
Why I stopped being a voluntourist  - hansy
http://pippabiddle.com/2014/02/18/the-problem-with-little-white-girls-and-boys/
======
jcampbell1
I took a trip to Africa to go on a Safari and climb Kilimanjaro. I was amazed
at how many do gooder tourists there are.

The conversations go like:

Me: What are you here to do?

Them: Build a school.

Me: Oh, you are a carpenter.

Them: No, part of a school program.

Me: Oh, you are providing unskilled construction labor. Didn't realize
Tanzania had a shortage.

Near the end of the trip, I met a friend's cousin, asked what she was doing,
and she was going from village to village verifying that chlorination systems
in NGO built wells were working. I was impressed. I asked how she got that
gig, and she told me a story about her going to Tanzania to build a school.
She decided to make a real difference.

Her story changed my attitude. I am certainly less snarky about kids going to
do unskilled construction labor.

~~~
auctiontheory
_I am certainly less snarky about kids going to do unskilled construction
labor._

Most middle-class Americans could find a neighborhood within 15-minutes drive
that could really use their help. But "my adventures in East Palo Alto" just
isn't as exciting on a law school application, or a date, as "tales of
Eritrea."

~~~
cowsandmilk
> But "my adventures in East Palo Alto" just isn't as exciting on a law school
> application

You're wrong on that one. Talking about volunteering every weekend in East
Palo Alto will get you a lot further on a law school application than your
essay on a week in Africa. Admissions staff aren't stupid. Strong commitment
to local activism is valued much more than paying large sums of money to
travel halfway around the world on a glorified vacatiion.

~~~
carlmcqueen
I agree with this comment.

While I have no idea about Law School applications and what will help you
getting in, I do know that as the leader of the volunteering club in high
school and spending four years helping in the community was a lot more
interesting in college interviews than other things I had on there.

However the opportunity I took in college to go to Africa (North Western
Zambia) to build a data entry system and the back end database to digitalize
the records of a hospital tended to get a lot more attention when looking for
jobs than any of my more relevant internships did.

When I read these articles like the main link I feel happier about what I did.
I finished pretty quickly and then spent time training but the majority of the
time after the database was built was doing whatever else was needed but my
inability to do a lot of the things well they seemed to tolerate with such
kindness since what I was good at was already completed.

------
avalaunch
The main point the article is making, that not all volunteers are providing a
net positive, is an interesting one.

I have a problem with her position, though. She ends the article with: "Be
smart about traveling and strive to be informed and culturally aware. It’s
only through an understanding of the problems communities are facing, and the
continued development of skills within that community, that long-term
solutions will be created."

The problem is that it's hard to be culturally aware and to understand the
problems communities are facing if you aren't exposing yourself first hand to
those communities. I imagine quite a many useful volunteers, the author
included, started off as "voluntourists". And perhaps therein lies the
greatest strength of these programs - they help expose little white girls (and
boys) to other cultures and problems they otherwise would be unaware of and
some percentage of those move on to more useful volunteering.

If she is going to advocate the position she's taken, then she could at least
end the article with some alternatives for would be volunteers. As is, if
anything, she's just alleviating some of the guilt people might feel over not
volunteering: "By volunteering I would be causing more harm than good, so the
right thing to do is nothing."

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _The main point the article is making, that not all volunteers are providing
> a net positive, is an interesting one._

> _" By volunteering I would be causing more harm than good, so the right
> thing to do is nothing."_

The right thing to do, as she actually points out in passing in the first part
of the article, would be to do what you're good at and send the money to a
competent organization.

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/65/money_the_unit_of_caring/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/65/money_the_unit_of_caring/)

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_sepa...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_separately/)

I remember the Red Cross writing something similar, that basically boiled down
to "please stop sending us supply, give us money instead - by sending items
you're making our logistics much, much more complicated and deprive the
economy of people who need our aid from the money that we'd introduce if we
bought stuff locally".

~~~
isleyaardvark
Less Wrong also published an article arguing the option of:

>choosing a career with high direct social value than by choosing a lucrative
career with a view toward donating as much as possible.

That would cover skilled volunteering efforts.

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/hjn/earning_to_give_vs_altruistic_ca...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/hjn/earning_to_give_vs_altruistic_career_choice/)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Haven't read that before; thanks for the link!

------
yummyfajitas
If you want to do voluntourism, I suggest something different: start a
business or help set up an outsourcing center.

You'll definitely have a positive effect on people by teaching them about
western business practices. I'm told by my former coworkers that my standard
US egalitarianism was quite unusual. By "egalitarianism", I simply mean "I'm
CTO, you are a mechanical turk, we can go eat pancakes and you aren't
obligated to make me tea". So were my efforts to ensure that everyone was
growing in their career. My feminist sensibilities ("so be late, tell your
husband to make dinner") were also a bit scandalous [1].

I came back to India a month ago to attend the wedding of someone I worked
with, and I was very surprised to hear all that. I don't know whether to be
happy (I made things better) or unhappy (because their next job won't be so
good) about it.

By building a good business and maybe destroying some bad local ones, you'll
do far more good than you will by doing unskilled construction labor. And very
importantly, the people who work for you will learn that western style
management is a great way to make money.

