The help and harm of the “voluntourism” industry
wilsonquarterly.com
wilsonquarterly.com
I lived in Nepal for 2 months, and met many "voluntourists". There was actually a strange kind of divide between the voluntourists, who had paid thousands of dollars to be able to teach at a school or work in an orphanage, and the people who found themselves in Nepal for a variety of reasons and wanted to do some good spontaneously. Simply put, the voluntourists didn't want to listen to any evidence that what they were doing was having a net negative effect on the local community.
But the problem is that voluntourists create profit opportunities for some really bad people. To put it succinctly, I just found this paragraph leading an article that discusses the problem [1]:
[...] volunteers in Nepal may be unknowingly contributing to a growing child trafficking industry that enables fake orphanages to secure revenue from foreigners while deliberately keeping children in destitute conditions.
I wanted to do some good while I was there, and met some volunteers of a local school (all of whom had paid to be there), and told them I'd had some ideas about how to teach computer literacy or programming to kids in Nepal. They hooked me up with someone that took me to the school so that I could talk with the principal, etc.
What I discovered was a group of people from the principal down to their computer teacher that were openly hostile and disrespectful toward me. This is too long of a story to get into here (maybe I should write a blog post about this), but what I realized later was that the school was a very well-oiled machine when it came to volunteers that were paying the school to teach English. But they didn't really know what to do with this guy that showed up offering to teach about computers, but wasn't paying anything.
My takeaway was that the for-profit volunteering industry must be crowding out some well-meaning individuals who don't offer (corrupt) incentives to the local organizations. At least this was my experience in Nepal.
[1] https://newmatilda.com/2014/03/04/fake-orphanages-profit-wes...
It happened quite often that a group of volunteers with a sizable budget, but no clue as to what was useful or needed, would swoop in for a month and just work away without consulting any local workers.
The result would usually fall apart shortly after they left, with anything of value sucked away by some clever local 'trustee'. However, even more damaging was the fact that 1) the locals involved with the less sexy long-term projects would flock to these new, well-funded project to get some of the 'profit' (for which I don't blame them), and 2) there'd be much grumbling over how our projects weren't as well funded or purely volunteer-based.
And then there were also some cases of abuse, or severe culture clashes that would cause other initiatives damage by proxy.
My worst experience by far did not involve voluntourists though. The worst involved large aid organizations and peace (corps?) workers swooping in to help with the 'humanitarian crisis'. Warehouses filled with food that destabilized the entire local economy, and a large amount of rather insulting crap (clothing that nobody with any self-respect would wear). Tons of aid workers who didn't even have a basic knowledge of the culture they were in, and no interest whatsoever to consult the people who had been there for years or decades. Sigh.
That said, it's not all bad. Quite often some of the 'voluntourists' would fall in love with the country and come back on their own and help out with some of the many wonderful initiatives. I just wish there'd be a little more communication between these short-term (youth) organizations and the 'veterans'. That alone would solve so much.
EDIT: One of the worst examples just came to mind. A big organization poured a lot of money into an orphanage for disabled children, but never really bothered to check where the money went since their local 'operations manager' was too busy traveling around the country and pretending to be some kind of saintly figure. Turns out the money went to a single local family that 'helped' said manager by living like royalty and leaving the orphanage a disgusting, heartbreaking mess. It took a lot of extra effort to keep the orphanage in somewhat working state (as understandably many people would refuse to help out, knowing where all the money was going), and it took many, many reports by smaller organizations and independent aid workers before something was finally done.
Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't know what to do with some guy/girl who flew in off the street (while on vacation I presume) and said they wanted to teach computers, either.
Should they rearrange everything to make room for you, or be skeptical? I'd probably do the latter.
There are definitely 'organisations' out there that are purely in it to profit directly from volunteer 'programme fees', so your experience doesnt surprise me.
On the other hand, without saying its true of your case, it is also unreasonable to expect a school to automatically welcome some random off the street, who has been there only 2 months and does not have a definite plan to stay or leave, who may or may not be qualified in either the area they intend to teach or in teaching itself (which is a thing, teaching is not easy). Your experience sounds more hostile than that, and i dont doubt they were unwilling to work with you for dubious reasons; however, legitimate reasons do exist.
