Response to "Volun-tourism" Posts

Two posts by my classmates really made me question my thoughts on volunteering overseas as a means of development and what it will truly bring about for the future. The first was Nicole’s “Volun-tourism” post (http://livingbarefootnicole.blogspot.com/) and the second was Brile’s “Thoughts on Volun-tourism and Nicole’s Post (http://brileanderson.blogspot.com/). Nicole wrote on how a professor talked about his opinions of volunteering while travelling was doing a lot of damage to other cultures and “taints the rest of the world with our modern way of life”. This professor believed, in a later meeting with Nicole, that unselfish help doesn’t exist and the “helping” we are doing is actually damaging the communities we are travelling to. Nicole asked herself if her journey to India would damage these communities and whether her motives were selfish, similar questions I am asking myself.

Personally, my reaction to this view was anger. This professor seemed to have a very narrow minded view of volunteering and his definition of selfishness. True, a lot of volunteering overseas will do damage to communities because programs are not sustainable and they do not truly incorporate the people that live there themselves. From everything I have learned and that past students have told me, it seems that Beyond Borders is not like that because we work within existing structures that are there with or without our help. As far as selfishness goes, like Nicole astutely points out, learning and experiencing the world are selfish goals in themselves. But we will not end there. This trip is meant to be a period of personal development where the lessons learned and experiences gained will lead us to becoming global citizens that will understand global problems and look for innovative ways to solve them. We will not simply go on this trip, come back, say “holy crap, they have a lot of problems but the elephants were cool” and return to our bubble. If we do that, I will agree with Nicole’s professor completely. But if this “selfish” journey becomes a springboard to working with the developing world in whatever capacity to communally fix problems, then I would hope this professor could think again about his remarks about volun-tourism.

Brile also responded to Nicole’s post and took a very critical response about volunteering overseas as it “perpetuates a cycle of dependence of the developing country on the organization and developed countries”. Her example of programs that send teachers to a developing country at six months at a time is apt: they cannot connect with the students in a meaningful way until too late and it is a job that should be done within the country, if only they had the infrastructure to train, pay and monitor the teachers properly. Overall, Brile analyzes how complex of a problem this is and stresses the impact of the “cycle of dependence” this volunteering, aid and development work is creating and perpetuating. I think this is why volun-tourism is happening: it is leeching on to people who want to “help” while still appealing to Western youthful sentiment of “expanding your horizons”.

The same thing that I said to Nicole is what I believe is the only possible answer to this problem of Brile’s: the only possible end to the cycle is for people who know about the problem to learn as much as they can, experience what they can, and then use this knowledge to find a way to help. Just look at the fair trade movement. Does it make sense in economic terms to pay more for coffee in Canada? Of course not- but the people that started and are continuing this movement are hoping that a simple act of buying and drinking coffee can be part of the solution. We all have a hand in this, and I think despite the inherent selfish aspects of the journeys we are undertaking, ultimately we can put this experience to a communal good.