Title 1: Voluntourism: Do’s and Dont’s
Written by Skyla Patton
We’ve all seen the posters and handouts plastered around campus: building a school in Taiwan, digging wells in South Africa or reading to orphans in Latin America. While these are all worthy causes, most of them are often paired with an unfortunate aspect of new-wave volunteering: tourism. Ride elephants after you build a school, touring villages destroyed by apartheid or feasting on a five star lunch down the road from the orphanage.
While volunteering is a surefire way to better the world and communities around you, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with craving visiting new parts of the world, it’s important to be aware of how voluntourism can hurt more than harm and be educated in choosing your volunteer programs and organizations. Here’s some important things to know and resources to utilize in choosing where you’d like to spend next Spring Break volunteering.
Learn how to separate your community service from your vacations. It’s amazing to give back to people or places, and just as cool to go abroad or visit a place you’ve never been before, but it’s crucial to understand the difference between the two. Programs that offer two or three week long vacations with a day or two of volunteering often are taking advantage of marginalized communities or environments and may not be as helpful as they seem at face value. Before you sign up for a program, research the details of the “project” you’ll be working on and make sure it actually benefits the people or environment.
Assess your skills and make sure they’re needed. While it may sound thrilling to tour the beautiful landscapes of a country outside the US while building a well — ask yourself, am I equipped to do this job? If you’re a skilled mason, maybe building that school or well is the perfect assignment for you, but if you never put together that IKEA chair, maybe it’s time to take a seat. There are a wide range of service projects available, abroad or not, so do research on the project and what will be asked of you and make sure your skill set will be beneficial. If it’s not, there is probably a different or more local opportunity for you.
Keep your volunteering intersectional. Always. Most voluntourists have their hearts in a good place, but it’s crucial we are always asking ourselves if what we’re doing is intersectional and beneficial for people across the board. Many volunteer programs abroad take advantage of disadvantaged communities or people and have transitioned into a sort of business opportunity rather than charity assistance. Reflect on what you’ll be doing during your trip and make a list: write down everything that is beneficial for only you or your volunteer-mates, and what is beneficial for the community or area you’re in. If the first list outweighs the second, it’s probably better to find a different program.
Do your research on the charity or program. A quick google search will answer all of these questions and more. Most programs offer reviews or detailed itineraries where you can browse what the trip will entail. Along with this, sites such as Charity Navigator track how nonprofits use their funds and programs so you can directly see if the organization you’re working with is doing what they say they’re doing.
To keep it simple: keep your volunteering local. The easiest way to avoid problematic voluntourism: give back to your local community or surrounding areas. If you’d like to help communities outside of your own, donate via online services or research other ways to give back digitally without contributing to the use and abuse of communities abroad.
