On Voluntourism

Editors Note: The last post I wrote was my personal experience as a tourist-volunteer (aka "voluntourist"). While I know my experience is decidedly not universal, the topic is far too big to be covered in one post. Beyond my personal experience, here is a more general discussion of volunteering abroad.

“We need to help the poor people in [insert developing country here]!” is a refrain in our media and our culture. It is the mission of church groups, NGOs, and private citizens. With even the most rudimentary of an education, we are informed of our privilege in the west. We are shown photos of starving (always brown, but that's another topic) children and huts made of mud without electricity. People feel some need to help abroad, especially in places like India, where poverty, both total and abject, is shocking and openly displayed.

While this is not to disparage those who wish to do good in the world, the issues go beyond simply being poor and in need of rescue. They include access to healthcare, sanitation issues, education, and gender issues. Poverty is far more complex and deeply rooted than an outsider can realize, and some practices are so deeply engrained in a culture that even to the locals cannot understand them.

It is the fact that: there are some things we will never understand, that becomes the problem with short-term stints volunteering abroad. In one to four weeks, we are supposed to, without speaking the language, practicing the religion, or being citizens of a country, are supposed to come in a “save” people from their conditions? We think we know all the answers, that someone from the west can come and fix a community. But to say that we, who have been born into our privileges, have all the answers is at best naive and at worst downright harmful.

One of my hosts in the village poses with her 6 month old son.

Yes, there are ways to help – as a doctor, an English teacher, or a tradesperson, there are skills we in the west can contribute to a foreign society. But when our “program fees” go to line the pocket of other westerners, we are not contributing to a community. When we take on jobs (think construction work or ditch-digging) that are not in our skillset, and could probably be finished twice as quickly using local labor, we are not helping.  Instead, we are take a tour into someone else’s life and using a self-righteousness as a band-aid for our privilege-induced guilt. We are showing that our “profile picture will never be the same” –never mind the impact we have on that place.

Working in development is not a lark, or a way to show how ‘selfless’ we are. As a long-term career it is difficult, frustrating, a draining. As a short-term stint, it is often just a way to validate a stay, and go home satisfied with yourself for ‘doing something.’  

But without the understanding that the needs of a community are complex, diverse, and sometimes nearly impossible to meet, the key ingredient to successful and sustainable development is absent.

My challenge those well meaning vagabonders so award of their (our) privilege, is to keep the guilt in check, and ask hard questions about the impact you have in a community you intend to “serve.” A few to start:  

·      How will my time make an impact?

·      Is what I'm doing what a community needs? How do I know that? 

·      If I’m paying for this experience, where is that money going?

·      How is my stay impacting the local people (am I a drain on their resources)?

·      How will I be supported during this experience (translators, guides, fellow volunteers)?

·      Who are the major funders of this organization? What are their interests? 

·      What skills do I have that are truly beneficial to this community? 

These and many more should the foundation of any attempt to “help” in a developing country. As we move through the world, we should be mindful of our impact, aware of our surroundings, and leave our self-righteousness at home.  

Kids from a Rajistani village hug a baby buffalo