[1] By US standards I'm one of those evil misogynists who thinks statistical
disparities are irrelevant and discrimination is a testable hypothesis and
market opportunity. But drop me in India and I'm suddenly a crazy feminist
ranting against rape culture (FYI India has one, the US doesn't).

~~~
yequalsx
"You'll definitely have a positive effect on people by teaching them about
western business practices."

This is the most ethnocentric thing I've read in quite a long time. Much of
the world would be better off, in my opinion, having never learned first hand
about western business practices. Western business practices have caused a
vast amount of destruction in the developing world.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Treating low skill commodity workers as human beings on the same social level
as yourself is such a destructive western practice. So is hiring a stranger
with a great github rather than your brother in law, hiring a woman if she is
the most qualified, etc. Or there is that destructive western practice of
managing by output - the boss is working until 8pm but you can go home as soon
as you hit your quota.

Blaming westernized companies (by which I mean both western companies and
local companies like Reliance/Infosys that try to run things in the modern
manner) for the problems of the third world is silly.

All they've done is caused you to learn a little bit about other countries and
made you feel guilty that things are a lot worse elsewhere. China would be
poor even if your iPhone was proudly made in CA by illegal immigrants (yay for
Nationalist Apparel), it would just be easier for you to ignore.

~~~
gnerd
China is the second largest single country economy on earth and growing. They
will be completely covered with healthcare in the next 10 years. They are the
largest holders of gold on earth, hold the largest amount of debt from the US.
They are developing, but as a nation, they are not poor.

> Blaming westernized companies (by which I mean both western companies and
> local companies like Reliance/Infosys that try to run things in the modern
> manner) for the problems of the third world is silly.

It is perhaps a bit silly. I mean, there are actual examples of mining rights
being held from colonial times, Dutch East India company, Haiti being forced
to pay for slaves freedom from rebellion for 140 years etc. and some of those
do still have influences, but I don't think they are the primary ones. I
don't, however, think all of these values are always exclusively western
though. Japan has worker rights, as far as I can tell from a cursory glance on
Wikipedia.

Assuming India wants, or needs foreign influence, Japan is just as good a
place to get it.

~~~
1stop
Are you seriously using the most westernised Asian country as an example of
non western business practices?

~~~
gnerd
I was just picking a country that seemed to me to be as good a country as any,
with their own methods of law, their own values etc. who has remained
productive as a nation.

I think I may be learning I might not have the same definition of "western" as
some people. I had always imagined Western as referring to Western Europe and
the US but now I think there is a colloquial phrasing that uses western as a
synonym for modern. If that is the case I think this next century is about to
get really confusing...

~~~
1stop
Western as in "white people showed up and ran everything". (like singapore, or
Hong Kong)

Japan before WWII but after the West showed up, based it's whole economy and
work system on Germany, after WWII it was essentially run by the US. They are
completely "Western" (as in white people) when it comes to their way of
business and economy.

~~~
barry-cotter
I think you need to google salaryman. There is nothing equivalent in any
Western country, not in scope, extent, social significance, prevalence.
Nothing. It may be unique to Japan. The "Organization Man" was as close as the
West ever got and it's been a long time since most professional business
people worked like that, if they ever did.

~~~
1stop
Nothing equivalent to someone who works for a salary, does overtime, but isn't
overly passionate about there life... yep that's unique to japan... what was I
thinking.

/s

------
vitaminj
A few years ago, I volunteered in SE Asia for 18 months using my electrical
engineering skills to help rural villages get access to electricity. At the
time, I'd been working professionally for around 7 years and was just becoming
competent at working independently. Although I'd gotten my PE status a year
earlier, I can't say that I was at a senior engineering / consultant level.

So it was a surprise for me to find that I was one of the most experienced and
skilled engineers in my organization (and in many other energy-related
organizations for that matter). I concur with the OP and have met quite a few
western volunteers that were well-intentioned, but generally had no technical
skills.

Of those who had qualifications, they were usually in the social sciences,
development studies, media / communications, public relations, etc. Useful
skills no doubt, but I felt that the country could have benefited more with
direct assistance from the hard sciences and engineering, e.g. hydrology,
agriculture, civil engineers, etc - those skills were always in demand. In the
end, there's a reason why development is often done so badly - they
practically let anyone do it.

------
herbig
Most Peace Corps type voluntourism works on the premise that throwing "white"
folks into a country and telling them to fix things will generate results.
This is because, you know, we understand the incredibly complex social,
economic, political, and cultural dynamics of countries better than they know
themselves.

We're better educated, and if these backwards countries would just start doing
XYZ they'd start to lift themselves up and out of poverty. You know, things
like alternative livelihood by making souvenirs out of trash. That's the
ticket.

But we don't understand the issues and aren't equipped to be able to even
determine what a particular region of the country actually needs, especially
not in 2 years or less.

Real results can only come from funded research into what the underlying
issues are and how best to combat them. Also, if the United States weren't so
economically oppressive.

I disagree however, with the notion that being "white" is a hindrance in the
developing world. Being "white" is an advantage everywhere.

