<p>Unskilled volunteers often cost organisations more than they benefit them. Volunteers must be supervised, trained, and younger ones especially require a high level of care and guidance. Paying a fee to cover the cost of hosting a volunteer for a short period makes sense, and is ethical; shelling out the equivalent of a local worker’s yearly salary for a two month stint to boost your cv is not. The truth is that a donation of money or goods will most likely have a greater effect than the labours of an American, British, or Australian teenager.</p>
<p>Aside from these organisations’ abhorrent waste of resources and financial exploitation of communities in need, what I find most disturbing about the voluntourism trend is that it reinforces (or creates) a perception that foreigners from rich countries are more valuable than local people, or that communities in developing countries do not need or deserve the same standards of work and education. As a VSO spokesperson said in the article linked above:</p>
<pre><code>“We would not expect young untrained people to come here and teach our children. So why do we send untrained people to other countries to teach English? Volunteers need to question whether what they are doing is of any use to the country they are travelling to.”
</code></pre>
<p>I don’t mean to come down hard on people who take part in these programs. As someone who’s worked, volunteered, studied and lived on five continents and in three developing countries I am a great proponent of the benefits of travel, and I believe that exploring other countries and cultures can give young people excellent opportunities to learn and develop cross-cultural undertanding. But these programs? Not the best way to help developing countries. When people ask me about short term, unskilled volunteer placements, I tell them to enjoy a holiday or study abroad for a semester in a developing country, get to tknow the language, people, customs and culture, and seek out local organisations that could use a donation.</p>
<p>So why do we send untrained people to other countries to teach English? Volunteers need to question whether what they are doing is of any use to the country they are travelling to."</p>
<p>well I don’t know how efficent teaching English would be in Ghana, I thought that was already their official language </p>
<p>lalucha, The Telegraph article makes some good points. It said:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree with you that many programs probably do more harm than good. What the article doesn’t mention, however, are the few excellent international volunteer programs whose main focus is empowering communities at the local level to bring about positive change. Their primary focus is not tourism. Volunteers must work full-time, 5 days per week. These programs have few teenagers because the minimum age limit is 18. Since the volunteers are older, many of them bring valuable skills to the communities they serve.</p>
<p>My family has also lived overseas, so I’ve seen first-hand what the high quality programs of capable of achieving. In some developing countries, it’s difficult to get donations to the people and organizations that need them most. Sometimes international volunteer organizations are the only groups providing aid to local communities in these countries.</p>
<p>“I guess I am missing any serious reason to go.”</p>
<p>My 18-year-old daughter just returned from two months volunteering in Vietnam with Global Volunteer Network. This is a kid who’s grown up in one of the most privileged, wealthy communities in the country (a friend’s mom got $90 million in the divorce, as an example). </p>
<p>What can an inexperienced 18-year-old do to help? Well, she and her fellow volunteers played with the orphans, did physical therapy with the disabled children, and helped teach kindergarteners rudimentary English. She became adept at comforting a child who was in constant pain, changed diapers, and acted as an advocate for a disabled girl who was clearly quite bright but was not attending school because the director felt it wasn’t necessary. (She and the other volunteers arranged transportation for the girl and purchased school uniforms for her. She was elated to get an e-mail upon her return saying that the girl had just completed her first day of school!)</p>
<p>She was the only American in the group - she now has Vietnamese friends, Australian friends, British friends, and friends from New Zealand. (Her Facebook page is like a mini United Nations.) The GVN volunteers were highly regarded in the community, so she served as a de facto goodwill ambassador for her country, even as she confronted a shameful part of our past when she went to My Lai for the 40th anniversary of the massacre. She has seen first-hand what it’s like to live under Communism, and has learned that a war doesn’t necessarily end when the truce is declared - the area she was in was heavily sprayed with Agent Orange in the '60’s and '70’s, and the war’s effects persist in the large number of birth defects seen in the local population. She was also able to travel a little bit through Laos and Cambodia, and can report from first-hand experience that elephants are very large and you have to get out of their way when you’re trying to cross the street!</p>
<p>My daughter left high school a year early - yesterday was graduation day, and I was a little bit sad that she wasn’t participating in that rite of passage with her childhood friends. Then I reflected on the year she’s had, and the things she’s learned, and the ways in which she’s grown, and I wasn’t sad any more.</p>
<p>Not every kid is able to get on a plane by herself to go to a Third World country where she knows no one and doesn’t speak the language - but for those who do, the experience can be life-changing.</p>
<p>I’m a college junior and spent the fall semester in Beijing and the following spring Shanghai. Together, the trip set me back $38,000. (Even though it was entirely tax deductible for my mother.)
I wanted to study abroad again - but for financial reasons, leery of it since I still need the funds up front.
