Every Share Helps!

I read a blog post recently regarding the negative parts of volunteer travel. This person made a few jabs at the industry, namely:

1. All groups who charge are inherently shady
2. Volunteers aren't helping anything
3. Volunteer travel experience should count against a person in a job interview

I’d like to respond to these.

Regarding: All volunteer abroad groups that charge a program fee are shady

Unfortunately, I think this person either didn't do her research or she just made a sweeping judgment about all volunteer vacations regardless of the fact that many organizations that charge do so because that's their only source of income.

To expand on this, I believe that many people who make this statement also tend to think that all volunteer vacation groups are not based in that particular country—that they're just faceless placement organizations who give no regard to the host community.

Wrong! Many of them are actually small, in-country programs that supplement their community's income by welcoming international volunteers. Yes, there are shady groups who hurt more than they help, but if you do your research, after a while it should become obvious which ones are trustworthy and which ones aren't.

It’s completely unfair to make a published assumption that all volunteer travel groups should be avoided. It's unfair to the local groups, it’s unfair to their partner organizations, and it's unfair to the work they've accomplished and the people they've helped.

Regarding: Volunteers abroad never help their host communities

This is certainly true in some cases—but not all of them! It depends on the type of work being done, and how it's being accomplished. Most volunteer programs are founded locally, providing community solutions to community issues. Asking volunteers to help with beach clean-up, which is always an ongoing issue, doesn’t hurt. Neither does asking medical doctors to volunteer in a mobile clinic.

The harmful consequences arise when you have, for example, a person volunteering for a week in an orphanage, or with special-needs children, or directly with animals. These are things a person should be trained in before embarking on the project, and it’s best left to long-term volunteers and professionals.

That said, I have a feeling that the original statement that short-term volunteers don't help was spurred by certain groups who offer vacation packages with a quick stop at an orphanage. It's easy to write off on your taxes that you made a "philanthropic trip" to Nepal to ride elephants and play with children. What do these children see? Groups of privileged people who gawk at them and don't lift a finger to adopt them. Playing's great, but these children don't need a one-hour companion they'll never see again.

The upside is...I haven't seen too terribly many legit volunteer vacations that offer this type of deal. What I have seen are travel groups jumping on the philanthropic bandwagon with something other than "helping others" in mind.

Regarding: Volunteering abroad should count against you in a job interview

I can't begin to wrap my mind around this. She seriously said that she throws out resumes when she sees volunteer abroad experience on them--particularly short-term, Habitat for Humanity style trips. Is there a time cutoff where it does become acceptable? What if the volunteer was in a long-term program and had to be evacuated due to political instability or a natural disaster before their close of service?

What if that person volunteered for two weeks on a construction project? Two weeks is longer than I devoted during my junior year of high school to the American Red Cross, who I worked with every single month on blood drives. My nine days’ total of blood drive work shouldn’t make me “better” in any way than someone who volunteered for fourteen days to build a house.

So to wrap this up: Yes, there are shady groups that charge for you to gawk at orphans. Yes, there are ones that ones that parachute into a host country, providing misguided solutions to problems they don’t understand. But you know what? It’s just like any population—the idiots, the jerks, and the loud, obnoxious attention-seekers will always stick out more than the vast majority of those amazing ones that know what to do and how to do it well.

Before you write a blog post tearing apart the volunteer travel industry as a whole, take a step back, do a little more research, and stop it with the knee-jerk reactions—because it hurts the groups and the individuals who are doing a wonderful job worldwide, every day.