I've done a lot of volunteering in my lifetime, starting back when I was a teenager.
I know firsthand how much meaning and beauty it can give to life to extend ourselves to help others. Yet sometimes that urge to help can make us blind to the actual effects of our actions.
War Child USA Founder Dr. Samantha Nutt says that volunteer trip you might be going on this year isn’t helping anyone.
“Voluntourism trips are largely designed to benefit the visitor — rather than the host communities — making a spectacle out of poverty and reinforcing outdated stereotypes about developing countries,” she explained. “Volunteer tourism — sometimes called voluntourism is now a multi-billion-dollar industry, with millions of people volunteering while on vacation every year.”
.... According to Dr. Nutt, reports from Haiti and Cambodia reveal that orphanages offering volunteering experiences for tourists have been accused of keeping conditions deliberately bleak so that visitors will feel compelled to give more.
Studies by South African child psychologists of orphaned children exposed to ever-revolving foreigners also found that they might become overly affectionate because they constantly form bonds with people who abandon them.
I had looked into some of these organized volunteering vacations in the past. Thankfully at the time I couldn't spare the time commitment or pay the extremely high fees charged, knowing I could do such a trip on my own for maybe 1/4 the price. I'm glad to have learned of how these programs really work, so that now that I actually could go I never would.
Take a look at the full article including the video it includes and see what you think.
Would you ever do "voluntourism" or support your adult children in doing it?
Is there some way of doing it that would benefit the recipients more than the volunteers and volunteer organizations?
