volunteer tourism

Connor Newlin

I think the second two authors are very quick to say people only do volunteer projects to feed their ego's. I like to think that people who pursue these projects often actually want to do some good in this world after living a privileged life. Humans are not always so selfish in nature that they cant do good for others. If some photo ops for Facebook and good stories come out of volunteer tourism then so be it. One should be proud that they have the drive to assist another country less fortunate than their own and if that experience benefitted you and the people you were intending to assist then there is no problem sharing this with the world. Overall these articles make it seem as though traveling to a country and working to better the community is more harmful than good. Other than the orphan-pimping corruption I find it hard to believe that volunteers are really making communities worse. obviously more direction and guidance is needed for a lot of volunteers otherwise opposition would not be so strong. I tend to think it is either travel to a country and get your hands dirty volunteer work, or nothing at all. Just sending in money does not make people feel good about what they are doing and thus they will not spend money on it regardless of whether it is more effective. To me this is not so bad, it may seem a bit selfish in nature but everyone loves to travel and put smiles on faces and if the community can progresses because of it there is no problem. I would encourage volunteer work even more than donating money to organizations if it had a bit more focus and the corruption and misguided attempts were removed. Traveling to a country to help them would then be mutually beneficial for all participants. Building a friendship and a cultural bond with someone from another country is great for both parties as well because everyone could use some cross-cultural interaction in their life and this only comes from traveling and doing some real work.