Helping the world. And me
Is volunteering about saving the world or enhancing a resumé?
Sara Minogue went to Tanzania expecting to make a contribution. A journalist with several years’ experience, she was drawn to a government-funded opportunity to raise the profile of human rights issues. Journalists for Human Rights, the Toronto-based NGO offering the eight-month program, sent her to Dar es Salaam to teach reporters how to effectively report on abuses. But when Minogue, who was 28 at the time, arrived at her placement in the capital city in 2006, she was struck by “how ridiculous” it was for her to be in a position of authority. The week-long pre-departure training JHR had provided touched on culture shock, human rights theory and the West African media, but left her with “very little clue about where I was going,” she says. As it turned out, many of her colleagues at the Media Institute of Southern Africa had university degrees, and all of them knew more about the human rights abuses in Tanzania than she did, she says. “I felt extremely silly and embarrassed.” Within two months, Minogue had quit. Other than writing a report for JHR, she says she spent the rest of her time “hiking around and hanging out” on Canadian taxpayers’ dime.
Canadians have a long tradition of sending youth to developing countries to build schools, work in orphanages and fight AIDS. Since 1960, an estimated 65,000 have gone overseas through the country’s major volunteer-sending organizations, and countless others have participated in church and corporate projects or internships sponsored by government and universities. But evidence is emerging that raises serious concerns about what these opportunities have come to mean. In regions plagued by issues that decades of international aid have been unable to resolve, it is often difficult for unskilled volunteers and interns to be anything more than tourists. And experts worry that instead of fostering cross-cultural understanding, the experiences may, in some instances, have the opposite effect — reinforce negative stereotypes in young Canadians, and breed resentment in the communities that host them.
Spending a summer saving the world has never been easier for socially engaged youth, provided they (or their parents) can pay. Even if they don’t qualify for a funded placement, an Internet search for “volunteer abroad” reveals thousands of opportunities, which range from a few weeks to many months, and can easily cost more than a year’s university tuition. “Ironically, these types of opportunities are much more accessible to rich people than to poor people,” says Josh Ruxin, an assistant public health professor at Columbia University who runs three development projects in Rwanda. His interns, who must pay their own way, spend about $6,000 for a four- to six-month placement. The increasing demand to “make a difference” (or at least feel as if you are) has led to a proliferation of private operators selling volunteer opportunities in far-flung locations. African Impact, for instance, advertises a lengthy list of “exciting and rewarding” programs. For US$2,300, participants can spend a month coaching football in Zambia, working with HIV/AIDS orphans in Kenya, or teaching disadvantaged children in South Africa.
But what inspires idealistic twentysomethings to lend a hand often has less to do with philanthropy and more to do with “personal gain,” according to Rebecca Tiessen, a Dalhousie University professor examining the trend. Tiessen is one of two researchers conducting the study, “Creating Global Citizens? The Impact of Learning/Volunteer Programs Abroad.” Slated to wrap up in 2011, it is a first in its attempt to evaluate the implications of these programs through interviews with participants and host organizations in Malawi, South Africa, Peru, Guatemala, India and Jamaica. Though preliminary, the findings suggest these opportunities have become a “product” that can be purchased and cashed in for course credit or a line on a resumé. “There are fewer people saying, ‘I’m volunteering because it’s the right thing to do, it makes me feel good and I’m dedicated to social justice,’ ” says Tiessen. “There’s a more selfish or egotistical nature to the reasons.”
Before Kate Daley started her master’s degree last year, she shelled out $2,500 (not including airfare) to spend eight weeks in northern Ghana, helping out in an HIV/AIDS clinic and teaching at a school through Volunteer Abroad. Other than some small breakthroughs she made with the kids, the 25-year-old describes the opportunity as “more of an education for me.” It wasn’t Daley’s first time in a developing country. Similarly, the majority of the young people Tiessen interviewed had had more than one international volunteer experience. But even so, “the emphasis was still on how they could learn, how it would be useful for them,” says Tiessen. In the 30 pre-departure interviews she conducted with young Canadians about their motivations, “career” or “skills development” was mentioned 40 times — the most frequently cited response.
I agree with having a rigorous application process for internships and like the idea of the programs improving in that capacity. While Expat culture can create a rift between locals and foreigners, the difference could still be there if your smaller salary came from IYIP or if you got an actual job and earned a competitive salary. I am uncomfortable with the idea of cutting funding for practicum placements and opportunities to use all graduate work in a substantive way, not withstanding global work. There should be discussions about this, but I fear that pulling the plug on the funding wont address the problem and if the next generation are not supported then the future voice of Canadian international affairs will suffer.
hi rachel, glad to see you presented so many facets of this very complex subject. most articles i see on this topic are quick-hits with no real depth or breadth. i wonder if the researchers are including volunteers who are older? — either career-breakers or retirees, because those groups are growing. also, i hope they interview in-depth the locals involved for their unique perspective — the host families, coordinators, and organizations where volunteers work. (p.s. you might want to change “west africa” to “east africa” on your first page). take care!
