By Claire Bennett, Learning Service
Claire lives and works in Kathmandu, Nepal, and freelances as a trainer and consultant. She is passionate about global education, ethical travel and ensuring good intentions are put to good use. Claire recently released her book: Learning Service: The Essential Guide to Volunteering Abroad.
When sifting through brochures and websites advertising volunteer opportunities, it can be difficult to work out which ones are ethical and which ones might not line up with your good intentions. Some volunteer companies are simply travel agents, without any background in charity or aid work, selling an experience that appeals to tourists instead of one aimed at being effective.
As a general rule of thumb, organizations that prioritize responsible volunteering are more likely to prioritize responsible advertising. Look for organizations with honest, transparent and non-sensationalist materials that avoid any of the following tactics:
Overemphasizing a “need”
Be wary of organizations that say they have a desperate need for volunteers. It is rare that short-term travelers are ever the best solution to a problem. At worst, volunteers may be replacing local people, which is unsustainable.
At best, volunteers should be helpers to local staff that are on the ground long term. Often, talking of the “need” for volunteers is just a marketing tool, just to convince you to sign up. If an organization says that volunteers are needed, ask who has identified the need, and why international volunteers are being used.
Fueling sympathy
Much of the advertising for volunteer travel is designed to create sympathy, presenting people overseas as helpless victims waiting for a savior. This is a poor substitute for another emotion that is more likely to drive real change: empathy. While sympathy builds a desire to help, empathy builds a desire to understand, and only through that understanding are we able to contribute our support most wisely.
To build empathy for local people, you need to respect and get to know them, not pity them, so look for volunteer opportunities that offer a chance to share, exchange and learn with local people, rather than save them.
Poverty porn
Poverty porn is the practice of using images of poverty unethically. Examples include volunteer advertisements with pictures of run-down homes or malnourished and crying babies. These images can oversimplify poverty and the people that live in it.
Poverty porn is patronizing and exploitative – drawing travelers who want to witness poverty because it seems exotic, rather than people wanting to learn or make a change. Seriously question organizations that use disempowering images of local people or sell poverty as exciting.
Volunteers as heroes
Another thing to watch for is when volunteers are presented as the heroes of the story. While of course there are heroic people doing unpaid work all over the world, not all volunteering is heroic. The media tends to celebrate people who drop everything to rush overseas to lend a hand in disaster areas, but this can be harmful.
Effective volunteers need to do a lot of learning, preparation, and self-reflection. In order to be “heroic,” a volunteer needs to be presented as charting unknown waters, which is opposite to what is needed for a successful project – careful planning and resourcing! In short, heroic volunteering is all about the intention rather than results. If the only stories told on a website are about volunteers not local people, then the project may not be achieving very much.
Setting up unrealistic expectations
Question any organization which suggests that making an impact will be easy or have immediate effect. Most volunteer projects work towards long-term social change, such as improving education systems or increasing incomes, and outsiders can usually play only a minor role.
False advertising of inflated impacts can set you up for failure from the outset. Look out for organizations that recognize that the problems being tackled are complex, and that whatever skills and experience a volunteer might bring, they are only a small part of a wider solution.
Overuse of the language of tourism
Although it is fair to recognize that volunteers are still travelers, and therefore interested in the sites and attractions of a country, it is a red flag when a volunteer opportunity is advertised using the language and imagery of tourism.
If you find yourself drawn to the descriptions of travel adventures, maybe that’s what you need and want—an adventure holiday. Or you could choose an organization offering a responsible volunteer position and work out other travel plans before or after. Whatever you do, don’t conflate the two by adding on a day teaching in a school to your zip-line jungle tour!
The “all-inclusive buffet”
Beware of companies offering the “all-inclusive volunteer buffet.” Just like an all-you-can-eat restaurant, where you can never tell which food items are freshly-cooked, question travel companies that offer do-everything-go-everywhere volunteer options, with placements all over the world that start any time you like. Creating a volunteer placement that is beneficial to both the local community and to travelers is challenging, even in one location. To do that well all around the world is nearly impossible.
Broadly, our recommendation is to avoid any organization that sells trips to dozens of locations, does not carefully select and match volunteers to the placement, or offers one-click purchasing or “discount volunteer vacations.” Going abroad with one of these high-volume discount providers and getting an unsuitable volunteer opportunity may have even greater repercussions than getting a dose of salmonella from the buffet.
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☛ Read more: More articles about volunteering
Claire lives and works in Kathmandu, Nepal, and freelances as a trainer and consultant. She is passionate about global education, ethical travel and ensuring good intentions are put to good use. She is co-author of Learning Service: The Essential Guide to Volunteering Abroad.