The debate about
"voluntourism" – that unsightly word – has reared its cynical head again
and again. Every so often the spotlight is turned on western students using their free
time to help those less fortunate in developing countries and the much
head-scratching and soul-searching ensues. Others have argued that Voluntourism creates a “Western-infused
cultural oasis” very distinct from the communities that the locals live in, and potentially damaging to their
development as the people they come to
like, perhaps even love, are continually coming and going.
Pippa Biddle, the author of a recent post
entitled "The Problem of Little White Girls, Boys and Voluntourism" is right when she mocks the idea of untrained students being considered "godsends"
or replacements for trained doctors, engineers, or teachers, and she is right
to say that "only through an understanding of the problems communities are
facing, and the continued development of skills within that community, that
long-term solutions will be created." But she is absolutely wrong to
conclude that this means international volunteering should be discouraged or
that her skills were useless. They weren't -- they were just being massively
misapplied.
Recently again, the Guardian published a
piece by Somalian blogger Ossob Mohamud, with the headline Beware of the 'voluntourists' doing good. She argues that the west is turning
the developing world into "a playground" for the rich to
"assuage the guilt of their privilege". Mohamud clearly had a
difficult volunteering experience.
She says she felt ashamed at the excessive praise and thanks of locals, cringed
as she took photos with African children whose names she did not know and was
left feeling that she had simply inflated her ego and spruced up her resume. But
Mohamud's insistence on drawing a wider social message from her own
unsatisfactory trip is unfair and potentially damaging.
It's easy for 'voluntourism' to seem like a
dirty word, and there is a very fine line between a genuinely helpful and
mutually beneficial experience and one that, at best, has little to no impact. Let me take you, though to the fuundamentals of
its coinage.
What Is
Voluntourism?
As
the word implies, voluntourism combines vacation travel with volunteering at
the destination visited. One can say, killing two birds with one stone. It’s also spawned a new vocabulary: voluntourist, ethical holidays,
travel philanthropy, and more. Voluntourism is aligned with
the more established concept of “sustainable tourism,” defined by Sustainable
Travel International as “lessening the toll that travel and tourism takes on
the environment and local cultures.” Their motto is: Leave the world a better place.
What I fail to understand is the crucifixion of ‘voluntourists’, labeling them
as fake, but we don’t have the same sentiments for those who tour while on
their business trips! Should they also not be allowed to see the beauties of
the foreign land that they were sent to do some work? Whether volunteering is
an objective or is subject to one’s travel is clearly none of our business to
socially judge or condemn on any grounds.
I through working with ‘Tofauti on the move’ have
personally witnessed the volunteers - students and recent graduates from cross-border
universities - forming genuine friendships with the locals, developing
emotional attachments to the children and becoming truly invested in their
future. Cynics might thus say that when they return to their respective
countries they leave it all behind and life moves on. But for many, volunteering
can be life changing; and many of our past interns can attest to that.
"Charity” in its essence is just a
bridge between the ‘Haves’ and ‘Have-Nots’. Obviously, no approach is without
its flaws, but it is vital that people do not group charities doing this well
with companies who are putting very little into the developing world. Charities
or NGO’s stem up from society’s disregard and marginalization of the few, from
a community level to a global level, hence we also have the UNITED NATIONS.
The undergraduates face a stark choice about how
to spend their time before entering employment, particularly now that money is
tight and jobs are scarce. Charities that invest in the developing world need
keen, energetic, ambitious people to help them along. "Voluntourists"
they may be – but their work can have a huge impact on their own lives and the
lives of those they help. It would be an awful shame if they or more specifically
WE were put off.
One thing to
note though before I go ahead, is that ‘Tofauti on the move’ is not a voluntouring
NGO, as we offer no tourism packages whatsoever. But that does not stop us from
working with touring companies, Corporates for their CSR, and any other NGO’s
and even parastatals for that matter. As our mandate is sustainable development
irregardless of any Tom-Dick-and-Harry that wants to help foster viable social
aggrandizement to the destitute.
It is also important to remember that voluntourism and
aid work are two distinct markets, appealing to two completely different
groups. Aid programs perform an essential role, but people involved with it are
long-term participants, volunteers or otherwise. Voluntourism is for people who
are going on vacation who do not have the time to be involved with traditional
aid programs.
What Does this
Trend Mean to Traditional Volunteering?
At
the moment, the vast majority of volunteer vacation projects send people from
North America and Europe to developing countries in Africa, South America, and
Asia. This is largely because it requires money, time, and access to
travel abroad and those three resources are available mainly in the First
World. But perhaps someday the concept can be practiced in both directions. Case in-point, Hurricane Katrina was a disaster than engaged people from around the
world. For the Americans, it may be sobering but also illuminating to
recognize that they too, might be recipients of the help of others.
