While writing my last post on amateurs, professionals, innovations and smart aid, I was also thinking about why organizations or institutions offer volunteering, voluntourism and exchange visits as an option for their donors, students, constituents, and why people (including US volunteers and overseas communities or organizations that receive volunteers/visitors) participate in them.
As another mental exercise, I came up with 4 categories that these programs fall into (feel free to differ or add others if I skipped over something, this is in no way scientific research or a desk study, just thoughts based on my experiences and observations):
Relationship building, cross-cultural learning, solidarity
- Some initiatives are primarily aimed at learning, engaging with the world outside a person’s home country, strengthening cross-cultural relationships, and building links and global movements. These programs tend to stem from a core belief that in order to achieve a better and more peaceful world, we need to reach out and strengthen relationships across cultures and countries; enhance our understanding of one another; better comprehend our global interconnectedness; and build global movements around particular themes to push forward change. This kind of program is sometimes also heavily funded by governments as part of foreign aid (Peace Corps, development education programs funded by USAID, ‘democracy strengthening’ exchange programs) with a goal of improving relations, transferring skills, and showing that Americans really are nice, helpful, friendly people and that democracy is the best form of government.
- Those that sign up for these initiatives are often highly engaged with a particular cause (solidarity movement, peace, environment, religious, women, political viewpoint). They may be going overseas to show their solidarity, share knowledge and skills, or connect around issues they are passionate about. Or they may simply want to travel abroad and have an interest in global issues and a desire to help. Volunteering, voluntourism and exchange programs offer a way travel and/or live abroad in a non-touristy way. These types of programs can be very attractive for youth and people late in their careers or retired.
Career development, field study and gaining experience
- Some programs are offered by academic institutions, non-profits (or perhaps private companies) whose work is focused on or in the developing world, and who believe their students (or employees) need experience in the developing world in order to do quality work that is well adapted to the cultures and people that they will deal with/serve/sell to in the future. These are programs that offer career development, internships or study opportunities via NGOs, universities, etc.; language learning; resume building and experience for future careers in a variety of fields; opportunities to live with and learn about or research a particular culture or field; a chance to better understand the poor and design products and services for/with the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP); insight to build social enterprises, etc.
- Those looking for these types of experiences are often university students, recent graduates, missionaries, foreign language students, or adventurers looking for a way to live abroad. For many in this group, overseas experience is a key factor that will set them apart; build a skill set; allow them to progress in their chosen field of work; and help them be more effective in the types of processes, services and products that they eventually develop. There is pretty much no way to get this kind of experience outside of volunteering, overseas interning or doing an exchange trip during a semester, a vacation period or a summer.
Cultural belief in community service and charity
- Another common reason that organizations offer these opportunities is belief that volunteering is good, charity is an important value, we should appreciate what we have and give back. In the past 10 years or so, mandatory volunteering and community service is growing in US schools as a way to build certain habits and values in young people. Many teachers and parents believe America is the best country in the world, and want their students/children to ‘experience poverty’ so that they will ‘realize how good they have it.’ This type of program sometimes comes from a charity mindset (donor/recipient, rich/poor, us/them, developed/developing) and is based in beliefs about philanthropy that are prevalent in the US (and apparently in Canada, Australia, Europe and some other places too). These kinds of programs seem to be the most common and the easiest to sign up for. (See @TalesfromthHood’s series on American Culture 101, 102 and 103 and related discussions.)
- Those who participate here are often students that need to fulfill community service requirements for graduation. They may also be from church groups or other organized groups that do volunteering as a part of their culture, their way of being, and their belief structure. Many people in the US feel guilty that they are spending money on a vacation and want to alleviate their guilt by doing a bit of ‘service’. Or they are at a time in their lives where they have the means to ‘give back’ and they want to do it physically and personally, in the ‘poorest’ of places, and/or where it’s most convenient for them (like while they are on vacation). There is a belief in the US that giving money is ‘not enough,’ is too easy, and that if you really care, you will go and do. People are often not satisfied with ‘just giving money’ and really have a desire to try to know and understand the people that they are ‘helping’, but they don’t have a lot of time, and don’t want to become professional aid workers.
