My trip to Rwanda finished without happy end, nevertheless looking from the time perspective, I really want to go back there. And that’s the thing about traveling, not everything is always amazing: you will get to places that you won’t like, you will sometimes feel out of place or be overwhelmed by the culture. But at the end of the day it’s all valuable experience and you shouldn’t let one bad moment discourage you from traveling and even exploring further the place.
I went to Rwanda as a volunteer, so my not so great experience was determined by the organization and the project, rather than by the culture or local people. I blame myself though, because I blindly trusted my friends who volunteered with ICS before. And that was my lesson, always do research before you volunteer or work with any charity! There is so many instances when they take financial advantage of donors or volunteers, don’t have impact they promise, or even influence local communities in negative way, and I cannot take it. I believe that transparency, accountability, efficiency and community-centered approach are basic and really important principles, and every NGO or charitable organization should follow them. And that was the very reason why I terminated my stay in the land of thousands hills.
I was thinking for a long time if I should mention the name of the organization, because I signed code of conduct so I should not mention ICS in bad faith, but I believe that it’s important to tell the truth and raise awareness about flaws of charitable sector.
I volunteered for International Service, which is one of the branches of ICS. Their projects are in 90% funded by UK Government, country which is among world leaders when it comes to amount they spend on help for developing countries. But if all of that money is spent on the project like the one I took part in, I doubt they have any positive impact. I wasn’t alone with the point of view that the project I took part in, only makes an impression of helping and seems to aim mostly on creating opportunity for young Brits to explore the world and to put exotic volunteering experience in their resume. Ever since we arrived the only questions that we got from staff were about our experience, if host families treat us well and what are our plans for free time. I was surprised that they never checked progress, impact we have or even checked plans and documents that we were preparing. From the beginning we were questioning efficiency of the project, because it lasts only 10 weeks including few days training, and with majority of the time writing plan for the project, which left us with only 2-3 weeks for implementation. Also, we worked only around 5-6 hours a day, 5 days a week. How efficient can group of young, unexperienced people can be with raising awareness on human rights and gender equality in such environment? What made it worse was pathetic budget that we as a team had for implementation. It was so small that we couldn’t even afford renting a car to go to the next village to make a survey among community. I am not aware of actual numbers, but from what I could find on their website, UK volunteers fundraising gives around 10% of all budget, which in total was 3200 GBP (4 volunteers in my group with 800 GBP target each). That gives us around 32,000 of total budget and we as a team had only around 720 GBP (800,000 RWF) to spend on implementation. Simple math, 720 GBP is only 2,25%. I counted 5 times, because I couldn’t believe myself. It sounds bad right? But I haven’t finished yet! List is long, but the last thing that I want to mention is that majority of our time we had to work for our partner and help them with marketing, job roles, business strategy which left us with only few hours a week to focus on human rights and gender equality. That project was a disaster and I heard similar opinions about their projects in Malawi or Ghana. It almost seemed like we do more harm than benefit community anyhow!
Why I’m writing all this? To warn everyone about how corrupted, unaccountable and unreliable many organisations are! I’ve met people who paid thousands of pounds to volunteer in animal sanctuaries in Thailand, where they cage and beat animals when nobody sees, people who paid to volunteer in fake orphanage in Cambodia which later on was convicted of kidnapping kids from neighboring countries. I am another example, but it’s just few of many, so let’s be aware of who we work for or volunteer with and who we donate money to.
But please, don’t loose faith in people! There are many more positive stories than those bad ones and now, more than ever before, we need to stay united in making world a better place!
Every year natural disasters affect around 160 million people worldwide (who.int)
More than 68 million people around the world have been forced from home. Among them are 25.4 million refugees (unhcr.org)
Around 767 million people still live for less than $1.90 per day, which is considered extreme poverty (worldbank.org)
So lets keep helping, but in a smart and well-thought-out way!
If you have any questions regarding volunteering or working with NGOs, you can get hold of me on Instagram @ozga_kasiaor email kasia@ramblelife.net
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Sending Love,
Kasia