Development and aid work are fundamentally
about relationships. They address the relationship between people and their
environments, the relationships imbedded in the power structures of social,
cultural, and political systems, and the relationship of the developed and
developing world. And they depend upon relationships to be successful:
relationships with community leaders and members, governmental decision makers,
and NGO's, just to name a few. As with all good relationships, the strongest,
most lasting, and most sustainable require time. Lots and lots of time. More
time than most people are willing or capable of donating.
Ideally, development and aid work should be
done by country nationals, people that already know the culture, the language,
and the nuances of their country. Even more ideally, I believe, developing
countries should be training and educating people who are actually from
specific in-need communities. Not only are these people fully culturally
integrated, but they already have established relationships with individuals
and leaders within those actual communities.
This slight reformulation implies a change in
the role of outsiders (both as individuals and countries) in the developing
world, but it does not mean that developed nations have no part to play at all.
Instead, they need to re-prioritize and
re-evaluate their approach to relief so that they use their resources to empower
countries to develop themselves. This should be according to the countries own standards and not the hindrance of them with the developed countries standards. The role of western countries in international development is to be defined
not by their own interests but by the expressed needs of developing nations.
So while I applaud the intentions of the
voluntourists of the world, I think it is important for them to remain grounded
in reality. They need to be constantly cognizant of their privileged positions
to be doing development work in the first place and the limitations of both
their time commitments and outsider status. All international experiences are
important and contribute to a general worldliness and awareness that is so lacking
in our generation. But unless we are willing to accept the inter-relatedness of
our privilege with someone else's poverty and allow that understanding to
change how we live our lives, we are just exercising our privilege even more.
Here's a quick synopsis on how to be an
effective volunteer:
: Work with local staff, don't try to do their jobs!
Profit
-- Who is truly benefiting from your trip? Is it a for-profit
volunteer placement organization, a tour company, your Facebook or Instagram
photo album? Or, is it the community you are meant to be helping? What
percentage of the benefits of your trip, in volunteer work or financially, is
legitimately helpful, and not just fun? Go direct; find organizations where you
can concretely understand where every dollar of your contribution is going, and
where your work is needed most.
:Don't be a superhero, just be you!
Local Tanzanian fundis (craftspeople) have a
huge comparative advantage when it comes to building walls, over little white
girls and boys with no training. However, little Western girls and boys might
be great at setting up social media for a small local nonprofit, doing computer
training with impoverished teens, or doing an art project that they can turn
into a fundraiser for their home community -- all of which require skills and
access that are much rarer in rural Tanzania than in central 'Connecticut'. It's
all a matter of fit- what can you offer to this community that they don't already
have? The first step is to shut up, and listen hard to the community
you work with. You can't possibly help with community needs if you
don't even know what those needs are. It sounds like Pippa learned the first
part of this lesson -- that we don't know everything about how to
"fix" other societies, and rushing in where one doesn't belong is a
recipe for disaster. But she seems to have missed the second half -- that if
you listen, you can find places where you actually are needed, and wanted, and
can help. You just have to be quiet for a while to hear it.
At Tofauti on the move, we generally don't
take new volunteers for less than 4 weeks. It usually takes about 2-3 weeks to
settle into a new culture and community, and for stays any shorter than that,
the physical and staff costs of training the volunteers usually outweighs the
benefits of their assistance. It also takes time for volunteers to truly
understand how and where they can be of most use to the local staff, but once
they settle into the rhythm, they become a huge asset.
:Volunteering
is not a vacation, and orphanages aren't zoos! Good volunteers are the
lifeblood of many small nonprofits and it is frankly irresponsible to equate
all international volunteering with a 2-week high school package tour. In our
case, volunteers grow our small Tofauti family: They raise awareness and expand
our network to new communities. They add value to our work every single day.
But of course, I am far from an unbiased
observer as I am a full member of Tofauti on the move. Still I believe one
should never fear being corrected. So, I am about as far from objective as they
come -- this work is my life, literally and metaphorically. But, I
promise that if you have a chance to see the type of impact volunteers can have
when the fit is right on a small scale, but with so much love -- you would
change your mind towards criticizing volunteering.
That being said, the quality of work a
volunteer does is very much independent of the Tofauti on the move bureaucracy
anyway--it depends largely upon the individual, their skills and capacity, as
well as their motivation and resolve.
~Hongdi Zhao
Chinese Ambassador- Tofauti on the move