Donor engagement, fund raising, brand awareness
- Organizations are aware that philanthropy is changing. Articles abound in philanthropic journals about how major donors are tired of bureaucracy; want to ‘do development’ using for-profit models; want to start their own organizations and get directly involved in managing projects they are funding. Organizations are also aware that younger adults, say 18-40, may not have a lot of money to give, but they are at a critical juncture where they are forming ideas about philanthropy, as well as bonds and alliances with the organizations that they will give to in the future. NGOs are aware that Americans believe that it means more to do than to give, and that doing is a richer personal experience for donors.
- Many organizations have programs to engage donors in ways other than giving money. They have volunteer programs; use social media to stimulate community and loyalty; build advocacy programs where donors can engage by clicking and sending something on-line or ‘like’ something to show their support. Voluntourism, exchanges and hands-on volunteering are another way to engage donors. The main goal here is not so much the advocacy or the ‘help’ that the volunteer gives, but rather the opportunity to gain an email address and build a relationship over time that turns into a loyal donor who gives what organizations really need in order to carry out their programs: cash donations, major gifts and bequests. Advocacy and volunteering/voluntourism have an added benefit that they can also build brand awareness and PR for the organization.
- Those that participate in this type of program are similar to those in point 3 above, and don’t want only a financial relationship with an organization. They want to do something direct and meaningful aside from giving money.
What do communities want?
I haven’t directly asked any communities or found any ‘poor’ communities themselves blogging about volunteers, voluntourism, exchange visits or amateurs. From being involved in different negotiations around volunteers and exchanges and donor visits/trips over the years, however, here are some of the things I’ve seen, heard and experienced.
Communities (considered here as geographical or cause-based communities receiving volunteers, voluntours, exchange visits or hosting small new NGOs) that participate in these programs often hope to
- receive funds locally to support their work
- maintain a link to a broader movement or cause that benefits them
- be invited to spend some time outside of their community/country in return
- make social, financial and political connections through volunteers and visitors
- get concrete support for a particular area or build knowledge and skills by learning from those who are volunteering
- get some financial or other kind of direct benefits back through a project or program related to the expertise or study area of the volunteer or organization that sent the volunteer.
Communities may also take and house volunteers as a favor to an organization or institution that they are working with and as their contribution to a partnership relationship. They may genuinely enjoy the company of volunteer groups who bring a burst of energy and excitement into the community. Often projects that volunteers come to work on (eg, infrastructure, certain types of specialized training over the long term) would not be funded or available if it weren’t for the volunteer set-up or small non-profit, and communities are aware of this, so they gladly take an infrastructure project with some volunteers.
In a few cases, local people and organizations might be looking to take advantage of naive volunteers, inexperienced non-profit starters, and voluntourists. [Not forgetting here that volunteers, voluntourists, investors and non-profits can also do harm to a community and the people who live there, either intentionally or unintentionally, if they have bad intentions or don’t know what they are doing].
How is success defined?
You can tell a lot about the real reasons an organization or institution offers these programs if you can find out what the stated program goals are, or how they are measuring/defining program success.
Are they measuring…
- development outcomes and sustainability at the community level? (eg., school attendance, quality of education, health indicators, etc.)
- successful and sustainable entrepreneurial initiatives at the community level?
- the number of schools, latrines, houses, etc., built in a community?
- success in terms of a particular advocacy issue or broader movement around an issue?
- changes in attitudes about something?
- the number of students/volunteers/donors who enroll and complete the program/tour/exchange visit?
- community satisfaction with the program?
- profit from the actual volunteer/voluntour/exchange program? (above and beyond costs to run the program)?
- the number of emails they get that they can add to their list for sending out appeals?
- funds and donations raised during/after the program directly for the participating community?
- funds and donations raised during/after the program for the organization’s work in general?
Who is volunteering/ overseas exchange mostly about?
