19 January 2011 ~ 4 Comments

Voluntourism IS WASTEFUL!

Lessons Learned Voluntourism

… when not done right.

And, I know I am probably jaded, but I think that most of the time, it is not done well.

Read up on this: http://voluntourismgal.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/a-tale-of-three-schools/

These schools took money fundraised from around the world and just threw it out away. It’s SUCH a waste! And the people living nearby likely have lots of needs which could have been supported in a much more sustainable way had that money been put to good use.

It is one thing to be wasteful, and another thing to profit off of doing so. I think the most disgusting part of the voluntourism industry is that so many people stand to benefit HUGELY from being wasteful like this and “selling” experiences that people want to an uneducated public who have good intentions but don’t realize how to do more with their time and money.

I have gone on a lot of voluntourism trips – and even organized some in the past – where you could fundraise for YOUR costs.  You could fundraise money to pay for your flight somewhere to “help” someone… but who were you helping?  You were helping YOU!  We just need to call a spade a spade and be ok with that!  There are HUGE benefits from taking young people from wealthy countries abroad to learn and to become better global citizens in the future. I have written about that before in this post called “Is it ok that Voluntourism changed YOUR life?.

If people want to donate to that, knowing their money is going to help the traveler, not the “poor people of XXXX country”, then that is fine!  Aunt Jane might be happy to give money to her nephew to have a great “life experience” and make him less bratty.  But if we market and say “help me raise money to fly to XXX poor country to help the people for a week or two” then most of us who have skills which could be found locally in more sustainable long-term ways, are kidding ourselves about our own self worth.  Let’s go abroad. Let’s send our kids abroad. TO LEARN. And then when we want to help “poor people”, let’s send sustainable, longer-term, locally directed, and managed support which is a lot more valuable than sending ourselves.

  • http://twitter.com/thteddy Thabit Alomari

    You are 100 percent right. I’m doing my academic researches on tourism, and I’m sure of an existing cases of misusing the volunteering concept in the travel industry.

  • http://twitter.com/thteddy Thabit Alomari

    You are 100 percent right. I’m doing my academic researches on tourism, and I’m sure of an existing cases of misusing the volunteering concept in the travel industry.

  • Jane

    I agree entirely Daniela. Well done for saying it. I was explaining to a teacher yesterday why my program is not designed to provide tax receipts for student volunteers. I explained that we choose to support existing organizations and charities overseas rather than put lots of money and effort into being a charity as well (there are too many already). That it is not our intention to run and build our own projects but to work with existing schools and organizations. And that we feel strongly the students should focus on fundraising for the partner school or organization. I researched voluntourism charities and they charge ridiculously high amounts for their programs- we prefer to keep participant costs transparent and reasonable rather than hidden under the guise of a charitable donation. I will definitely add your point in the future- I think perhaps it is the most important.

  • Anonymous

    Thank you for this article. I completely agree. I wrote a masters thesis on this topic and the way that volunteer tourism programs are structured to (seemingly and practically) benefit the volunteers solely and not the communities. Have you read Ivan Illich? If not, I think you will enjoy.