Guideline # 1 - Good volunteer projects require a significant commitment of time
While most development workers can tell stories of volunteers or
volunteer projects that did more harm than good, most of us also got our
start through volunteering or an internship. I personally was a Peace
Corps Volunteer. With the debate raging over poverty tourism, disaster tourism and voluntourism
(see links at end of post), I thought it might be a good time to
develop guidelines for useful and appropriate overseas volunteer work.
Because there are many factors to consider in evaluating a volunteer
project, this will be a series of posts. I welcome feedback that will
help clarify, tweak, or improve the guidelines so that potential
volunteers can use these to make informed decisions.
It takes time to understand the local needs and to develop a successful project
This may either be your time or the time of the organization with which you are volunteering. Significant time is needed to truly understand the local needs, their abilities, and how you can best contribute. This requires that either you or the organization understands the local language, culture, and politics. In addition, the people you are helping need to play a key role in determining the type of aid that will be provided and how it will be provided. This cannot be accomplished over a one or two week visit. In fact, Peace Corps used to counsel overanxious volunteers to not even try to accomplish anything their first year, but to spend that time learning the local context and developing relationships that will be key to a successful project.
This makes a lot of sense when you think about it from the perspective of your own neighborhood. Before
volunteer work days in your local community, someone has spent months
planning the event, working with the appropriate government offices,
and laying the groundwork. Imagine if a group of foreign volunteers
showed up in a poor section of your town and tried to jump in and lead
a project. What are the chances that it will be successful? I talk
about this in-depth on my posting The allure of the quick fix.
Organizations can be hurt if they invest more in a short-term volunteer then they receive back
Orienting, training, and supervising a volunteer takes up precious
staff time. If the volunteer only stays for a short period of time they
can actually use more resources then they contribute, thereby hurting
rather than helping the organization. When I worked for the Red Cross
we had a foreign exchange summer program try to arrange an internship
with us for one of their participants. The person wanted to learn about
international aid, and would be volunteering full-time for just three
weeks. I put a good deal of thought into what this person could do and
asked a few of my staff members. Without an understanding of our
projects, without previous development experience, without the ability
to read or speak Thai, there was nothing we could give them to do that
wouldn't end up taking more of our time to orient and train them then
we would get from them. There was no benefit to us to have this
volunteer for such a short period of time, so we turned it down.
The exception to this point would be if you had a critical skill
that the agency needed and that you could use almost immediately. When
I was director of D-TRAC we had a retired accountant that volunteered
twice to help us streamline our accounting procedures and ensure
everything was correctly documented.He gave us far more in what he accomplished then what we invested in him.
If you pay a voluntourism company, make sure they have invested significant time on the ground
People that don't have a lot of time to commit to volunteering
overseas often pay to go with a company that arranges everything for
them. If you decide to this this, it is critical that you ensure the
company you use has invested a substantial amount of time in the local
area, building relationships, understanding the local situation, and
working with the local people to develop the program. Not allvoluntourism companies do this.
After the tsunami we had a company that had already sold the trip to
participants without actually having any staff on the ground. A month
or two before the project was to begin they sent a team member to try
to find a project that met their specifications. They were unsuccessful
and eventually had to go elsewhere. Even if they had found a willing
community, the chances of it being a quality aid program are
questionable, as it would have been designed to meet the needs of the
donor and not the aid recipient.
Volunteering requires a significant time commitment
Before you commit to a volunteer project, ensure that either you are
able to give the time needed to so that what you contribute is greater
than what you take, or that the organization you are working through
has invested that time for you.
____
Related posts:
Guideline #2 for volunteering overseas
Guideline #3 for volunteering overseas
Guideline #4 for volunteering overseas
Voluntourism:
"The down side of voluntourism" Our Man in Granada
"Volunteering or Voluntourism, who cares if you know how to design it" Pepy Tours
The Tourism Debate
"On Paying Money to Look at Poor People" To Africa from New York Blog
"Development Tourism, Thinking out Loud" Tales From The Hood Blog
"Poverty Tours Travel a Fine Line" Christian Science Monitor
"Should Starving People be Tourist Attractions?" Aid Watch
"Disaster Tourism" Good Intentions are Not Enough
Volunteering:
Why you probably won't get an international job (and what to do about it) - Damsels in Success
Kris,
Writing this series has also caused me to really think about my own Peace Corps experience and personal motivations.
You might like to read the latest posting, Guideline #2.
Posted by: Saundra | July 06, 2009 at 03:46 PM
Saundra, thanks for writing about this. Your earlier posts about poverty tourism have had me wondering about this: how was my Peace Corps experience any different? And what are the motivations behind my curiousity about the world and the people living in it?
Posted by: Kris Becker | July 06, 2009 at 12:42 PM