I realize that there is no category above where the end goal is ‘providing communities with particular skills that only an overseas volunteer can offer’ or ‘providing necessary (unskilled, inexperienced) support in emergency situations.’ I suppose I don’t believe that organizations and institutions really have those goals for their volunteer programs, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
I’m pretty sure that if you did some research, you would find that in the short term, volunteer and exchange programs are almost always mostly about the volunteer or the organization’s goals, not about the outcomes and impact at the community level. In the long term, however, they may be directly or indirectly beneficial to communities or the world at large.
I would be interested to know what, if any, is the long-term direct positive impact of volunteering/ voluntourism/ exchange visits
- on ‘poor’ communities (do their development indicators rise?)
- on political and voting tendencies of volunteers (do they vote for candidates who make decisions that favor the poor overseas? do they participate in direct advocacy with the US Government on issues related to their experiences?)
- on business practices (do business owners who have volunteered implement better business practices? do they have fairer practices and policies toward developing countries?)
- on world views (do participants see the world as more interconnected? does that impact on their personal actions and lifestyle choices?)
- on fundraising for the organization’s general programs or for participating communities
Finally, to be honest about it, some volunteers/voluntourists/exchange visitors might not even care what the real reasons are that an organization offers these programs. They just want to travel and feel good that they are ‘helping’.
[Update: I’ve been traveling and behind on my reading – I didn’t see A View from a Cave’s entire great series on Volunteering until now. Highly recommend checking it out!]
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[…] Deconstructing volunteering and overseas exchanges […]
great posts in a series of post. i’d like to add Donor Missions and Naming Projects to your list of why people go ‘abroad’ to donate or volunteer, as i see these as part of the root of how this all started. way back when, charities began with endowments, often for local initiatives. these entities grew into proper fundraising vehicles and into cause-specific orgs that expanded to other regions with this mission. so as to stretch the donor pool beyond the endowment giver, this meant organizing a trip of notables to see the facility/make donation, and provide a naming gift presentation around the ‘donor mission’.
i believe this is probably also rooted in religious based NGOs as well, the missionary migration, and then it carried over into nationalism-based programs (Peace Corps, et al). the only modern day example i can think of, and that i happen to be a fan of, is this one: http://www.tenzinpalmo.com/pilgrimage/ ~ though it’s a failure for me as a ‘donor’ as i can’t afford it!!
Thanks for the comment Danielle, I see the naming projects/major donor visits as part of the ‘fundraising’ bit (reason #4) , but you are right. I’ve managed those kinds of visits before…. I also think you’re right that some of the current volunteer models are probably based on missionary models. I bet someone has done research on all this that I haven’t had time to look up.
Linda somewhat agree. I find it qute helpful sometimes especially for those that stick to the rules of the game.
Very good lessons learnt and good cultures and mannerisms also transferred or acquired.
Sometimes more of a legend but i think it is a hot subject worth discussions by many other organizations.
Volunteerism even at local level has been mis-defined if i could borrow that word.
This is my opinion only
Hi Jonathan, and thanks for your comments. I agree with you, that volunteers in the right context, with the right set up and expectations, can be helpful. I also agree that the concept of volunteering needs some work and (putting words in your mouth here) perhaps some updating. Hope you’re doing well and your work is going well too. 🙂 Linda
There are two ideas I would like to link from your post:
1. The guilt Americans feel by ‘just’ going on vacation and/or ‘just’ giving money is not enough.
2. Communities welcome volunteers/expats/vacationers in the hope of some financial development/investment.
Perhaps there is a compromise staring us in the face: responsible tourism.
I’m curious as to the number of those who engage in one-time-only voluntourism (e.g. building a bookshelf at a local school) who stay at a luxury hotel owned by a foreign corporate conglomerate doing little for the local community.
I’m curious as to the number of “flashpackers” who participate in the tourist activities offered in lower income countries, then return without ever walking the vegetable stands in the local market just outside the walls of their “Flashpack” accommodations.