I understand the economic principle of comparative advantage, and I felt like this was economically an inefficient way to provide housing to low income Hungarians. I'm not an experienced carpenter, and I could have easily paid for three real carpenter's to work in Hungary in my place by simply donating the income I would have generated by working at home at my ordinary job rather than traveling to Hungary myself. In a technical sense, I was hurting rather than helping the overall world economy by not doing what I was best at. Knowing all this ahead of time, I was skeptical of this voluntourism trip that a friend of mine had talked me into.
Working in Hungary for ten days, with the group of around twenty other people from the USA, gave me time to reflect on my decision to take on the volunteer work. I still believe that it isn't an economically efficient way to build the houses--we were amateur builders. However, what my simple economic thinking about the trip didn't account for was the more emotional impacts that the volunteering had on the participants and beneficiaries. (One of the requirements on the recipients of the homes is that they work on the home being built for them too until it is finished.)
The volunteers in the group all seemed to have a very positive experience doing the work. It was satisfying to see the progress we made, it was satisfying to work with a team of interesting people of many different backgrounds, it was fun to take meals together and socialize in the evenings together, and it was heart warming to meet the clearly grateful families that would end up in the houses. These, to some extent narcissistic, rewards seem to be a key factor in the success of Habitat for Humanity: people like doing it and keep going back.
I've been dragged to many charity events, dinners, galas, auctions, runs, walks and so forth. I don't really enjoy them, but the experience of working in Hungary despite the commitment of time and expense was something I'm glad I did.
Furthermore, there were other important effects. I discovered that at first, when Habitat had first arrived at the town, the people there wondered why the workers from the US couldn't find jobs in their own country; they didn't understand that people would volunteer rather than be paid to build homes. Volunteering to help others apparently wasn't common in this previously communist country. Seeing volunteers working on these homes in these communities led some of the locals to pitch in too.
Finally, another benefit was the prolonged exposure to the people in the community. We took swims at lunch time in the very nice community swimming pool which seemed to be the town's main source of day time recreation, and we hung out with the locals in the evening in a local pub that we could walk to. Everywhere we went people were friendly and would make an effort to come up to us and talk. I think it gave us a very positive view of the people of Hungary and them a positive view of us and the United States as well.
In addition, I consider charity to be very condescending. It makes recipient dependent, in terms of power relations, on donor. Many wealthy people use charity to rationalize their empire building, and that's a symptom of this power dynamics.
For example, I do find Linus Torvalds lot more charitable than Bill Gates. Gates took money from one group of people (having them buy Windows) and used this power to decide to give it to other group of people based on what he thought is important. Torvalds just left the money on the table, so the society could decide what to do with them. Even though I agree that Gates' choices what to do with money are really good, Torvalds did pretty much the same without the power grab. In other words, we are led to believe that Gates' actions are better just because we can measure them (in terms of money spent), but it's not obvious that is really the case.
(Just to quickly clarify - I am not against transfer of consumption pie to people like Gates, I am against transfer of power they have in the society. Money can designate both, unfortunately.)
Ultimately, I think charity is just a device for people to believe they are better than they really are. If you absolutely have to do it, do it anonymously without much ceremony, don't rationalize any power grabs with it (for example, don't avoid paying taxes just in order to put the money to charity), and let the recipient decide on their own what they want to do with the money.
I guess the disagreements will come down to whether or not you trust the society to do the right thing. But if you don't trust the society, why would you want to be charitable at all?
Although this should be read with caution. The above only makes sense in reasonably democratic societies. Then building a charity, with someone's name attached, is a non-transparent power grab from what should be a transparent democratic process. But in undemocratic society, there is really no difference, and it may as well be better for a different wealthy individual to decide. So in a sense the above is a first-world problem; charity is, in my view, simply inferior technology compared to democratic consensus.
Finally (libertarians listen!), I think there are technology solutions that could help to avoid relying on government only, but they are not much pursued.
That said, the high level goals are clearly up for debate. People who feel the EPA or Social Security Administration needs to be dismantled don't really care about how efficient it is internally. Also many things are internally imposed such as the SS being is prevented by law from investing in anything except government bonds which is arguably a huge issue, but that's outside of pure graft that is pervasive in much of the world.
PS: Anyway, my point was as bad as people think the US government is there are many far worse examples.
I guess the disagreements will come down to whether or
not you trust the society to do the right thing. But if
you don't trust the society, why would you want to be
charitable at all?
I believe that giving £5000 worth of anti-malaria nets to people in countries like Malawi and DRC [1] saves more lives than paying £5000 in tax, of which only about £50 would end up in the foreign aid budget [2].