Finally, there’s a program I can actually afford.</p>
<p>As for those saying there’s no reason to study abroad - I felt I grew the most being in China (and also became fluent in Mandarin) in that one year than I had ever before. I also was forced to see the amount of freedom I took for granted. For example, in China, most user-interactive websites (Xanga, Wikipedia, etc.) are blocked.</p>
<p>I believe that we should let kids to decide. If they want to go, they should. However, it is incorrect to say that it is more valuable to help people abroad than to help people in their own hometown. They can grow and have wonderful experiences in Americaa if THEY choose not to go abroad either for study or volunteer. I told my kids since they were toddlers that they are very priviliged to live in the US, they know that freedom and level of living are nowhere close in other contries. Kids who wants to go, should take any opportunity to do so, but kids who choose to have their experiences here should feel good about it also.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t say it’s a “good chance” to contract a disease for the rest of your life. I spent a good part of my childhood in Africa and neither I nor any of my family contracted anything serious. You get your shots, you take your malaria pills, you don’t drink unboiled water and you should be fine”</p>
<p>Unprotected sex with the locals is also probably a no-no.</p>
<p>What I have told my children about life and what they have experienced for themselves are two different things. At the tender age of 18, my daughter has knowledge and life experiences that I can only dream about. They will enrich her for the rest of her life. </p>
<p>MiamiDAP, why is this such an issue with you? Why do you feel compelled to argue that this is not an incredibly valuable experience, when those who have been there/done that say otherwise? No one is forcing your kid to go abroad. </p>
<p>I should add that there are some hidden costs to this type of trip - our bill for the recommended vaccinations came to $1500, much of which was not covered by insurance. Still worth it.</p>
<p>D will spend fall semester in Paris - no vaccinations required!</p>
<p>mapesy – would you mind sharing the names of the few excellent volunteer programs you talk about that are still about empower the local community? Son will be planning his gap year soon, so that would be very good info to have!</p>
<p>“Why do you feel compelled to argue that this is not an incredibly valuable experience, when those who have been there/done that say otherwise?” </p>
<p>If anybody choose to go,they should, but to say that it is incredible is to overvalue it. That is the only thing that I am saying, that it is too much glorified.</p>
<p>hsmomstef, Have your son check with his college’s volunteer placement office. In my daughter’s case, her university recommended projects that weren’t the larger, named programs that are typically found on an “international volunteer” google search, but were instead collaborations between universities and local communities. At the time she went, she had her choice of three such projects. </p>
<p>For kids who need a little more structure in their international volunteer experience, her university recommended Cross-Cultural Solutions and one other program that I can’t recall right now. I’ll try to remember to ask my daughter about it when she calls, but she’s currently out of the country with no computer access. It’s not one of the more well-known programs, but I remember that it requires college transcripts and recommendations from professors.</p>
<p>(My daughter didn’t do a full gap year, so I’m not sure about those programs.)</p>
<p>He is still in high school – so no college volunteer placement office to ask yet. I suppose he could ask after he gets admitted. </p>
<p>He doesn’t need more structure – right now he is not planning on using any program or company at all – but if we could find a group that would work for him, that would make me feel better.</p>
<p>hsmomstef, Just to clarify, my earlier post that you quoted was in response to an earlier post about “voluntourism” programs and not gap year programs. </p>
<p>How old is your son? He might have trouble finding an international volunteer placement if he’s younger than 18 unless he travels with a group or parent. If he’s looking for a gap year opportunity right after high school, I recommend that he contact the volunteer placement offices at the colleges he’s interested in attending and ask them for suggestions.</p>
<p>agree with mapesy, opportunities are pretty limited for kids under 18. I know some private high schools have international volunteer programs, though if I recall hsmomstef’s son is homeschooled.</p>
<p>Parents, I’d love to hear about your kids’ successful (and unsuccessful!) gap year experiences!</p>
<p>I’m a college sophomore (rising junior) who’s planning to take this year off and possibly transfer to a different school for the fall 2009 semester (probably to a school that offers block scheduling). </p>
<p>I know that there are plenty of search engines out there for gap year opportunities, but I’d like to think outside of the box a little bit. I’m skeptical of how meaningful various programs can be if they focus on how much sightseeing the volunteers get to do on the side, plus I don’t have a ton of money to work with. </p>
<p>I’ll probably have to spend some time at home working to save up more money, but I ultimately I want to do meaningful work away from home. The US isn’t out of the question, but I’d prefer to volunteer or work abroad. I’m more interested in somehow making a difference than I am in hiking or sightseeing. I also want to try to integrate myself into a community and get to know people rather than moving around too terribly much. </p>
<p>Also - I’d prefer to use as little parental financial support as possible so that I don’t have to answer to them in terms of what I decide to do. I’ve studied abroad before (high school exchange student in South America), so my parents aren’t THAT uptight about letting me travel, but I don’t know how to convince them that Africa (for example)/ is a safe place to travel/volunteer. Thoughts, parents? </p>
<p>I really appreciate any help you can provide!</p>
</p>