~~~
abat
I've met people who did Peace Corps, and my opinion was much better after
meeting them. First they actually became fluent in the local language. Second
their focus was often more on enabling locals than on trying to do stuff
themselves. For example, they would work with locals on how to push through
applications for grant money from developed countries. Dealing with American
foreign aid bureaucracy was actually a skill they were well suited for due to
their background and education. Finally, they lived on almost no money in the
community for a long period of time. The standard of their living was
commensurate with the average person in the host community.

~~~
herbig
Personal development is fine and yes, the Peace Corps is incredible for that,
but only one thing you mentioned is beneficial to the host country: money.

If pushing through grant money is the volunteer's primary talent, they can
just as easily do so without spending all that useful money on plane tickets
and training.

The other issue is that money by itself doesn't solve problems. You have to
use it to solve real issues. But the Peace Corps doesn't fund research into
what the issues are, because that's expensive and unsexy to anyone touting
what the volunteers are up to. So you get grants to fund construction of
libraries when everyone in the country can already go to an Internet cafe and
read Wikipedia.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _you get grants to fund construction of libraries when everyone in the
> country can already go to an Internet cafe and read Wikipedia_ //

Everyone?

Perhaps you misunderstand what a modern library is - it's a place for
accessing information, not limited to books. Most likely it's effectively a
free internet cafe or an information centre for a particular school.

Mind you I've seen government funded medical centres without even beds (well
mattresses, they had the frames) - so the chances of the information resources
turning up and staying put are perhaps slim.

~~~
aestra
Libraries are also community centers. They offer a lot more than just books.
They can offer community programs, children's programs, and assistance on a
lot of matters from librarians. They also can offer plenty of fiction that is
copyrighted and not on the Internet (legally). Internet cafes are expensive,
libraries are completely free. They are also a meeting place for the community
and a sense of pride. For some reason they get a bad rap here on HN and in the
tech world in general.

------
einhverfr
Living in Indonesia for two years has changed my perspective quite a bit. One
of the big things about American culture I now regard as totally odious is the
idea that everyone wants to be like us and therefore if we remake the world in
our image we are doing everyone a favor. Most of the world doesn't want to be
exactly like us -- they like some things about us and dislike other things,
and what we like about ourselves may not bear any relation to that.

Societies are homeostatic, equilibrium-seeking systems. If they weren't they'd
fall apart under the sorts of stresses that life places on us wherever we
live. Foreigners coming in to believe they are making a difference inevitably
solve the wrong problems and likely solve them badly.

Now, my parents took some boarding school students to help build medical
clinics (under the direction of "Where there Is No Doctor" author David
Werner) in the mountains of Mexico back before I was born. They were providing
unskilled labor in an area that really did have a shortage (because most
people were working in the farms). The upshot though wasn't that the clinics
got built faster (they might not have) but that my father got interested in
medicine and changed careers from being a math teacher to being a doctor. I
have never heard my parents talk about what a difference the students made, or
even so much about whatever difference they made.

But having talked with David about this he told me about some of his failures,
about how they had this big anti-folk-medicine campaign that they hoped would
reduce infant mortality due to diarrhea but then when the floods came, people
wouldn't use their folk medicine anymore and the mortality rates went up
instead of down and he said they had to go back and reposition what they were
offering as one remedy among many.

Often we forget that the people closest to a problem are the best prepared to
solve it, and we forget to trust them on this. It is far too often the case
that the do-gooders and the activists who haven't yet learned this lesson,
solve the wrong problems, often badly, and make things worse.

------
krstck
If you really want to help people, find a charity to donate to via Givewell.
It won't feel as warm and fuzzy as volunteering, but in most cases that's the
best way you can actually help people in need.

~~~
DateK
I'm using kiva.org and have deposited $9,000 over couple of years. With auto-
relend option my account circulated currently $58,325 through 2,268 loans
(individuals or groups) in 61 countries.

[http://www.kiva.org/lender/kizaemon](http://www.kiva.org/lender/kizaemon)

For auto-relend I chose all countries except US, both genders. The sectors are
Agriculture, Clothing, Education, Food, Health, Manufacturing, Retail. Have
not chosen sectors Arts, Construction, Entertainment, Housing, Personal Use,
Services, Transportation, Wholesale, as I do not feel these are basic enough.

~~~
BrainInAJar
FYI, kiva is a scam (in as much as the company is incompetent) that primarily
props up predatory lenders in other countries

~~~
liface
Great. Now here's the question. What's better, having loans available at high
interest, or having no loans available at all?

I'll go with the former.

~~~
BrainInAJar
It's not clear that the presence or absence of kiva affects the calculus at
all.

------
arohann
Articles and blog posts like this disappoint and annoy me. They lack logic and
intellectual depth.

I sincerely hope young Americans/westerners don't get discouraged by reading
such nonsense.

The problem described here is a combination of naivety and misallocation of
skills and resources. It has nothing to do with being white and yet this lady
can't seem to get away from that.

I'm South Asian and I would have faced the exact same problems this lady faced
had I volunteered in the places and organizations she did. However being older
and perhaps wiser, I wouldn't have made the error of volunteering to do things
I have no skill in. Thats the only mistake she made and the problems she
mentioned are easily fixed with a little common sense. Yet somehow she can't
see that

I wonder where this silliness comes from - could it be the result of the
modern American education system ?

Before closing I should mention I would likely never have been born had it not
been for a bunch of young European women who saved my orphaned grandmother
from certain starvation and neglect when she was a toddler. They gave her a
home, an excellent education and looked afer her till she was a young woman.
Their actions helped my grandmother get the skills she later used to pull her
family out of poverty (resulting from the Partition of India) into the upper
middle class.

