Some organisations propagate a myth that they’re charitable and are providing resources as an accredited non-profit organisation. Others straight out offer service projects that require bodies and charge what they wish for placements on them and make a profit and some, like ours, are fully accountable community development projects with all the appropriate paperwork done which look to bring the ideals of community development into pockets of need which otherwise would be overlooked as being unsavory or too idealistic.

Smaller grassroots volunteer driven organisations such as ours haemorrhage money because we don’t have a high volume of people or charge inappropriately for training, bed and board. That’s something we will remedy though fund raising and better management but it doesn’t divert those who wish just to have an experience towards us. Those with lots of cash can generate ‘business’ which in-turn increases their profile on the global marketplace.

The problem isn’t with the volunteers, it isn’t with the variety of organisations that provide services it’s with the idea that these organisations are ‘charitable’ when they are not. Money is being redirected away from those who need it and into the pockets of businessmen because there isn’t any regulation on a global scale of who is doing what legally.

Were it possible that a label or badge could be given to those who adhered to international rules pertaining to the nature of their organisation, a body to regulate and take action when this is found not to be the case AND a way of by-passing corruption in the countries receiving said aid then we’d all be happier.

Still, little by little we are getting closer to having rules. But in the meantime smaller more idealistic organisations are being sidelined, which is a shame as these are the folk that are going that extra mile.

Thanks for the opportunity to express that Mark.

On the other hand, is the purpose of the exchange to polarize the already fragmented community or to find the common elements that bonds these individuals (volunteer – willingness to help).

The problem (if you see it as a problem) with voluntourism is that it is now seen as part of tourism just at a time where the phenomena of hyphenated tourism has reached a point where it’s almost impossible for a “travelers/tourist” to clearly identify themselves so that they are perceived as a “good traveler/vacationer/tourist”. So if you are a professional who travels to a small community and you do volunteering in an eco-friendly resort that is sustainable and you think it’s all responsible action – where would you fit? The common denominator is still “tourism/traveling”

So back to volunteering abroad or volunteering as part of a holiday – would all of these travelers still take a vacation without incorporating an element of volunteering? I believe they would still take holidays without having the opportunity to learn about international development and the impact of tourism – the need of the community they will visit. Maybe it’s not a bad thing considering that this might be an opportunity to change behaviour (so yes….most likely the travelers gained from the experience) and the community gained new financial resources from a tourist that would have normally stayed in an all-inclusive!

So volunteering as part of a longer assignment (still traveling but no pina colada) – is this better for the community? The ultimate goal? Any new financial activities in a community that is not sustained by other business activities will eventually disturb the “economic balance” in the community – some will make money for servicing this new group but the majority will be subject to increased poverty. Normally these activities are not sustained for a long time….they come…and they go.

I sincerely believe that dividing the volunteer community will not do anything to help communities that are in desperate need of skills, money, and sustainable economic / social development. Let’s find the common denominator and help improve the process so that it creates win-win-win situation.

Luc Lapointe
President Connexion Internationale
Ottawa CANADA

1. The money you contribute is much more valuable to the charity and community than the actual volunteer work that you do
2. Think of it as a contribution to a charity organization that is providing you with an all-inclusive life-changing experience in return complete with full support and guidance in-country.
3. The experience you are getting, the memories you are creating, and the bonds you are forming with the local community members and fellow volunteers cannot be matched by a vacation that would cost far more than your volunteer fees. Its a huge bang for your buck AND you are making a meaningful contribution to making the world a better place, however small it might seem to be. Lounging poolside in Cancun just can’t compare. It’s a feel-good experience. On top of that, when they return home, they become advocates for volunteer travel and the cause they took on while volunteering!
4. The money you contribute is much more valuable to the charity and the community than the actual volunteer work that you do. I repeat this here for emphasis.

One final point I make (if they are still not buying into the idea) is that the best possible thing they could do with that vacation money they are thinking about spending is to donate it straight to the charity (like Para el Mundo), not volunteer at all overseas, and spend that time volunteering locally. The charity would put 100% of the money to use hiring local workers to do the job, not have to spend any of it on volunteer housing and food, and still have enough left over to mail a nice thank-you card to the donor.

The bottom line is that the volunteers are getting far more out of the experience, benefiting more from their time there than the local community is, and I think that paying a reasonable fee for all of that is more than fair.