That's not because I think people are evil or society is bad - it's because politicians are part of a system that imposes certain incentives, and they can only do so much. Politicians simply think voters would vote them out of office if they increased foreign aid at the expense of making substantial cuts to health, welfare, education, policing, roads, and so on.
If I've identified what I believe is the most efficient way of doing good, why introduce middlemen when at best they would do the same thing, and at worst they might be ninety-nine percent less efficient?
Ultimately, I think charity is just a device for people
to believe they are better than they really are.
[1] https://www.againstmalaria.com/ [2] http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/mar/20/uk...
> If I've identified what I believe is the most efficient way of doing good, why introduce middlemen
Because (unless you arrived to your conclusion by asking people globally what they need), you've just become the middleman! Then you are the one deciding what's good for the others, not the recipients.
I think it's very tempting, and that's why people should take extra precautions not to do it.
> Politicians simply think voters would vote them out of office if they increased foreign aid at the expense of making substantial cuts
(Assuming you avoid those $5K in taxes.) This is pretty much an age old question whether it is morally acceptable to steal a loaf of bread to feed a starving person.
What I am saying is that it is morally acceptable, but only as a kludge. What you really should strive for is a society which doesn't face these moral dilemmas. Likewise, I consider charity only a kludge. It can do good, but can be done far better.
> If a person legitimately wanted to become better than they are, how should they go about it if not through generosity of spirit and action?
Assuming "honestly wanted to become better", I think do three things:
1. If you want to be generous, do it through your own work (that you do for living). That means do not cheat your customers, or even maybe decrease your price. And it implies not trying to gain power or cheat other people in order to do good - that's often a delusion.
2. If you think your work doesn't have an impact it should, change your job.
3. Alternatively, to help other people, help them get the more equal political and economic power in having their own say about what their needs are (so they can better share resources). (This also carries a lot of risk and is more helpful than trying to figure out how to cheat on taxes. What I am really saying: Subterfuge is allowed if other people benefit, not you - so it's OK to break the laws and norms regarding point 3, not 1.)
All of them are very hard to do, because it's very hard to be honest with yourself and not to think you can do better if you actually become a middleman. And that's why I don't like charity - it's awfully tricky to get right.
The exact same problems apply to the State apparatus; sure, you can kick out a few politicians, but public pressure can usually kick out a head of a charity organization as well. Changing the system itself, on the other hand, is extremely difficult. And people obviously use it for empire building.
The idea that the modern State is an accurate representation of the democratic consensus is, in my opinion, absurd. It is not, for better and worse. And at least the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is honest about who controls its resources.
Voting may not be perfect but it's a better decision making process than the Twitter alternative.
They can't even find actual harm, the worst they've got is some people don't buy local health insurance because they know volunteer health workers will come in a few months.
There's even a bizarrely racist paragrpah where the author bemoans white people helping black people. Because the volunteers can obviously help choose the colour their own skin is...
Clickbait.
"Volunteering holidays can do more harm than good" is not a new concept, and isn't particularly controversial. Floods of rich white low-skilled western volunteers with continual churn are not what is needed in most situations. This is especially true if those volunteers over-estimate their skills and ability to make any real difference.
2010: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/hubs/gapyear/8107555/Volun...
2010: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/nov/14/orphans...
Volunteering isn't all bad, but just like almost anything in the world, there is some bad and obviously where there's money there's going to be corruption.
This article has absolutely no facts or even anecdotes to back it up, it's just a big whine designed to appeal to self-righteous suckers who can only see the bad in the world.
This complaint is half-thought. Their color is not just some accident that happened to them at birth. It's what, ever since they were born, defined their place and status in society. A white slave owner in 1840 Mississippi is not just somebody who "couldn't choose the color of his own skin", it's someone who was born into privilege and assumed a role that the society gave to him as a white person.
And that's what that part of the article is about.
Because if you don't, I think you will find that many people who do would definitely agree with the article. It is a real problem, even if the article itself might perhaps not be an A* essay.