Thank heavens for those dedicated, young, white voluntourists.

~~~
ctdonath
_Thank heavens for those dedicated, young, white voluntarists._

The point is they were _not_ "voluntourists", they really did sacrifice to
help your grandmother - as opposed to showing up, getting in the way while
doing a few trivial things for a week or so, playing much of the time, and
otherwise squandering money which would have been better just sent to the
orphanage outright.

------
ChrisNorstrom
White people are finally starting to "get it".
[http://youtu.be/dyf2Cf5GkTY](http://youtu.be/dyf2Cf5GkTY) See Dambisa Moyo's
interview about her book "Dead Aid" The statistics showing how aid is actually
hurting African countries and not allowing them to develop on their own the
way the rest of the world has.

~~~
Einstalbert
Bill Gates fights incredibly hard to try to prove that aid is incredibly
effective and considers this a "myth" to be dispelled. What do you think about
the concept?

~~~
kamaal
Except that Bill Gates isn't going around building furniture himself. More
like donating a small part of money for purposes like that, and a big part of
money for science and technology which can help eradicate bigger problems(like
disease and hunger).

~~~
spacemanmatt
Philanthropy he couldn't extend to market competitors, but which he can extend
to the poorest of the world? Why, that's hypocritical!

------
10feet
The choice isn't giving $3000 to be a voluntourist, and give $3000 to a
charity to hire locals to do the work. The other choice is to go to Europe and
blow $3000 having a good time.

~~~
doreo
Exactly this, voluntourism is an exchange of money for time spent experiencing
a very different culture which you can tell other people about for a long time
and also feel good while telling stories to kids or laying bricks. Oh and a
week long safari according to the article.

There is very little that is altruistic about the practice and an altruistic
option is not an option for most people who go on these trips. I don't know
what cut of the $3000 the school in the article got, but if it wasn't enough
then I'm sure they wouldn't invite a load of useless white kids around to set
their construction back.

------
crusso
1\. Race had nothing to do with the point of her story. She threw it in there
to sound edgy.

2\. These programs are as much if not more about affecting the life of the
volunteer. Her realization that she thought way too much of her value wouldn't
have happened without going there and having the experiences.

3\. I know people who are extremely effective in what they do in
underdeveloped countries. Her pride brought her to the wrong conclusion about
where she was at the beginning of the experience. It's unfortunate that her
pride is still in effect, misleading her about the capabilities of others.

------
wyager
>It slows down positive growth and perpetuates the “white savior” complex
that, for hundreds of years, has haunted both the countries we are trying to
‘save’ and our (more recently) own psyches.

Why does this have anything to do with race? Is it any different for a black
person with no useful skills to go on one of these voluntourism trips?

~~~
tptacek
No, as the article explicitly points out.

~~~
wyager
Then why does the author end the article by talking about the "white savior"
complex, and why is the article titled "The problem with little white girls"?

~~~
msellout
To the Tanzanians, all Americans are white, regardless of pigmentation.
According to the article.

~~~
thaumasiotes
To be fair, American blacks run significantly lighter than African blacks.

------
arjie
About the brick laying, I'm told that you usually do that poorly if you have
no experience (unlike activities like making sawhorses etc. which require
little skill). Our local Habitat chapter has experts come in for brick-laying.

In the end, 'voluntourists' are just trying to give what they think they're
able to. If they aren't net negatives, I see it as a good thing because they
will spend money there, they will bring attention to whatever cause, and other
such things. When they're a net negative, though, perhaps it's not such a good
idea. It's nice that you want to help, but sometimes what you have to offer
isn't what they need.

~~~
unsquare
>About the brick laying, I'm told that you usually do that poorly if you have
no experience (unlike activities like making sawhorses etc. which require
little skill).

As a former bricklayer, i'll confirm it, unskilled labor shouldn't lay bricks,
it will fail at some point.

~~~
aestra
My parents have a fireplace in the back yard. It has completely collapsed
once. My (presumably unskilled in brick laying) dad rebuilt it but now it is
falling apart again. I'm guessing the original builder wasn't skilled in brick
laying either.

Thanks for the info, I always wondered why that fireplace wasn't staying up.

~~~
unsquare
Beyond structural issues, these types of fireplaces shouldn't be built using
normal bricks, they aren't exactly safe. ( the bricks can explode under
certain conditions )

There's also a special type of brick and cement that is required for the inner
layer of the fireplace.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_brick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_brick)

------
joshvm
This is the reason why groups like Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans
Frontiéres) exist. If you want to help sick people, do it with MSF.

There's also Engineers without Borders, but I recently discovered it's not
actually about helping with construction work, more like teaching about
engineering logistics/principles. Still, point is it's done by engineering
students who should know what they're talking about.

In fact there are a whole load of 'Without Borders' groups:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Without_Borders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Without_Borders)

------
mountaineer
There's a book I'm just beginning, When Helping Hurts[1], that dives into this
subject deeper. Complicated for sure.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/When-Helping-Hurts-Alleviate-
Yourself/...](http://www.amazon.com/When-Helping-Hurts-Alleviate-
Yourself/dp/0802457061)

------
PakG1
I have volunteered regularly to run children's summer English camps in rural
China. The point of these camps is mostly to give the kids an opportunity to
have fun and learn some English while they're at it, because such nice
opportunities simply don't exist where they are. Camp counselors in North
America for summer camps don't go through extensive counseling training
either. The bar for such volunteer activity is lower, but the bar should be
much higher in other cases. Here are some things I've learned about non-profit
organizations that are well-run.

