Don't just be another voluntourist...

The Ethics of International Volunteering

(originally posted December 2007
at http://www.ncl.ac.uk/gps/about/politics/volunteering.htm)

This summer VSO launched an attack on gap-year companies and ‘voluntourism’ schemes, claiming “…a year spent travelling can be more beneficial than spurious voluntary work…” and even going as far to say that gappers pursuing voluntary work in the developing world risked becoming “…new colonialists…” if a change in attitudes is not seen soon.

Rubbish! You may think. Volunteering is good. Right? This is surely just a publicity stunt? What does it matter anyway? Well, it does matter, because voluntourism has become BIG business. Big business that is once again exploiting the global poor, the very people who good-intentioned volunteers set out to help. Even the volunteers themselves are sometimes exploited in the process.

It’s easy to get sucked in by the feel-good marketing tactics the volunteer organisations use on their websites and in their brochures. What better way to spend your summer than having the ‘experience of a lifetime’ while making an ‘enormous difference’ to people’s (generally cute-looking children’s) lives, in an area where you can travel to 'gorgeous white sand beaches', or national parks at the weekend, whilst at the same time gaining ‘valuable skills’ to add to your C.V? I was sucked in myself in the summer of 2006, but during my placement became completely appalled and disgusted by the way the company I was with was operating; they weren’t interested in helping the community at all, they were just using them to maximise their own profit.

I returned to the same volunteer-swamped town in the north of Tanzania this summer, funded by Newcastle University’s Expedition Committee, to research the impacts of the volunteer industry in the region. My ultimate aim was to assist the community in creating a forum where their views and input could be heard by the volunteer companies, and to help establish a dialogue between the host-communities and the companies. However, it soon became apparent from many interviewees and people I spoke with informally, that the community felt the best way of tackling the negative impacts of some of the volunteer organisations was by targeting the prospective volunteers themselves.

So, if you are thinking about having a pre or post-university gap year, doing some overseas volunteering in your holidays, or as a career break, think long and hard about the nature of the organisation and project you sign up to, and who it is you will actually be benefiting, before you part with your hard-earned money. Of course, this is not to say that all overseas volunteering organisations are bad, some obviously do make a real and positive contribution to the communities they work with, but be aware that there are many out there that don’t.

Finally, bear in mind, you don’t have to be a volunteer to travel to a developing country, and you don’t have to travel to a developing country if you want to make an impact. There are many ways you can get involved with international developmental organisations and projects by volunteering in the UK, or even from the comfort of your own arm-chair, be it ‘virtual’ volunteering, or by donations.

(For more information on what to look for in a volunteer organisation please visit www.ethicalvoluntering.org)