Maybe instead of pushing (or castigating) voluntourism, the push could be towards creating mainstream resources where tourists can find the best way to invest their vacation dollars (or euros) to their host communities:
– What hostels/hotels/shops/groceries are locally owned and operated?
– What hostels/hotels/shops/groceries hire local people and offer competitive salary/benefits?
– What are the best activities to engage with the community and directly impact their economy?
In addition to creating these resources, there could be ‘feel good’ indicators, such as the potential impact of eating at a community owned restaurant rather than the McDonald’s.
I guess my point is, instead of teaching people that “voluntorism is bad,” perhaps the focus could be “spending money is OK?”
(To allude to your note above, this is not desk research. Just experience/observations.)
Really really fantastic idea. Thanks for this! A few of us are working on some of these themes together and I’ll share with the group. ~L
I am a returned Peace Corps volunteer. I spent just over 2 years working with the Jamaican Ministry of Education. I was fortunate in being able to make a few lasting impacts. It took the whole two year timeframe, to be fair. The few hours or days of voluntourism can be beneficial in the same way that sorting cans at your local food kitchen can help out – there’s effectively infinite labor to be done, and it can be trained in minutes.
But I would argue that the true lasting impact (of both short and long term overseas volunteer engagements) is not the work you manage to do, but the interaction and eye-opening that the volunteer themselves experiences. Yes, people really do live like that outside of save-the-children commercials on TV. Most people will have a better understanding of the politics of the US than you as a native do, and a better grasp of the realities of the world economy than you’d expect anyone but a Ph.D of economics to have.
Peace Corp’s three goals are (paraphrasing and editorializing) direct assistance, showcasing American diversity, and bringing the experience home. Everyone gets caught up and misty-eyed about the “development” work, but creating 7,500 deeply committed, lifelong ambassadors for the nations where they served should not be overlooked.
Thanks for commenting. These are really good points. I agree that there are long term, indirect impacts of volunteering on ‘the world at large’ and very direct impacts on volunteers themselves, eg as you mention the mind-opening of the volunteers themselves and the education that they can do once they return. I would guess that Peace Corps is one of the institutions that has actually evaluated this aspect of their programs. I also think PC is one of the programs that puts its volunteers through serious training before they go and offers them a network with which to engage when they return. This is where I’m not sure if the anti-volunteer argument that “volunteering is only about the volunteers, it’s not about the poor” totally holds up. Volunteering in the short term might not really be “about the poor” but maybe in the long term having these ambassadors does have an indirect impact on the lives of the poor. And again, one thing I wanted to point out in my post was that all volunteer programs and overseas exchanges are not created equal, they have different goals and different impacts. Thanks again for bringing your thoughts to the debate, much appreciated. ~L
Totally, the PC plays at a different level – it has a weeks-to-months-long training program (dependent on the difficulty of the local language/s), and asks for a two year commitment of its volunteers – a bit more than your average alternative-spring-break setup.
Peace Corps still is often attacked using the same arguments which are levied against short-term volunteering — the volunteers are not professionals, often do not have specific expertise in either their sector nor community engagement, and are often a batch of fresh-out-of-undergrad, never-lived-independently and never-traveled-outside-of-the-US … well, kids.
I love this post, as it really lays bare a lot of areas often overlooked in the actual, valuable impacts of volunteer service.
Interesting analysis.
I signed up for a short term voluntourism trip with an organization that very much fits into the first category you described (“Relationship building, cross-cultural learning, solidarity”). That being said, I do think that it is worth distinguishing between government-supported agencies that might have an ulterior political motive that is grounded in showing the supposed superiority of the American way of doing things so that they will adopt American political and economic methods, versus the goals of some nonprofits that are rooted in mutual respect and solidarity and are definitely as much about learning as about teaching. I actually think that those two approaches can be quite contradictory.
The former approach seems frequently grounded in condescension and, I think, a bit of chutzpah; if one travels to a country like Guatemala or Nicaragua and learns their histories one soon becomes quite aware of how those countries have through the decades been littered with the victims of those who had to endure the US imposition of its political and economic will. Even aside from that sordid history, though, if your goal is to “enlighten” the people of another country then you really are not respecting them.