Firstly, well-run organizations want to maximize their ROI. The volunteers
usually fundraise for donations or pay out of their own pocket to go on these
trips. Essentially, these funds are revenue for the organization. That revenue
must then be invested into their business, as their purpose is not to make a
profit (hence non-profit), but rather, accomplish their goals to make the
world a better place in their specific way. As such, a good organization will
get tourists who are qualified to do the work that needs to be done.

The organization with whom I volunteer has multiple programs in medicine,
agriculture, construction, education, and local skills training (for local
professionals for the above categories). They ensure that the people who are
volunteering are qualified to do their work. For example, for my most recent
excursion, I couldn't stay the entire camp, so they asked me to run some
sessions with local teachers instead, since I had so much experience
volunteering to teach their kids. I prepared some lessons and explained to the
teachers that I was not a professional teacher like they were, and that my
teaching wisdom and experience only consisted of basic theory and volunteer
experience. I made it clear that I was not qualified to teach them about
teaching. Instead, I focused on professional skills that I brought over from
the corporate world. We had sessions on conflict resolution and negotiation
tactics using concepts developed by Max Bazerman at Harvard, the Behavioral
Change Stairway Model at the FBI, and discussions about conflicting cultural
worldviews and personalities, the basics of which are taught in many corporate
seminars. I also focused on leadership styles, motivation tactics, and
decision-making strategies. My sessions were very well-received and I received
lots of thanks from the teachers, as well as a round of applause at the end of
my time there.

This organization never asked me to do anything like surgery, building repair,
etc. They did ask me to help out with some computer stuff now and then. For
their medicine, agriculture, and construction programs, they made sure to
bring in only qualified people. Full stop. The organization had a relationship
with the local government and had gained respect of the local government
because they did things properly. That's the way it should be. When you're a
non-profit, don't do anything that will waste the scarce dollars you have been
given.

Secondly, it's true that your impact in these countries is small. But it's
like the story of the kid who saved the one starfish. The man comes along and
asks the boy why he saved that starfish, what difference does it make in the
face of so many starfish dying on the beach? The boy thinks and says, "Well,
it made a difference for that one." I still keep in touch with the kids I've
taught. The Internet is wonderful today and makes this easier than ever,
except in those locations where the situation is so dire that you take Bill
Gates's attitude of choosing to fight the malaria over getting the Internet up
and running. Overall, I know that the kids are impacted on an individual basis
because they keep in touch with me, still call me Teacher, and talk with me
about things. The people in these communities appreciate that someone took
their time and money to go and help them, if what was provided was helpful.
Again, that goes back to the organization making sure that the money and
effort is being spent in a way that maximizes ROI. It's the same in business.
You don't tell a recruiter to do the bookkeeping, you get a bookkeeper or
accountant for that. It just makes sense.

Thirdly, these trips have value in that they work as vision trips. A
percentage of volunteers will go on these trips and have their eyes open and
their thinking changed in such a way that their life goals change. Those
people are the ones who will go into this work full-time and throw away the
nice cushy jobs in the first world. Those people are also often the ones who
can afford to do it because they've been working nice cushy jobs in the first
world for a while, so they have the savings to make it happen for some time
until outside donations can take over in terms of funding everything. If these
trips don't happen, a huge recruiting channel for these organizations for
long-term workers completely disappears. These organizations prefer that these
trips be available for people from every generation because you don't know
where you'll find the people who will have the switch turned on inside
themselves, and you don't know which people will have which kinds of support
networks that would be willing to help fund this lifestyle. This third factor
is possibly the most important reason why these trips are a good thing.

The goal to have a locally-run operation staffed by locals is an important
one. But it takes time to get there, and these trips are a part of the process
to get there.

edit: clarification

~~~
ryanjshaw
I lived in short-term accommodation in Cape Town, South Africa for just over
two years. The vast majority of my housemates were wealthy European girls
"volunteering" or on an "internship" in "Africa", between 1-3 months at a
time.

While none of them were bad people, in reality, it was a holiday for the
majority of them. They were too young to have any real life skills or lessons
to share or communicate. Those that did were simply not around for long enough
to have any real impact. They all spent more time and money on sight-seeing,
partying and South Africa's beaches than anything else.

This was an acceptable relationship for the organisations concerned because
they were receiving money, but nobody had any illusions about whether there
was meant to be a more productive relationship. The reality is, in these
cases, it would have been more productive to just donate the money for the
plane ticket, bars and sight-seeing directly to the organisation - but why
would somebody do that when they can get a story to tell, and make themselves
sound like mini-Mother Theresas? Let's face it, it's harder trying to get
people to give you money if you give them nothing in return.

As I see it, the author of the article appears to be challenging people to ask
themselves if they fit in the category you fall into (somebody with something
to _really_ offer), or the category I've described (somebody who naively
thinks they can help; or somebody effectively going on holiday to an
impoverished area in such a way that makes them feels less guilty about being
rich while giving them a moral-superiority card to play when they're back
home) - because there is a real social cost to this latter sort of self-
serving volunteering.

