04 November 2009 ~ 4 Comments

How long should an ideal “voluntourism” trip be?

I think that question is impossible to answer…. yet many people have asked me that or shared their answers with me.  Once again, I think the question is coming at this from the wrong angle.  WHO CARES how long the trip is, it is how the trip is designed that matters!

A two week teaching English trip is too short, in my opinion, if the volunteer is the students main teacher…. wouldn’t the ideal time be the whole year or semester?  But if the volunteer is coming in with a lot of skills and does a two hour training course for teachers on how to teach phonics to early learners, who is to say that is too short?  I think the voluntourism bubble is too big to try to put broad definitions around, but if we ask questions which are focused on community needs in each situation first, the “ideal” answers are very often different than the “ideal” answers from the tourist perspective.  Meshing those too, finding what realities are really possible, and arranging the most ideal volunteer/program match are the tricky steps anyone walking in the volunteer placement space must navigate.  I think we all know that it is not going to be “ideal” all the time – but we need to keep asking the questions to get closer as we learn what works and what doesn’t.

I added other thoughts about this here:

http://voluntourismgal.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/voluntourism-right-or-wrong/

Would love to hear yours!

  • http://www.acacia-africa.com/ siobhan kindness

    I think that length of the voluntour is really dependent on what is expected of the tourist. For example, Acacia Africa offer one day voluntour experiences on their overland tours. An adventurer providing a service to the community i.e. helping to build a local school by painting classrooms or laying bricks is still making a difference, albeit in a brief time span, and the emphasis is on “hands on” roles. For someone who doesn't want to take a dedicated voluntour, it's still a valuable way of providing practical input where it's needed, and it broadens the scope of voluntourism by making it attractive to a wider range of people. I think most importantly that the length of time should vary in terms of what the project requires, the travellers expectations and the nature of the role.

  • danielapapi

    Thanks for these thoughts Siobhan. I'm still trying to learn our new comments system… sorry this is delayed!

    I agree! If a highly skilled tax accountant from abroad comes in and does a two day, or even a two hour, workshop for an NGOs accounting team about proper account perpetrations for filing in their home countries' tax system, well…. great! Time well spent! If a traveler comes in to be THE teacher in an orphanage English program and is there for a week, leaving a hole when they leave or without providing any consistency, I would deem the program too short, or more importantly, poorly designed. If instead that week was spent helping a local English teacher improve their own personal English skills in an effort to help them improve at their on-going daily job, well then that's another story.

    As you said, it all depends on how the program was designed and what the needs are! Thanks for commenting.

  • siobhankindness

    Hi Daniela,

    Only too glad to pitch in – I think anything from one day to maybe a two week holiday is an adequate length of time for those travellers who are playing more of a “hands on” role. For example, Acacia Africa have recently released a short 9-day tour which is a combination of game viewing in the Kruger National Park and voluntouring for a cheetah rehabilitation project – see the following link :): http://bit.ly/660LDx

  • siobhankindness

    Hi Daniela,

    Only too glad to pitch in – I think anything from one day to maybe a two week holiday is an adequate length of time for those travellers who are playing more of a “hands on” role. For example, Acacia Africa have recently released a short 9-day tour which is a combination of game viewing in the Kruger National Park and voluntouring for a cheetah rehabilitation project – see the following link :): http://bit.ly/660LDx