In Defense of Voluntourism

   If you asked me what my greatest achievement in life was, I would not tell you that it was graduating from college with honors or finishing my master's degree. I wouldn't say it was skydiving or bungee jumping or evading arrest at an Italian national park (all of which I've done). I'd say it was teaching these kids:

Ayubu, Huruma, Frank, Moses, Happyness, Irene, Joshua, Halima, Jacklin, Rebeka, and Samuel.

  I never thought that quitting my job to teach kids for free in Africa would be something that I would have to defend, and I certainly never thought it would be something that I would feel guilty for. And then this article started to make the rounds on the internet, and for the first time I was made to feel like my time in Africa was something I should be ashamed of. (One Facebook proponent of the article went so far as to call me a White Imperialist for teaching abroad.)

Just another day of spreading my white imperialist propaganda...clearly the kids are miserable.

  The article basically argues that "voluntourism" is inefficient, propagates a white savior complex, and that the majority of the jobs done by voluntourists could be done better by local people, so instead everyone should only volunteer if they are fit for the job and then donate money and resources to local companies in developing countries to fill in the gaps. Okay, fair enough. But that logic is problematic for several reasons.

1.) You are functioning on the assumption that your money will be used appropriately in your absence. Trust me, as a person who lived in Africa, that's not always the way things happen. People are struggling to get by, and corruption is rampant, so donating money does not mean it is getting used effectively. If that were the case, then the billions of aid dollars sent to Africa every year would have fixed all of its problems by now, right?

2.) By the author's logic, why should anyone volunteer at all? Sometimes my friends and I volunteer together at the Houston Food Bank. Lifting heavy objects is not really a skill of mine, nor am I great at packing boxes of food, but I do it because it's something. They need hands. I have them.

  I'm sure there are other people who need work who could do a better job than me, but the Houston Food Bank doesn't have money to pay local people to do the work. So they deal with my crappy can-stacking skills, because they need labor. Even if I donated $1,000 to HFB right now, they probably wouldn't use it to hire local labor. They'd use it for their existing expenses.

   The same was true of my time in Africa. I worked at an orphanage that teaches about 20 kids during the day. They have one teacher (when they can afford to pay her). My job was to assist her by teaching the three year olds. 

   Was I the best teacher for them? No. Of course not. My Swahili is rudimentary at best, and I have no early childhood teaching experience. BUT my presence there allowed there to be two classrooms, so while I sang songs and learned letters and numbers with the babies, Sinyati, the paid teacher, was able to actually educate the bigger kids who were hoping to transition into primary schools. 

  Maybe I was a glorified babysitter, but my presence allowed the "big kids" to learn without getting distracted by the babies.  Without volunteers, Sinyati is stuck with 20+ kids by herself, which is a punishment I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. 

  Even if I had never gone to Africa and just donated my money to Hope Center, they wouldn't use that money to hire another teacher. They would use it to buy corn meal or seeds or use it to complete construction on their unfinished school building. The only way for Sinyati to have any help is for volunteers to come teach the little kids. (And, it should be noted that the uh-mazing IVHQ donates a percentage of volunteer fees to the orphanages and schools, so Hope Center did profit off of me being there.)

3.) You don't have to be "skilled" to make a difference. This was the biggest issue I had with the article. She functions on the assumption that unskilled people are actually hurtful to the residents of Third World countries.  Um. I met a lot of "little white boys and girls" while in Africa. One moved to Tanzania and is funding and overseeing the building a new school building in Arusha. One started a women's empowerment non-profit. One is traveling across southern Africa building playgrounds, schools, and raising money and awareness for good causes. Another woman I volunteered with got almost all of the kids at her orphanage sponsored in her two weeks in Tanzania and then went back this year to check up on them. None of these people had any special skill that made them stick out. They just saw a need and they tried to help. I have seen everyday people do remarkable things just by opening their eyes and investing themselves wherever they are needed.

4.) Travel and voluntourism changes people. We live in a world that is increasingly self-centered that, despite growing knowledge of global issues, chooses to remain apathetic. We need people who care and voluntourism is one way to raise awareness. The aforementioned article provides logic that yields apathy: if it's not what you're good at, let someone else do the work. But I saw that firsthand experience with other cultures breeds interest and confronts apathy.

  For example, I spent the last three months of the school year teaching fourteen year olds at a suburban high school. Most freshman in high school don't know or care much about the third world, but when I shared stories and pictures of my babies in Africa, I started getting questions like, "What did you do while you were there?", "How can I do something like this?", "How can we help?", "Do you want to go back?", "What's it like over there?"

  People have a tendency to ignore things until they can connect to them. It's easy to lament and subsequently ignore what's going on "over there" when nobody you know has actually been "over there". But when you hear stories and see pictures of people who have seen suffering in real life, it's harder to detach yourself from your responsibilities as a member of humanity. Sending money doesn't generate interest or activism. Sharing stories does.

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  For the record, there are bad ways to volunteer. I saw some people who came to Africa to demonstrate how great they were to the world. They wanted to take their selfies with the cute kids, go on safari, and get out of there. Those people exist. There are also some people who pick volunteer projects that are ill-fit to their skills, but good can still come from all of those situations. If they leave with a bigger heart or a changed worldview, then it's still a victory, right?

  I understand the argument that we should give under-served areas the tools to bring themselves out of poverty and that we shouldn't play the "white savior". That's a fair statement. I don't think we should go in with any kind of superiority complex about saving the world or making them "like us". Good volunteers go in humble and do what is needed where it is needed with respect and deference to the local culture. Good volunteers don't aim to overshadow their local counterparts, nor do they try to make their placement like America or Australia or Canada or wherever they're from. A good volunteer should aim to help make their placement the best version of itself. And maybe too many people go in to voluntourism with misplaced priorities or with skewed cultural suppositions, but I still wholeheartedly believe that even unskilled "little white girls" can do good and make the world a slightly better place.