~~~
PakG1
Thinking about it, I see now that OP is focusing on the quality of the
volunteer, while I am focusing on the quality of the organization. Perhaps OP
and I are simply not even on the same page for commentary then, though we
appear to be in the same book.

------
k-mcgrady
Good article but why did she have to bring race into it? This had absolutely
nothing to do with race. The problem was that unskilled people were
volunteering to do skilled work. They should be volunteering to do work they
have the skills for.

------
berrypicker
>It slows down positive growth

If we ignore race, this model of 'aid' (at this particular stage of
development) seems to hinder growth and can not lead to self-sustained
communities. Think about this: I could teach somebody how to plant seeds and
provide for a whole village, which will eventually lead to a better economy,
or I could just buy everybody lunch for a week and wait for somebody else to
do the same after me. The latter (which happens in a lot of these programs) is
simply interfering with their progress by taking away jobs from the community,
which would made progress had you not interfered.

The better solution is guiding and teaching nations how to improve and there
are plenty of organizations that do this and have a much more positive effect.
Why can't these nations develop like other nations (in similar climates) have
done in the past? Nothing wrong with a helping hand but charity like this
isn't a long-term solution.

------
shliachtx
This has some good points, but it seems (from my experience) that this applies
to some degree to a lot of nonprofits. The volunteers actual contribution is
minimal, but the nonprofits allow and even encourage it, because it encourages
engagement and donations by the volunteers.

------
theorique
I thought there would surely be reference to this Onion article:

[http://www.theonion.com/articles/6day-visit-to-rural-
african...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/6day-visit-to-rural-african-
village-completely-cha,35083/)

------
khc
I don't remember where I read it, but someone famous once said "for most
people the best way to do good is to make a lot of money and then give it
away" (or something to that effect). I couldn't agree more.

~~~
pekk
If by "do good" you mean "give money to whoever has their hand stuck out the
furthest."

Those aren't necessarily people in need who will use the money for some good
purpose, often they are in a special parasitic class of professional beggars
and con artists.

Hopefully the point is to do more than show off that you are rich and
generous.

~~~
lemming
I assume he means donating to worthy charities rather than actually putting
money in people's hands.

~~~
aestra
Perhaps putting money is people's hands is what is needed?

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/08/23/214210692/the-
char...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/08/23/214210692/the-charity-that-
just-gives-money-to-poor-people)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Still, it is helpful to have someone, whose job is to discriminate between the
"special parasitic class of professional beggars and con artists" and people
actually in need.

------
rdtsc
I have seen, heard of and have been invited to participate in these trips.
Some are NGOs, some are religious groups.

Yeah, looking at it from the perspective she wrote, it seems ridiculous. It is
an "industry", wrapped in a non-profit, save-the-world PR shroud, that caters
to educated, Westerners who can afford to travel overseas. People feel good
when they do good. Whether they other side perceives it as good, sometimes it
is not clear.

One can ask, is it better if these "unskilled" people never left home? Maybe
even with all the seeming waste and incompetence, it keeps people engaged. I
suspect most of them would not have just taken the money for that plane
ticket, and handed that check to a NGO that knows better how to spend it, and
could build 10 libraries for all that money. But I am afraid it is either
"send the volunteers and keep them engaged somehow" vs "don't send the
volunteers at all and say goodbye to that money and resources".

People like to help others, people like to tell stories, like to have
adventures. These trips cater to that aspect. Do people in Africa feel better
knowing that foreigners want to come in and at least try to slap a brick on
top of another even if they don't know how? I see a lot of criticism of this
here, and rationally I agree, but I also feel there is a bit more too it and I
personally am on the fence whether this is good thing or not.

~~~
jrochkind1
The OP suggests that their presence is actually detrimental, not just useless.

If so, then, yes, it would be better for them just to stay home, even though
only a fraction of the money that people would have spent on their own trips
will be donated outright.

It seems likely to me.

It is comfortable and positive to think along the lines of "If even one
Westerner gets more engaged, it's a success!" but why would Westerner
'engagement' be the metric of success? It's not about the Westerners.

> Do people in Africa feel better knowing that foreigners want to come in and
> at least try to slap a brick on top of another even if they don't know how?

The answer to this isn't really unknown or unknowable: No, hardly anyone feels
that way. Why would you feel better because a foreigner is coming and fucking
shit up while you have to pretend you believe they're helping because they
have so much more power than you?

~~~
rdtsc
> The OP suggests that their presence is actually detrimental, not just
> useless.

Yeah I read that and I don't 100% agree, still mostly agree but maybe just
80%.

> "If even one Westerner gets more engaged, it's a success!

Not a success but better overall maybe if they just stayed home.

> It's not about the Westerners.

That is the big problem, and I think I talk about it as well (kind of snarky)
how it is an industry that caters to Westerner's needs. However I am not
convinced yet that not engaging them and not bothering is yet better.

> but why would Westerner 'engagement' be the metric of success?

It isn't the only metric of success. But even if it is, the answer could
simply be because they have more resources and money to help in the future.
Maybe 50 out 100 will end up being hippies living in the van down by the
river, smoking pot and telling cool travel to Africa stories. But maybe 10
will actually come back and do something more positive next time.

It is also not black and white. Either come and "fuck shit up" as you put it
or "come and rescue the country completely from disaster". There is a lot of
in-between.

There are groups of skilled professional, namely doctors that go on specific
missions to do one specific thing -- fix cleft palates, do eye exams and so
on. Do they do more damage? Quite the opposite. There is a lot of in between.
Sometimes there are skilled local professionals and they do work together.
Sometimes money comes with the silly unskilled white college kid labor and
well maybe the white college kids get to play soccer with the village kids
while the local skilled labor build the schools.

> Why would you feel better because a foreigner is coming and fucking shit up

Well I do have a story for you. I grew up on a country were American
volunteers also felt the need to come and "teach us" and "work with us".
Nowhere near the situation in Africa. Nevertheless, I remember kids in our
school chasing down Americans just to look at them as if they were from Mars
or something. Rumors were how they distributed chewing gum and candy. I never
got the candy I was too shy. Well now I live here in US, can buy tons of
candy, and looking back, it just feels so stupid to do that. But I am glad
they came and didn't just stay home. At worst, it was worth for a nice
lifetime feel good moment for 10 year old boy.