Every few months, colleagues of ours would get a "team" from abroad, sent to them courtesy of their organization. That meant: a dozen young, inexperienced western adults descending on them for two or three weeks to "help out". The first 1 1/2 weeks would be spent doing odd jobs at the orphanage, perhaps putting up a new toilet block or something like that. The next week would be spent on holiday - visiting one of our big national tourist sites. On the face of it, yes, the team did do something useful. But what were the hidden costs? Most importantly, time. The long-term couple that was usually in charge of the orphanage had to devote big chunks of their time per team for planning: planning how to transport the team around, planning how to accommodate the team, planning what to do with the team, etc. Then of course the team needed constant attention and supervision, not to mention accompanying on their tourist trip. All amounting to several weeks of time that could have been spent a lot more profitably. Also, consider the money aspect: each team member probably paid around $2000 - $5000 for the whole trip. What if that money had gone directly to the project? They could have done a lot more than just putting up a new toilet block (which, by the way, could have been done a lot cheaper by local workers, thus also helping the local economy).
Apart from this indirect harm caused by voluntourists, there can be direct harm as well. The project I was involved in once had a pretty major staff crisis following some indecent behaviour of a short-term visitor towards a local girl. Said visitor had just come for two weeks to have a look around and help out a little, so we hadn't given him any cultural training (which was an organizational failure, in retrospect). He didn't realize that his behaviour towards the girl, which would have been fine in Europe, was deemed very inappropriate in the local cultural context. The result was, however, that the girl's grandmother, a vital member of our team, felt publicly shamed by her granddaughter's behaviour. (Public shaming is one of the worst things that can happen to an African.) Almost before we realized what was going on, she had sent in her letter of resignation and was packing her bags to leave for her home town. It took a week's patient negotiation by other local staff to get her to stay.
So yes, voluntourists can cause a lot of problems, even when their intentions and motivations are impeccable. There is a place for volunteers to serve abroad, but it needs to be done in close communication with the people on the ground who know what is really needed. Plus, if you're thinking in a time span of weeks, that is almost definitely too short a time to do anything meaningful. If you really want to help, come for six months or a year, then we'll talk again.
I think that's really the main point here.
For example I'm familiar with Morocco, a country with significant unemployment issues even for those who are well educated. You can hire a worker there for $10 to do manual labor for an entire day of 10 hours of work (pretty insane). So this notion that $3000 goes towards 6 days of work for 5 hours of work each day, just makes no financial sense. Instead of paying $30 for 30 hours of labor from someone who has experience in e.g. construction, we're seeing two orders of magnitude, $3000, spent on an equivalent amount of hours to a person without experience in construction.
You might as well take 1% of your budget, pay a local worker and just go on a holiday and you'd not only contribute as many hours, but those hours are more effective, you're also creating a local job, local income and tax revenues. (well the latter might be a bit optimistic seeing as taxation either isn't enforced, or voided for low-income groups, but you get the point). Or hell, take 5% of the budget.
I tried to persuade my girlfriend when she left for India on a similar project last summer to do something else. At least that was a 3 month project and she did quite a bit of teaching and was able to do a bit of knowledge transfer.
I think that makes the most sense though, knowledge transfer, i.e. an engineer or a doctor who teaches engineering or health practices in places where there's knowledge deficiencies. There's quite a bit of that going on, it's also far from without flaws but it feels much more structural. Engineers without borders has been pretty transparent about their failures in the past while not giving up. Almost anything else and you're really just overpaying rich people.
"The voluntourism industry, worth about $173 billion annually"
No it isn't.
If you click through to the PDF and the source the PDF cites you will find what is actually stated is "global youth travel industry is currently worth USD 173 billion per annum..."
Not every young traveler is volunteering.
This is a terrible comment, because it implies that you can judge the whole of an article (which might contain lots of useful information, observations etc) from its headline.
Actually, the headline in most news outlets is not even written or chosen by the journalist. Traditionally it's chosen by the editor of the outlet (and it's often made to attract readers).
Only when it stops to the headline and doesn't make assumptions about the quality of the article.
Please explain in what universe the statement "It is a terrible article because the headline is false" is true.
As for titles in general, there's no standing in the way of the dreaded title fever.
Ultimately, the article just misses the forest for the trees with statements like "While the foreign volunteers were well-intentioned, they misplaced their focus; it was necessary to build stable homes, but the real problem was crippling, multigenerational poverty. Lacking skills and employment to improve their condition, Haitian families continued to beg in the streets in the absence of tourists. The volunteers came and left but nothing had really changed."
The author is so unaware that they don't seem to realize what they even wrote. The people needed houses and were poor. Are we really supposed to believe that because building houses did not fix both issues that it should not have been done at all?