transire benefaciendo
18:05, 24 February 2010
.. Posted in Volunteerism and Volunteer Management.. Link
My friends know I love to travel, that I live to travel. It's one of my central family values, no kidding.
However, colleagues know that I have very mixed feelings about volunteer vacations regarding the value to local people. It is much more beneficial to local communities to hire local people to serve food, build houses, educate young people, etc., than to use those resources to bring in an outside volunteer. Highly-skilled volunteers from outside of a community are needed to fill gaps in local skills and experience, but it's not cost-effective for most organizations to pay for someone to come only for a few weeks or months. Volunteers are never free, and someone has to pay for the foreign volunteers' travel, accommodations, training, supervision, safety, official paperwork, and evacuation in case of emergencies. Therefore, I have no problem with agencies charging Westerners big money to have an inter-cultural experience for a few weeks, because the money -- not so much the volunteers -- can help the local economy (more on volunteering internationally).
But I also believe in transire benefaciendo, "to travel along while doing good." There are a number of ways to do this without necessarily joining a formal program. If you want to do more than just be a tourist that doesn't do bad, you have a number of options, and I outline them on this web page. Additional suggestions welcomed.