The latter approach, on the other hand, always looks to the local communities as the leaders of volunteer projects, who welcome support and assistance but who don’t expect outside volunteers to tell them what to do.
I think the question of whether on the one hand you go into a country to respect and support its impoverished and indigenous people, or on the other to show them the superiority of your own country’s ways, is fundamentally important to the essence of what volunteering abroad really means.
thanks for this Mike – funny because while writing the “Reason 1” description I had in the back of my mind 2 things: 1) the kinds of volunteer and exchanges programs I used to come across when I lived and worked in Central America in the 90s, which were based around solidarity, mutual respect and ending US imperialism; and 2) US govt requests for proposals for global exchanges that I was encouraged to write grants for when I moved back to the States (under the Bush admin), which were all aimed at ‘potential terrorist countries’ (though they never came out and said that) and were about using global youth/learning exchanges to convince Muslims that Americans are nice and the US form of democracy is awesome and, I assume, contribute to destabilizing over there and promoting the US agenda. Both of these could be considered “relationship building and cross-cultural learning” (maybe not “solidarity”) but the desired impacts are quite different as well as the underlying motivations and attitudes (as you rightly point out).
I’m genuinely interested in what kind of volontourism you did, the length of your stay, and what impact you feel it had on you personally and on the community, and if you did anything once you were home to follow up/continue on with what you experienced on the volontour. (If you feel like sharing that is — here as a comment or you can email me).
Linda, the voluntourism I did was with an organization called Global Citizens Network. The length was a little over a week (something like nine days, I think). GCN has a strong emphasis on working with indigenous groups and concerning itself with the victims of injustice in developing countries, and at the same time it values making sure that it is the local group that is in charge of the project rather than GCN. The project that I got involved with involved assisting in the construction of a house where a women’s cooperative in a small village could work on their crafts that they sold. The project was ongoing and we just joined in for a period of time in something that had been ongoing. Everyone was chipping in, women from the cooperative, a few children, and of course the GCN volunteers. There was also some touring of an agricultural cooperative in the area. I was deeply moved by this experience. We put up a pinata for the children on New Year’s eve at the end of the trip and members of the women’s cooperative gave speeches expressing their appreciation of our efforts and it was all very moving example of mutual respect and support.
It was my first voluntourism trip and I have now signed up for two more, one of which will be with with GCN in another country, and one with a different organization in still a third country. I also started a blog on voluntourism and was encouraged by a woman who works for GCN (and who was on the trip with us) to submit an article about my experience for a book on voluntourism. It was really a life changing experience for me.
thanks for sharing the details, Mike, and I enjoyed reading through your blog posts. Will add you to my google reader feed so I can keep up to date.
Great, great post. I have been arranging international volunteer experiences for 7 years now. By far the overwhelming reason it happened was because a international student studying in Vancouver wanted to set up a volunteer experience in their home community. The two most successful cases were 1) The head of the board of a major AIDS outreach organization in Uganda (doing her PhD in education here) wanted Canadians to learn about the work they were doing and help contribute to its success. 2) A Lesotho PhD student studying traditional community relationships for development (another education student) wanted Canadians to learn about community development in rural Lesotho and help contribute to small scale local improvements that could have a huge and sustainable impact in the lives of local people.
I consider the work I do to be international community education where Canadian youth LEARN about community development through workshops here in Canada and a short trip overseas. And I have never felt guilty about it because the invitation has always come from the communities we work with and we always listen to the community and learn from them.
thanks Jane, I agree that most volunteering is really about learning. I also like that in your case the invitations come from the communities.
Hi Linda and other blog commenters,
Thanks for the article, very well stated. I took the liberty of linking your blog to the America’s Unofficial Ambassadors facebook page. Our fans will have an interest in your commentary.
