit themselves (I don’t agree with the description of why most people Voluntour). In the greedy 1990′s, people earned a lot of money and generally thought only of keeping it. In recent years, we have a return to caring about others, and that’s a very good thing.
So the challenge is for the voluntour business community to develop some solid standards about what voluntourism should look like. It’s not the fault of the students who built the well that they put a local man out of business – that’s the responsibility of the organizers of the project. And the flip side of that is how many people in the community now have access to free water. Was the trade-off worth it?
My family searched to find a company that was involved in sustainable voluntouring, and I’m happy to give People & Places in the UK a shout out. Great, responsible, ethical company, as is Calabash Tours in South Africa, whom we work with directly when we are there. Their model is a volunteer staying at least 3-4 weeks to have an impact. We were fortunate to be able to do that for several years, but I recognize not everyone has that luxury.
Does that mean that short-term volunteers are only out for personal gain and can’t expect to be involved in something sustainable? I don’t believe that is true. The Habitat for Humanity model is an example of how a short-term commitment can work. People can work on a project in their own community for even a day and be involved in a meaningful project. Many individuals and groups go to New Orleans for a few days to help rebuild homes there. That short-term work has benefited many people who now have homes to live in.
I wholeheartedly agree that people should not go into voluntouring to “help those poor people.” One way to change that is to make sure that all volunteers get to have direct contact with the people in the community where they are working With good leadership, these projects can help create relationships between the people who have come to make a difference and those who live there. We can all learn from each other, and voluntouring gives people the opportunity to meet “the other.” That, again, is a very good thing
Eileen, Thank you very much for taking the time to contribute! To give context- the group of students (who put in the well and did not consider the effect on local business) were self led and independent of any organization’s authority. However, my organization at the university spent time and lots of energy coaching them through workshops at the request of the administration but we had no authority over their decisions. IE we could not stop them from getting on a plane and our workshops came too late or they chose to listen to what they wanted to hear…
We were limited to guiding them through training, but had no control over what they did on the ground. It would have been up to the community to refuse their project. Did they ask the community if they wanted a well? Possibly. Would it have been better if they asked the community what was actually needed rather than imposed their solution? Definitely.