Volunteer Global

Today's article comes courtesy of Sharon Testor. You can follow Sharon on Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube under the name Voluntouristy. Thank you, Sharon!

When I was asked to do a guest blog for Sarah, I felt at first like a celebrity.
 

Then, I realized that the number of people both interested and active in our field could probably have a comfortable dinner party into the apartment I had in college… not big, for those of you who never shared in the joy of on-campus housing. Almost anyone with an interest is someone.
 

All the same.
 

My name is Sharon Testor, and I am known on my blog as the Virtual Voluntourist (Editor's note: Blog no longer available), and on Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and countless other social media networks as Voluntouristy. I am attempting to claim my corner of the volunteer tourism industry and in debating for the two weeks between deciding to go for it and actually creating my blog, I looked at all of the main haunts for the voluntourist nuts. There were the selling blogs, the review blogs, and the general information blogs. What I found that was missing was more talking about the general idea, and the ethics behind it. The psychology, the happenings, the future.
 

Yes, this started from a project for my graduate course in online tourism databases, but I really hope it continues. Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine the fun I’m having, or that the people I spoke about in January as being my biggest competitors would be chatting with me outside or interested in what I have to say.
 

I got interested in volunteer tourism when I was 19 and decided to take a study abroad program called Semester at Sea. While at sea, we had class; while in port, we traveled. And volunteered. Pretty basic and easy to see what happened next. Most of what I chose to partake in involved orphanages or children of some sort, and it stemmed from something Archbishop Desmond Tutu said to a group of us who were having dinner with him one night on the ship- the future is in the eyes of the children. And it’s true. When we were in Cape Town, South Africa, twenty or so of us went to Khayelitsha Township. We were visiting a local bed and breakfast for lunch, and playing with the kids in a church while helping restore a schoolroom nearby.
 

There were no parents, and the kids seemed to follow us wherever we went. They wanted to play and dance and show off for us. When we left that night, I cried harder than I had ever before. On a broken, rusted car we passed was a bumper sticker that defined my feelings- ‘In Everything, Give Thanks’. This is what we saw while working, while playing. There wasn’t one single child that looked upset, or a single person that wasn’t smiling. These people required passes to travel until as lately as 1987, and a lot of them were not even considered to be as human as their white counterparts for parts of their lifetimes. Their homes are made from scraps of steel, wood and tin. And yet, it didn’t matter to them. They had hope for a better future.
 

This continued through Mauritius, India, and Vietnam, all in which I volunteered with children, enamored with the fact that they always seemed to believe the best in people and have hope no matter their situations. Whether it was an orphanage in Vietnam or a school for the handicapped in India, the kids wouldn’t stop smiling and laughing.
 

This is why I love voluntourism. I love that I can feel great about the world, feel good about myself for helping, learn about another culture, and travel all in one. And most of the time, what people do to volunteer really helps (those that don’t… well, that’s another story entirely!)
 

Yes, I started my blog as a project, but I am excited to be able to break the mold in May when the class is over and I’m not restricted by what will or won’t work, and what the guidelines are. I will be around in this field for a while, whether it’s eventually working in it or just trolling twitter and blogs and giving thoughts and insights that aren’t the normal selling points.
 

Hope to see you all there.
 

~Sharon Testor
Virtual Voluntourist / Voluntouristy