Lessons I Learned

First off…. we aren’t charging people to “volunteer”. We are charging people to go on a tour, feed them, put them up, and give them a chance to learn.

But that’s besides the point….

Here are my other thoughts in response to a post asking why people should pay $280 to join our August PEPY Tour.

Hi all –

My name is Daniela Papi, and I am the founder of PEPY.

I hear you. I thought a lot of the same things when I first looked at different volunteer trips. I think if you look at this as:

Pay $280 to “volunteer” in Cambodia vs. Give my money to a development program directly

Then yes, of COURSE, give us your money directly. I promise you, we will put it to good use. That, though, is not the market we are going for. We are not trying to convert donors into volunteers and convince people to use money they would otherwise invest in programs to send themselves on vacation. Instead we look at the comparison as:

Pay a lot of money to travel on a tour which often takes you to foreign owned hotels and restaurants where little of the money goes back into the country or even travel by yourself through Cambodia and see a lot of inequities which perhaps make you uncomfortable but you are not sure of how to support change other than giving money to someone on the street vs. An educational experience designed to give travelers a chance to learn more about development, responsible giving, their role as travelers and their ability to make positive impacts by investing locally, learning about a culture before taking actions to change it, and supporting sustainable programs.

I am just as big of a critic of “voluntourism” as anyone, and actually think the majority of it is causing more harm than good. (a lot of my thoughts in our Lessons Learned section of our site) But we are not a “voluntourism” operator selling projects for ALTs to get involved in “just to make money”. $280 for the week – consider that your temple pass costs $20 of that, renting trucks to bring your around, food, hotels, guides, etc…. My belief is that you should PAY for this type of learning experience? Why? Because it’s a tour, it’s an educational opportunity, and there are costs involved in having you there which shouldn’t come out of donations. In that way, and because we use residual income from tour fees as well as donor dollars allocated directly to overhead, your fundraising requirements go STRAIGHT to our programs. Our programs are ongoing – not just “let’s paint a fence” trips for people who come through for a week. We have 35 local staff, have funded the construction of 6 schools, operate Khmer Literacy programs in 10 schools worth of classroom libraries, etc. The tours are not “what” we do – they are a way to support our programs and to educate future advocates for sustainable change. Our tours are designed to be educational and they are amazing experience well worth paying for, or so I have been told. I wouldn’t still be living here in Cambodia 4 years after our first PEPY trip if I didn’t believe in what we are doing.

Thanks for pitching into the conversation and hopefully I have helped change your mind a bit about PEPY or even opened you up to the potential that some service learning experiences are worth paying for.

Best,
Daniela Papi
www.pepyride.org