Have you ever wanted to volunteer abroad? In the past few decades, volunteer opportunities overseas have skyrocketed in popularity, allowing travelers to explore the world whilst aiding the communities they are visiting.
Have you ever wanted to volunteer abroad? In the past few decades, volunteer opportunities overseas have skyrocketed in popularity, allowing travelers to explore the world whilst aiding the communities they are visiting.
On the surface, such work is entirely commendatory, devoid of any downsides for both the traveler and the people they are helping. There is however an unseen aspect within many of these volunteer organisations and charities, one that has created an industry which assists in the exploitation of millions.
'Voluntourism’ is defined as, “organised and packaged tourist trips with a duration of a few hours to a year, in which the main purpose is to volunteer. The volunteer provides their ‘work’ within the destination free of charge”. Common placements include building infrastructure and teaching elementary aged children in schools or orphanages.
These programmes, specifically ones with for-profit organisations, benefit heavily from this industry and the money that is circulated by the volunteers.
Programmes which advertise as being completely altruistic can end up making anywhere between thousands to millions of dollars through this work. Effectively keeping much of the money they earn from the communities they claim to be helping and lying to the volunteers they are sending abroad.
When it comes to the volunteer stay itself, there is also the question of whether the jobs volunteers are completing are taking away from an otherwise domestic job market. Whilst there are many inconsequential volunteering jobs such as cleaning roads or getting rid of invasive species, other jobs such as construction work or childcare can instead be provided by local populations. What should be an effort to create self-sustaining communities is instead turned into a continuous everlasting stream of volunteers.
Regarding construction work, many of these volunteers also have no prior skills or experience in the fields which they are volunteering in and every often their period of stay is not long enough to create a lasting impact within the community they are helping. This then leads to much of the building work these volunteers are doing to either be insignificant or cause for the community to use up much needed resources to sustain and renovate the work already done by said volunteers.
Volunteering in childcare also exhibits much of these same issues, as well as leaving lasting effects on the children being cared for. Many of these childcare institutions have a long history of child physical and sexual abuse, as well as a wide range of reported instances of unnecessary familial separation within orphanage populations.
The Better Care Network, an organisation which advocates for a decrease in global institutionalised care for children, warns against volunteering with orphanages abroad stating, “the increasing trend in volunteering in or visiting these facilities compounds the issue and the impact on children. Not only does it encourage the expansion of orphanages, but it also makes children vulnerable to abuse in those areas where regulation is lax, creating attachment problems in children who become attached to short-term visitors-”.
The Better Care Network has a large public archive of reported cases throughout countries such as Nepal, Cambodia, and Myanmar.
Often, volunteer organisations and opportunities are presented in a very impersonal, selfless way. Much of the advertisement surrounding volunteer organisations presents these communities through a dehumanised, ‘white savior’ lens in which the history, culture, and language of the local community is completely irrelevant. A volunteer programme will often claim to work in ‘Africa’ without any mention of any ethnic group at all.
In that sense, a person’s reasoning for why they want to volunteer is also very important. If someone does not see the complexities of the people and communities they are serving, their desire to help will only become something that justifies their own self-importance. By simplifying these people and communities, the problems they suffer will also be simplified, making it harder for these issues to truly be solved.
When volunteering abroad it’s best to research the organisation you plan on working with and consider how you will be helping the communities you plan on working in as well as your safety whilst there. Ask yourself how you’ll be helping the community and if the help you are providing is doing more harm than good. Volunteering abroad isn’t wholly unethical, but it requires a large amount of awareness and research before making your decision to go.