I think many of the issues you mentioned in your piece are concerns facing a lot of social inquiry, and are by no means confined to overseas volunteerism. Although, I don’t mean to make an absolute comparison, a piece in the New York Times a few months ago highlighted many of these same issues about Teach for America volunteers.
I wise man (Albert Einstein) once said, “not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.” How success is defined and impacts calculated may have just as much to do with what can be reasonably measured and evaluated as what the interests of the parties involved are. I think an implicit value that is shared by almost all volunteer focused organizations or programs is that the relationships created, whether it be a single relationship or their aggregate, by prolonged, in-person, interpersonal interaction is something worth investing time, effort, and resources in.
In any case, I think that methods of evaluation to make causal inferences is lacking with regard to many development projects in the field and I agree that the impacts on host communities has not, historically, been given due attention. Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers for this, but would like to discuss them with you further if you are interested.
Best,
Sigma Chang
Whoops! I totally forgot to introduce myself. I’m a returned Peace Corps volunteer (the Republic of Georgia and Peoples Republic of China 2007-2009). I’m currently working on a program that promotes American volunteerism in the Muslim world, called Americas Unofficial Ambassadors.
Thanks for your thoughts and for linking the post to your group. I’m enjoying all the different input and think it’s helping to clarify some of my own thinking around volunteerism and if/how it can be done successfully/without harm.
Also agree that many aspects of development projects (big and small, established and newbies) could use more scrutiny and evaluation, and more thinking about their short and long term impacts, and how they fit into the micro and macro pictures.
Linda
Hi Linda,
I think your analysis is pretty accurate. I run an organization (The Tandana Foundation) that offers volunteer opportunities with the primary goal of relationship-building. We also pay close attention to the impact on the host communities, and our projects are always suggested and requested by the communities. Our volunteer programs work in concert with our scholarship program for Ecuadorian students and our funding for community initiatives in Mali.
I believe that the contribution short-term volunteers make is often mostly symbolic, but that it can have important effects for both the community and the volunteer. These quotations might add a bit to what the host communities get out of volunteers’ visits and the importance of their gesture of solidarity:
“We have the pleasure of coming in the name of the chief of the village of Kansongho, his counselors, the women, and the young people to transmit their thanks and joy regarding your illustrious delegation that the people of Kansongho continually remember. Receive here all the thanks and recognition of the people of Kansongho. The people of the village, and of all the commune of Wadouba continue to talk about the visit of the group. The commentaries are mostly about your manner of integrating yourselves into society, your physical effort, your engagement, your determination, and especially your joy in sharing with the people in unity and cohesion. For Kansongho, you were like old friends who had come to work with her and not like people coming for the first time to work in an unknown and unfamiliar situation. The children still do the dance that you showed them in the village and in the fields; that really made an impression on the men, women, young people, and children. Be thanked for all of that. The women invite you to go out to look for firewood at the pink dune. The people are asking when will be the next visit of the group. For the commune, she has never seen white people come and work like you have done in your visit to Kansongho.”
–Moussa and Timothée, Bandiagara, Mali
This particular visit also inspired several of the volunteers to go home and raise over $7000 for the particular project we had worked on during the trip (a grain bank), so it brought additional benefits in terms of funds for the village.
“In the months of June and July of this year, we hosted a girl from the United States, Laurita, sent to our home by Anita. She was also a wonderful person, she adapted quickly to our lifestyle and our culture. What surprised me was that she really liked our typical foods and always had seconds. She also came to work as a volunteer. She was studying medicine, so she came to the community to work like a nurse with the community. It was a wonderful experience; I learned about her culture and her language. We shared so many experiences together and she even learned more. I was her guide and we went to tourist sites, traditional festivals, to my university, etc. Without a doubt, she went away very happy to have gotten to know us like her family, which we now are. We were very sad when she left, but she said she would come back; for me she is another sister. I hope there will be other opportunities to live these kinds of experiences because I love them and I do them with lots of affection, and I love my profession. One month ago, Anita came to my community of Panecillo with a group of doctors. Thanks to God, we had the opportunity to get to know them, and we also accompanied them to a few sites, perhaps like native guides. They told me I was going to be a good leader, and this motivated me even more to keep working hard. They were charismatic people with lots of solidarity, since they came to cure people and to give medicines to the people of our community, who surely could not pay a hospital or doctor for lack of economic resources, and this was a great thing for them. I also thank Anita for her heart of solidarity and love that she has had, since thanks to her work many children and young people are studying, because she gave scholarships to the best students, which has motivated them even more to study. This is a help to our families, and we are very happy because of it. For all of this I am very thankful to Anita for the opportunities she has given me to train myself as a professional. Now I have experience to better myself even more as a person, and, to repeat, as a professional. I hope that she will never forget us, as we carry her in our hearts, and we also hope that she will keep helping us and that there will be more opportunities to work together.”
