Voluntourism: Who is it really for?

        Today I passed the 2000 mark for views! I want to thank all of you, whether it be friends, family, or avid followers, for the reads and comments. I hope we keep this going!
        As a way to honour this momentous occasion, I did some digging and I found my first ever blog post! I wrote this blog post for Smart Solutions last year, and I think today it's more relevant than ever, so I'd love to hear what you think. A lot of what is written is based on my experiences in the summer of 2009.
        P.S. If you haven't already checked out the Smart Solutions website (link above), make sure to do so. I can sincerely say it is the best student-run international development organization I know and it has all the potential to develop into something huge. Support it, and you're helping an organization that will help millions some day!

WAYBACK PLAYBACK!!

More and more often we hear about our classmates and colleagues partaking in volunteer experiences abroad. It’s almost commonplace to hear that someone has traveled to Tanzania, Peru, Vietnam or Kenya; and not for the purpose of vacationing, but instead to volunteer. Is this because of the growing interconnectedness of our globe or is there also another phenomenon in play? Today, there exist hundreds and thousands of NGOs offering volunteer opportunities in developing countries. With that, the lines between service, development, and tourism have been blurred. This new niche market has been coined by many as ‘voluntourism’. The term refers to travel with the purpose of volunteering for a charitable cause. These travel opportunities are a chance for Westerners to experience new cultures all the while ‘making a difference’. Volunteer positions can be anything from ecological conservation to teaching to working at the local hospital.

Building on personal experience, I question the benefits that these experiences actually have on the community in which they take place. Faults of the NGOs that prevent it from making a lasting change are the involvement of inexperienced/unskilled volunteers and the near-sighted views of their objectives.

Volunteer vacations were initially developed to cater to people who had no previous experience with a cause, giving them a chance to ‘do something good’ all the while experiencing new places and challenges in locales they may otherwise not have visited. However, the real needs of a project are sometimes things that volunteers cannot support. Language barriers, lack of local cultural knowledge, and lack of skills prevent volunteers from being a good fit for most projects, so instead “tour companies often create projects for the volunteer”. These projects typically require little investment of ideas, energy or commitment. As the core needs of the project cannot be fulfilled, NGOs create projects and tasks that meet the desire of the volunteer to ‘feel helpful’ without doing much for the community at hand.

Two summers ago, I taught English at a government-funded school in Nicaragua. The children had barely enough money to feed themselves on a daily basis nor did they have the resources to meet their basic health needs but, somehow, there I was, teaching them English- a resource they may very well never have the chance to use.

These types of opportunities also have a habit of being very near-sighted in terms of their goals and objectives. Volunteers will participate in one-off projects that are not monitored or evaluated in the years to come. There is nothing in place to ensure the sustainability, practicality, or even utility of the project or measures put in place.

Back to my teaching example, when arriving in Nicaragua, there was no record available of the progress made by previous teachers and volunteers. If I had no idea where the last teacher left off, how was I supposed to know where to continue? This creates a redundancy and makes it impossible for any solution to leave long-lasting impacts.

If the project or NGO does want to make a difference in the local community, they should be implementing projects that have the possibility of long-term survival. One-off projects are merely temporary solutions that have little to no positive effect on the community’s quality of life in the long run. How can we guarantee we are helping people if there is no monitoring in place? Good projects need to be monitored, and this feedback then allows them to improve or fix the solutions that are practiced.

It is not to say that these volunteer experiences are useless, they teach volunteers the ways of different communities. These trips may in fact be  “life-changing”, but who for? Are the lessons learned then worth the detriment caused in communities they hoped to serve? As volunteers, we get the opportunity to learn about the culture and customs of a different region, we gain valuable experience, and we have the chance to explore outside of our comfort zones. We benefit so much, but manage to give little in return. The intentions of volunteers, as good as they may be, are not enough. The trade-off must be carefully weighed before any decisions are made.

With the organization for which I volunteered, some teaching positions last no more than a month. As such, students at the local school can see up to 12 different volunteers every year. Each volunteer teacher can walk away a changed person, but all they’ve left the students with is a lack of consistency and possible feelings of abandonment.

The thousands of dollars paid to fund these sorts of trips can be more efficiently allocated; our money can be used to implement sustainable, longer-term, locally directed, and managed support – all of which is more helpful than sending ourselves.

If you do want to partake in this sort of experience, I highly suggest doing your research.  It so important to choose an NGO or project that is investing in long-term, sustainable solutions that directly meet the needs of the community. It is equally important to also ensure that the project you choose matches your skills, expertise, and education. Demanding responsible practices from the NGO can move your experience from just ‘touring’ to ‘volunteering’