The problem with volunteerism

The problem with volunteerism

It's not enough.
I want more.
Nothing seems to satisfy.
I don't want it, I just need it.
To breath, to feel, to know I'm alive.

Stinkfist - Tool

4^th September 2006
Volunteering in Africa and Asia makes you look like a great person and gives you many photo opportunities. You can say any one of the following and appear to be doing something helpful.

Oh! Oh! Look at me planting mangroves!
Yeah baby. I'm teaching the youth of Asia. Look at me go!
But wait... I also teach the elderly of Africa as well. I am the man.
And check out these photo ops with Refugee kids. I am such a top bloke.
I even paint schools.

Man, my poo must be white and not smell.

This is all - of course - a little tongue in cheek. The gifts, texts and three (!) leaving ceremonies I got from the good people of Dumangas is proof enough that I am making some sort of difference.

I do see volunteers arriving and not making much of difference. In fact, sometimes I think they are doing more harm than good. I've seen too many instances of good intentioned one-month volunteers coming in, disrupting the class room for a week or so as they find they feet, teach one or two classes per day for a couple of weeks, and then leave. How can that be helpful for the students? Was there quality of education increased by their presence? I think not.

This was also true for me in Ghana. While some of it was my own doing - weirdo social phobias preventing me from asking teachers for students to tutor - some of it was the system itself. I got bounced from classroom to classroom as teachers jockeyed for use of my services. It turned out to be a big fat waste of time. I disrupted classrooms and achieved stuff all. The best thing I did was shout at a very corrupt man.

Sometimes I think the only thing that volunteering really adds is money to a hopefully well intentioned NGO (Non Governmental Organisation).

I am in the fortunate position of being assigned to MACRO, a grass roots, non-corrupt organisation. MACRO goes to the poorest of the poor in Uganda. It goes to where nobody else goes - isolated, desperately poor villages.

I really enjoy going to the villages. Talking to the locals and experiencing village life is fantastic. How can one not enjoy being part of village sporting events and huffing and puffing my way through a community bike race? All good stuff.

Here's the thing though. While those things are undoubtedly fun, I spend very little of my time actually doing useful stuff. I occasionally teach the elderly to read, give a talk or two (on a topic I usually don't understand) and plant the odd cabbage.

I think this is all part of the package the GVN offers. GVN - the New Zealand based agency I volunteer through - offers volunteer tourism. You get to do the odd bit of volunteer stuff, but most of the time you're just experiencing the culture of the country - which is a lot of fun.

After reading The End of Poverty by Jeffery Sachs, I can't help but think I could be doing so much more.

I think I have somehow out grown the GVN experience. Ghana, and the Philippines have been a lot tourism with some volunteerism thrown in for good measure. I plan to make my experience here in Uganda primarily about the volunteerism with some tourism thrown in for good measure.

But how do you plan to do that Crazymalc?

A good question my ever enquiring reader. Check this out for some thoughts on that topic.

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(c) 2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
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