~~~
ctdonath
Yes, there is a lot of in-between.

There's also a big difference based on which side of the "no effect" zero
point you're on. At least be marginally useful; if not, stay home.

------
kumarski
The number one way to help people in the 3rd world is find hungry competent
entrepreneurs in the country and ask them about their problems.

~~~
gnerd
This sounds like a great approach to the problem but how would one go about
finding those people? Were you thinking SME level or street vendor level?

~~~
ctdonath
Sounds like step one: solve the meta-problem. Be the one who finds those
people, so you can inform others who want to find them.

I appreciate the issue. Having found a source of cubic meters of free fresh
bread weekly, finding a charity willing & able to take it proved a significant
problem. Just cataloging available/interested charities & entrepreneurs, and
advertising the list, would be very helpful.

~~~
gnerd
What were the difficulties in getting charities taking the bread? I mean, were
they logistical problems? Were they worried about some increased risk or was
it simply a case of bad admin?

~~~
ctdonath
Remember: I was/am dealing with 2-4 cubic meters of perishable bread once per
week.

One place (public food pantry) couldn't distribute it for 3 days (good fresh
artisan bread starts molding within 6 days, and pastries & baguettes stale
within 3; recipients probably wouldn't eat theirs all within 2 days of
receipt).

One place (women's shelter) wouldn't distribute it to the members/occupants
(were teaching self-reliance, probably including making own bread). They'd
sell it, making distribution 1-2 steps removed from assuring me what was
actually happening to it.

Two places weren't always open when I could drop it off. Both planned and
unplanned closures are problematic.

2-3 places wouldn't take it because items weren't individually packaged (I get
it loose in large boxes/bags). Some kind of food safety rule applied in their
case. Also, if they're not sure where it came from, they won't take it (I'm
just some anonymous guy, not connected with the bakery nor charity).

Other charities don't know how long items will be in storage, so it must be
packaged & shelf-stable for months/years.

By sheer chance (traffic rerouted past an accident scene) I found my current
distributor, a food pantry which distributes it 12 hours after I get it. All
they know is some guy shows up Monday morning with bushels of breadstuffs.

Mileage & waiting is also a problem. Takes me about an hour to pick it up, and
another half hour to drop it off - most of the above taking longer, already
straining the limits of my schedule.

And that doesn't get into the issues of actually handing out each individual
piece, which is why I take it all somewhere for a single drop off, and don't
try to hand it all out myself.

Oh, and some weeks no usable charity is open, and I end up with a ridiculous
amount of bread I have no idea what to do with.

------
yaix
> THE PROBLEM WITH LITTLE WHITE GIRLS

After a year in East Africa, that was one of the things I noticed here: they
always come in pairs of 20-year-old white girls. Except for South East Asia,
many more young men there.

> $3000 bought us a week at an orphanage

That can actually cause children being obducted or "borrowed" to staff
orphanages for white Voluntourists.

> Our mission while at the orphanage was to build a library.

And another 10 African carpenters who lost a job to those white Santa-Clauses.

> have a camp run and executed by Dominicans

Good luck. I have never seen any organization actually run locally. Sure, it
often looks like it is, but if you digg a little deeper, you always find at
least one Westener (or local who lived half their life in the West) making
sure that people actually do things and not just spend the money and idle. But
there maybe one such organization, somewhere, I just haven't found it yet.

~~~
rtkwe
Read further on they didn't lose their jobs, their hours just got shifted
temporarily.

> Turns out that we, a group of highly educated private boarding school
> students were so bad at the most basic construction work that each night the
> men had to take down the structurally unsound bricks we had laid and rebuild
> the structure so that, when we woke up in the morning, we would be unaware
> of our failure.

See? It all comes out in a wash in the end.

------
htns
Something which everyone so far has failed to mention is corruption. Tanzania
is hardly the model of democracy. Putting some foreigners into the mix brings
some extra certainty on how the money gets spent, even if the foreigners have
their own perverse incentives.

------
gone35
_I am good at raising money, training volunteers, collecting items,
coordinating programs, and telling stories. I am flexible, creative, and able
to think on my feet. On paper I am, by most people 's standards, highly
qualified to do international aid._

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't think it immediately follows the
author is "highly qualified to do international aid" at all from that
description alone. Shouldn't one require a profession of some sorts to be
"highly qualified" in anything, perhaps? I would assume she is college
educated: shouldn't a university education have qualified her as a
professional in some field already?

------
cpr
Ivan Illich had some good words to say on this topic:

[http://www.swaraj.org/illich_hell.htm](http://www.swaraj.org/illich_hell.htm)

------
tim333
Regarding the OP's >"Sadly, taking part in international aid where you aren’t
particularly helpful is not benign. It’s detrimental." I'm not sure that's
true as you will still generally be bringing money to the country either in
donations to the good cause or in the way that all tourists do by spending at
local bars, souvenir shops and the like.