Don’t get me wrong, our volunteers do make a meaningful contribution, but not all make contributions of equal value. When we have trained medical professionals come to Mancora and help the local doctors make house calls, the contribution they make would likely far exceed that of a GAP year student with no such skills. As an organization we’ve debated whether we should host any unskilled GAP year students, but we’ve concluded that as long as they meet our standards and we feel they will have positive experience there and help with the programs (even just a little) that the money they bring into the charity is worth it.

Now if only I could get all of our volunteers to offset their carbon footprint for their flights…

Jason Kucherawy
Director – Marketing and Online Media
Voluntraveler
http://www.voluntraveler.com

The visual I put in this post does a better job of illustrating my thoughts on when/how volunteers are helpful.

http://pepyride.ning.com/profiles/blogs/assessing-volunteer-tourism

I will post my comments on how I personally define these terms and what negative impacts I have seen from unpaid “volunteers” here in Cambodia on the part 2 section of this blog post.

—
Daniela Papi
PEPY Director
http://www.pepyride.org

We know from research done at Brookings that this is not an isolated incident. International volunteers maintain higher levels of civic engagement in their home countries and towards their host countries even after returning home. International volunteerism was never meant to replace the work done at USAID, funds from the World Bank, the Peace Corps, Doctors Without Borders, or a hundred other organizations that do highly skilled planning and development work. Yet the arguments being used by Miss Shaikh and others in this thread reflect the kind of short term thinking that has stifled bigger development agencies for decades.

Directly, these volunteers pour millions of dollars in AID each year into communities not only through the program fees they pay, but through their attachment to the communities once they return. Indirectly, the development community SHOULD BE happy these people are there. They are constituents of the development community who understand better than anyone how much work there is to be done, and how little unskilled individuals can accomplish. If larger development organizations were to work in partnership with these individiduals and groups they would reach a larger audience and gain more support within communities in the developed world for their efforts which could be leveraged to affect lobbying, funds to State, USAID, or the Peace Corps, and dozens of other organizations. It is essentially a process of indoctrinating American citizens as members of a Global community who are aware of the plite of their neighbors. That is valuable to a host country, to our own, to our world, and I genuinely believe the future of our species. That is one way these organizations, simply by promoting awareness do fill a vital role in development efforts, one that could be enhanced by cooperation between larger development organizations and the voluntour sector (not to mention the fact that the very projects you condemn as useless could also be enhanced by that cooperation.)

I approach the other side of your argument, the argument that nothing can be accomplished in a short time, with a smirk. That is a statement that doesn’t take into account the development of technology. From a theoretical perspective, technology exists to increase the efficiency of a given act. Instead of a group of strong community members taking an hour to move a boulder, technology enables one or two individuals with a lever to complete the same amount of work in less time. I am a big believer in the power of citizen infrastructure, and you’ll find many in the developing world now who feel the same. In a small community in Tanzania I spoke with an organization that was working on plans and fundraising to pave the roads and build powerlines into their own community themselves with a little help from a contractor. I’ve been to communities that had waited so long for the government to come pave the road that they were thinking of ways that they could do this work themselves. In that process, manual labor and awareness of ones goals (which international volunteers provide in spades) will be essential. But on a basic level, these very thoughts would have been lunacy 20 or 30 years ago. Yet cell phones, internet cafes, and other advancements now make it possible to contact numerous contractors, fundraise on the web, and even complete projects more quickly and with less skilled labor than ever before. The end result of all of this is that not only are the projects that volunteers and community laborers are able to complete of a greater scale and magnitude than ever before, but this capacity is constantly on the increase due to refinements in particular technologies and the manner in which they are utilized. In other words, you can get more done even in a week’s time than you could 30 years ago. Yet many larger development organizations are so far behind the curve on this fact that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I hear about communities with hundreds of potential workers (able bodied people) who could pave the roads themselves to their villages with the help of a contractor and some awareness and funds, but instead are still forced to deal with huge beaurocracies of their own government or international aid organizations stuck 30 years in the past who want to preserve the necessity of their overly staffed “highly skilled labor pool.”

If you want to dispute specific projects, that’s fine. A specific organization, that’s fine. But the solution is not to say that paid international volunteerism is useless. We know the benefits. I certainly know the benefits. The key is to further refine their effectiveness. On this front, these volunteers, many of whom couldn’t afford to be full time development workers, are global citizens who should have an avenue to involve themselves in the affairs of less fortunate people in this world. For those individuals, paid international volunteerism is a sustainable model that’s proving more and more successful in its aims.