This is missing a significant point. If you take the measure of these on the term of the time spent overseas, they should be canned. They trouble those who have suffered global inequity with the education of those who have been its beneficiaries. Worse, done wrong they re-inscribe a whole host of pernicious dualisms.
The host organizations that I deal with have no illusions that they are going to get their time/energy investment out of a short term placement. They are about shifting the course of a life. That is entirely missed here. Second, the preparation and support afforded students who are doing these trips is fundamental. One of my students was on a YCI trip in Tanzania where she found her unprepared counterparts crying that ‘this is not like a vacation at all.’ Ouch.
Yes, preparation, support and debriefing is expensive. There is no predictable value in these often depressingly narcissistic expenditures absent that investment. If these programs are failures, that blame is not participants’. It is those who facilitate their travel with more of an eye to the financial health of their own organizations than those they putatively serve.
My name is Alison Lang. My photo was used in the print version of this article (I was the girl at the soccer game.) I was a volunteer representing Journalists for Human Rights in Accra, Ghana from October 2007 – June 2008. I also know the writer, Rachel Mendleson personally. I really don’t want this comment to look like an attack against her or against this publication. However, my JHR colleagues and I took issue with a number of points in the article. I’m disappointed that my photo has been used in conjunction with an article that paints volunteering in an overwhelming negative light and does not examine all sides of the experience. I’ve been corresponding with a number of other friends and colleagues who have lived and worked in Ghana about this piece. After much rumination, this is what I’ve come up with in response.
Firstly, not every volunteer who goes to Ghana is a wealthy naif looking for an exotic alternative to Europe. My JHR group ranged in age from 23 – 45. We also brought a broad range of experiences with us, both journalistically and otherwise.
Also, I’m offended by the suggestion that volunteers allegedly live off government funding for these volunteer programs and use it for a holiday joyride. I am not going to play the bleeding heart here. Our group was extremely fortunate to be able to travel to Ghana. Compared to the average Ghanaian, who has to go to incredible lengths simply to acquire a VISA, we are certainly privileged. Some of our funding indeed came from the Canadian Institute for International Development (CIDA).
However, we also had to raise nearly four thousand dollars each to fund our trip with only a few weeks to spare. We are one of the few JHR groups who has had to do this. No doubt there are some volunteers, like Sara Minogue, who encounter problems during their placement, give up, and travel. I’m not vilifying her for her decision. However, my colleagues and I worked extremely hard during our eight-month placement and I believe we all deserve the trust and support that our donors provided without a second thought. Many of us worked at Ghanaian radio stations where employees came in at 7 or 8 am and stayed until 7 pm. We were expected to adhere to these schedules, and did so. We travelled, sure, but we worked for it. We were certainly not on holiday.
I’d also like to address the article’s presumption that all foreign volunteers in Ghana drink their faces off in Western bars. I’m not going to say that our group didn’t go out and party. Guess what? Ghanaians really like to go out and party. We lived in the midst of a culture that is social, vivacious and vibrant—a country where food, drink, faith and music are woven into the national identity. The act of “partying” was vital to helping me feel comfortable in Ghana, amongst Ghanaians—whether we were out caterwauling at a ludicrous Western-inspired karaoke bar, cheering at a game for the Africa Cup of Nation, or sharing beers with people in my neighbourhood at a spot around the corner.
I appreciated Mr. Crombie’s position. When you are in a place far from home, for an extended period of time (eight months in our case) and you are working eight-to-ten hour days in a cross-cultural environment—trust me, you need to blow off some steam, just as you would at home. I wish his position had been represented a little better in this piece.
The situation of foreign volunteers in Africa is complicated, whether you’re living it, or reporting on it. I’ve been back in Canada for three months and I am still grappling every day with my experience. It’s undoubtedly ridiculous to expect volunteers to do any significant work, or build any relationships, when they are working with a three-month time period. It took me three months to start feeling comfortable at my placement radio station and get reporters to trust me so we could begin working together.