~~~
saraid216
I'm not sure I'm morally okay with economies driven primarily by tourism.
Nothing I can back up with reasoning or data, but whenever I think about it, I
get the same gut reaction I do when I see a code smell.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _I 'm not sure I'm morally okay with economies driven primarily by tourism._
> //

Is that just in places where the tourists are far richer than the indigenous
population or is that as a general rule?

~~~
saraid216
That is a large part of it, but it's not all of it. While it's a legitimate
service to provide food and lodging to travelers–even if those travelers
happen to be there primarily to see your cultural offerings–it bothers me that
there are services directed towards showing them off pseudo-educationally.

It's... you learn enough to think you've learned something, when all you've
really learned is a superficial, well-packaged veneer. If the point is to have
something to do while being on vacation, that's fine... but why pretend? It
doesn't really help that things are often designed to be entertainment. Is it
really a good thing to put your culture on as a show? Sure, there's satire,
but satire isn't satire when the audience doesn't actually know what you're
satirizing.

(Also, isn't the income differential a fundamental part of a tourism economy?
I mean, in Seattle's Pioneer Square, we've got random little gold mining shops
and see-the-underground tours, which I'm also uneasy with... but that's not a
tourism economy. I'd estimate a good 50% of people who work in this
neighborhood are in tech; others are nightclub stuff; and a noted above-
average complement of food people; etc. There's a tourism industry here, yes,
but it's not a tourism economy.)

Like I said, it's more feeling than reasoning.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Thanks for expanded on your feelings.

------
gabriel34
Voluntary work is not amateur work

I can't stress this enough, if you want to earn money you find something you
are good at and society thinks is worth something. If you want to help someone
you find something you are good at and people need. Maximize your impact by
specializing in what you are good at and outsourcing that in which you are
not.

------
MovingWorlds
I loved this article. Really hits at the problem we're trying to solve. We
find these 6 questions helpful to ask if you should (or shouldn't) volunteer
your skills overseas: blog.movingworlds.org/6-questions-to-ask-yourself-
before-volunteering-overseas/

------
raheemm
Even though voluntourist may not be the most useful addition to a team, I
imagine the money that is spent to travel and spend time in the volunteer
country also helps the local economy a great deal. An unintended benefit but
nevertheless helpful.

------
skywhopper
Wanna help some poor people? Give them money. In most cases, that's what they
need, not your good will, not your clumsy efforts. Unless you have a very
particular and highly-developed skill that's in high demand, just give money.

------
kumarski
The absolute worst thing is when the voluntourists don't speak the native
language and stick out visually like a black man in Sweden.

~~~
draugadrotten
_> stick out visually like a black man in Sweden_

You haven't been to Sweden lately. Demographics have changed. A snapshot from
Sergels square, Stockholm :
[http://thegambia.nu/files/2012/06/IMG_0514.jpg](http://thegambia.nu/files/2012/06/IMG_0514.jpg)

------
iopq
I expected a treatise on Voluntaryism and I have to say that I got really far
into the article before realizing I read the title wrong.

------
72deluxe
I read it as "Why I stopped being a voyeurist" and thought it would be an
article on finding morals.

It was radically different.

------
aaron695
It's pretty simple stuff where locals work for $10 per day, your labour
contribution is only $10 per day for unskilled labour. IE helping orphans,
cute animals, quick bouts of teaching etc

As a libertarian I'm big on spending heaps of money on localised products(With
low resource costs) while visiting these countries instead, I make an effort
to do stuff that normally I might be stingy on. I figure the money trickles
through the economy while encouraging local business.

I also donate because it also has relevance, but if you want to help a
community while having a great experience, just pay for it.

~~~
User8712
Agreed, your biggest advantage is your western salary. Why visit a village in
a developing country and work like a local, contributing $3/day worth of
labor? That's $1,000 for a year of work. Why not stay home, earn $50,000, and
donate $10,000 to the village? They can spend that money to employ 10 local
residents.

You just made 10x the difference by staying home, and you could probably
contribute a few thousand dollars to your personal savings as well.

------
wcummings
Yeah, seriously, go to a local food pantry, they'll be glad for the help

~~~
ctdonath
Suggestion: Panera Bread gives away (to charity) all the bread they have at
the end of each day (their "Dough-Nation" program). Find a food pantry, find
out when they're open, tell a Panera store you want to take their leftovers
there. Both groups will appreciate you for it, especially if you're reliable:
Panera doesn't want to throw hundreds of $$$ of good food away, and the pantry
can probably use as much as they can get. Be reliable to both. Just
transporting otherwise-discarded food from store A to charity B can make a big
difference; takes about an hour a week, easy to do, is a needed activity few
know is available.

I'm sure other stores will do something similar.

~~~
wcummings
A lot of place literally just need to man-power to lift boxes around and help
distribute food to clients.