–Claudia, Panecillo, Ecuador
“I also have really enjoyed the visits that come to my community and the help that they give us, the foreigners were very nice and likeable and I hope they keep visiting. From all of these experiences, I have learned to maintain my own culture and value it for myself, since much of it is being lost, and that other people value it and are interested in learning about the many cultures that exist in the world, since this differentiates us and identifies us.”
–Cristina, Panecillo, Ecuador
As you and Mike have pointed out, the long-term effects of the experiences on the volunteers can also be important. For example:
“In reflecting on the various service projects I have completed over the years, my time in Ecuador stands out as the experience where I began to consider the cultural, social, and environmental dimensions of health and health care, especially in rural communities. Specific moments and patients in the mobile clinic still stick with me and the experience was quite transformative in my life path… Tandana has been influential in guiding my life goals.”
— Molly, volunteer from Washington
“I knew that it would be an amazing experience, but I didn’t expect to be so blown away by the beautiful people and culture of Ecuador. It was truly one of the best experiences of my life. I cannot overstate how much I appreciate the hospitality of the Ecuadorian people and how they shared their gorgeous country with us. It has caused me to rethink parts of my life–I’m now seriously considering going into medicine! Working with such wonderful doctors helping people feel better was life changing. I hope to do much more volunteer work abroad in the future, and I can’t thank the Tandana Foundation enough for giving me such an astounding experience.”
— Emily, volunteer from Washington
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and quotes – I do agree that the impact of short term volunteers is symbolic.
Which is why I think we really should not kid ourselves that volunteers are having a huge impact on a community’s development outcomes, and be clear that they are more important for relationship building (when volunteers and communities well oriented and there is mutual interest and mutual respect, and everyone’s expectations are heard and are clear.
I was already convinced, but becoming more and more entrenched in my thoughts, that there is no place for short term volunteers in acute emergencies overseas (though I do think neighbors helping neighbors in a crisis is important and helpful – eg., when we help those around us during a crisis).
L
Very in-depth and interesting analysis. There are alternative models of course that allow for a more reciprocal volunteering experience between the sending and receiving community.
One such is the organisation I work for ATD Fourth World, which recruits full-time volunteers from Europe, North and Latin America, Africa and Asia, and gives them opportunity – in their own country and overseas -to work in the long-term alongside people experiencing extreme poverty in their refusal to accept poverty as inevitable. While this leads to Europeans or north Americans supporting African communities, it also involves Africans working in deprived European neighbourhoods.
And the fact that it is based on a long-term commitment means that it is possible to go further in an understanding of extreme poverty and work alongside those concerned to find solutions in partnership with them.
Thanks for your comment, Matt. Your model sound pretty interesting, I like that it’s long-term and not one-way.
Have you done, or is it even possible to do, any evaluations on impact of your program (on volunteers or recipients of them) regarding understanding of poverty and finding solutions? I’m curious how these aspects could be measured, or if it’s mainly qualitative/ anecdotal/ via quotes, etc. It seems hard to concretely measure these kinds of impacts, eg., attitudes on poverty, empowerment or solidarity, even if you had a gut feeling that something positive was going on.
I’m not asking because I have any solutions, I’m genuinely curious. Have you found a way around this dilemma?
Linda
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