In an article appearing in the November 14, 2010, website of
The Obeserver, Ian Birrell states that "Voluntourism", an industry
booming fast in developing countries in recent year, which westerners spare
part of their travel time to help local children, might bring damages to locals.
He states, this face-growing industry affects developing areas a lot in not
only their environment but also their local industrial structure and culture.
To give us this point, Birrel shows an incendiary report conducted by South
African and British academics, which focuses on “Aids orphan tourism” in
southern Africa. It reveals that as more and more volunteers or voluntourists
spend money and lots of effort helping locals, local workers may end up giving
away much-needed job and waiting for foreigners’ help, which will, gradually
become an dependency culture. Moreover, due to the departure of short-term
volunteers, children who have been helped and already have attachment with them
might go through trauma of being abandoned.
In this case, Birrell mentions a similar
situation: slum tourism. It’s an industry that tourists pay money to get a
glimpse of how life is in slum. They take pictures, giving them food and
cloths, treating those impoverished families like animals in zoo. In Africa,
same problem conceals in every time a group of volunteers come to giving out
their sympathies.
Birrell continues to point out abnormal growing
orphanages in developing areas. The investigation reveals that most of children
lived in orphanages are not “real orphans” and only a few orphanages are
licensed. These unqualified orphanages may lead to unsaying problem that volunteers
who shows their kind to children may become helpers fostering the whole deteriorating
situation.
“Unfortunately, they are led by their hearts
and not their their heads and unknowingly support environment that may be
abusive to children,” said Mark Turgesen, international co-ordinator of
ChildSafe Network, Birrell quoted. Becoming a volunteer is definitely laudable,
Birrel concludes, however we need to think and treat carefully before we head
off. We should exam the consequences first and what skills and sources locals
really need.
Source:
Ian Birrell (2010). Before you pay to volunteer abroad, think of the harm you might do . Retrieved from
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/nov/14/orphans-cambodia-aids-holidays-madonna
Lots of foundations in Taiwan are advocating the campaigns of forming a volunteering team abroad in those developing countries. We know the goal of volunteering is based on wonderful virtues; however, I think there should be a monitoring system for each volunteering team for evaluating the real effectsthat these teams bring to the local people. Otherwise, we won't get a concrete feedback to know how much our volunteering effort virtually work or whether it is workable. As Mark Turgesen said that we should exam the consequences first before we blindly contribute "volunteered" efforts for the local.
ReplyDeleteYou provide me a new way of thinking actually. I never thought about the fact that volunteering could be a damage to locals. The way you summarize what Ian Birrell states. It quickly points out the issues you are talking about and it’s clear so that I can understand your thesis in this annotation directly. There's this proverb that goes, "Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime." Therefore, I’m looking forward to your solution: how will you teach locals to fish~
ReplyDeleteAccording to your article, it seems that it is absolute that we will do harm to the area that we are going to be international volunteers. Do you agree with these statements? Or do you have other opinions? Perhaps there are people who know their aids won’t last long but still want to be international volunteers, and I would like to know their ideas. Or maybe you already have a clear answer to your topic and you would like to discuss about how to practically help those people in developing country by being an international volunteer? I think there isn’t a right or wrong answer to an issue, only one’s opinion. However, it seems that you think it is wrong to be an international volunteer because it will do harm to the local area.
ReplyDeleteI have never think further about the harm that volunteers might bring into the country, and I gradually understand that problems exist in volunteerism. I agree that if volunteers do not be trained for a long period, they may bring serious harm to different countries and people. Although some volunteers are really merciful, they still need to be trained to know about local culture, weather, food, custom, language and also history background. Besides, the most important thing is that volunteer may need to know how to help people and understand the information of native residents who are in need. I am so glad to read your article; it helps me clarify my concept and thinking about volunteers' issue.
ReplyDeleteGenerally speaking, when people hear of the vocabulary: volunteer will feel positive and active. After reading your article, I was surprised for that I never have this kind of thoughts. Therefore, I will be looking forward to knowing your next representation. Maybe you can keep trying to focus on this orientation of information about volunteer. It’s very fresh for me. Especially, I have a special interest in the situation about slum tourism. For that slum is a dirty place and most of the people who live there are poor, so few people will have desire to go there. However, nowadays, it even becomes a popular tourist attraction. So maybe you can describe more details about this weird phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteIs the term “harm” something that international volunteers brings to developing countries, or should we consider other questions as well when discussing what does the developing countries really get from those international volunteers? For example, Medecins Sans Frontieres, is the biggest international humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization. With their specialty in medical treatment, they truly bring substantial help to those in need. Therefore, we can see that the problem about international volunteers is they do not have any specialty that can give a hand to those in need. Besides, I think you can read some of the books from author such as褚士瑩, who works in NGO and deals with public welfare.
ReplyDeleteThis topic contains many different issues, from whether the volunteers are really spreading their kindness and generosity or just using the superiority of their culture to dominant others more inferior, to how the local people or even the government use those foreign resources, in proper ways or illegally. After more and more people and foundations encouraging foreign volunteering, it is also important for us to think of the necessity and appropriateness to do so when it comes out that problems and damages also become attachment to those so-called “helping”. It is a great issue and owns great deal of questions to discuss.
ReplyDelete