I did not go to Ghana with the expectation that my work as a “trainer” in human rights reporting would significantly alter the way my host radio station operated. Radio is a corporate business in Ghana just as it is in the western world. I went through periods of hopelessness and cynicism throughout my time with JHR, just as all of my colleages did. But we all stayed in our jobs and made the best of the situation we had been given and the resources we had to work with. For all the missteps and frustrations, we all came out with at least one success story, and cultivated an interest in human rights journalism and journalism in general amongst a few reporters who might not have taken that interest otherwise. For the rest of the world, this might seem like a small step. For us, it is significant in a climate where journalists are overworked, underpaid, and highly susceptible to the bribery and corruption of the political system.
And speaking of journalism: although I appreciate the honesty and realistic outlook of the experts and ex-volunteers quoted in this piece, some voices are missing. I have not read any articles that have spoken at any length to local (aka African) NGOs, activists, reporters, editors, or community leaders. Why are we continually portraying a picture of Africa in the Western media that doesn’t include the perspective of Africans? My colleagues in Accra are all extremely smart and articulate. Most had met and worked with many foreign volunteers and held a lot of opinions on the subject (believe me, I’ve heard most of them!) It’s a shame that once again a Canadian-based article on volunteering has failed to include the voices of those who host the Canadians.
JHR has its flaws, just as most NGOs do, and this system needs to be re-examined and re-worked. We absolutely need to rethink how we are “helping” the African countries that we work in and what roles, if any, we’re supposed to take. In the meantime, however, it’s unfortunate that the volunteer experience has once again been denigrated in the eyes of Canadian taxpayers when so many important pieces of the story are missing.
There are a lot of volunteers who throw up their hands, realize they’re in too deep, and give up. Some of us gritted our teeth and stuck around. When we read a portrayal of the volunteer experience as a tax write-off for rich kids, it devalues the work that we did, and it devalues the very real relationships that we still have with our colleagues in Ghana. I consider my volunteer experience to be one of those Significant Life-Changing events. I’m still dealing with altered perspectives and conflicting emotions, while being constantly reminded that–yes—I “helped me” by going over and experiencing a new culture, the conditions that exist in a third-world country, and the elegance, intelligence and optimism that also exists alongside that. I’m still in touch with everyone I worked with, and I plan to return—on my own dime—as a tourist to Ghana in the next couple of years. My time in Accra will remain with me for the rest of my life. It is certainly not something that I am ashamed of.
Correction: We were funded by the Canadian International Development Agency.
I think we need to consider the social context instead of characterizing youth volunteers as self serving and narcissistic and finalizing that as the main problem.
Other factors may include:
- the growing dominance of the consumer paradigm and the corporatization/commodification of education. This paradigm stresses buying results (as opposed to working for them) and trouble free transactions.
- role models. Consider the possibility that the behaviour of important leaders, and institutions (including media) in these students’ lives are stressing values of individualism or consumerism over the promotion of charitable values and equity.
- lack of education regarding geopolitics, race relations etc. (University students may graduate w/o being trained to think critically about their own prejudices, or their social privilege.)
- increased competition for acceptance into professional schools; devaluing of the Bachelor’s degree.
Not all volunteer programs are equal. I can’t see that anything less than 3 months would suffice for first timers – and that is assuming language competency on both sides. I have seen volunteer programs as short as 2 weeks. CIDA’s placements are a *minimum* of 6 months. I don’t think lumping all programs and volunteers together and singling out IYIP, one of the more reputable programs, is helpful.
Volunteer programs can help youth develop the ability to adapt to very difficult conditions, as well as to work with uncertainty and ambiguity. In a society where youth are increasingly monitored and micromanaged, as well as kept in a safe, predictable institutional setting (e.g. school) for longer periods, I don’t see what is wrong with investing in youth and having recent grads develop their adaptability when our own labour market grows increasingly unstable.
As for host organizations, young workers can make a major difference due to their high energy levels and idealism. If they can get over that initial hump and learn to deal with the physical duress, culture clash, lack of work organization by Western standards (very, very common), and sink-or-swim situations, their fresh perspectives, technological skills, and education can prove to be very beneficial. I have not worked w/IYIP, but in my placement, local residents were always thankful for volunteer labour and often recognized the work and positive impact it had on the community.
I am also an ex-IYIP intern. I’ve met numerous ex-IYIP interns, who, just like me, changed their career path dramatically after their experience with IYIP. The experience convinced me to do a master’s degree and orient myself toward an international career. ‘Les voyages forment la jeunesse’, or so they say. I also think that the outcomes of those internships in forming the next generation of young leaders, who have seen a little more of the world and have been exposed to different perspectives on how to understand the world, is also something that we should consider when evaluating whether we should keep funding those internships. IYIP interns not only work in development, but sometimes learn a second or a third language through their experience. IYIP internships are very challenging, and I agree that outcomes heavily depend on the capacity of interns to lead the project instead of being subjected to it. But- this is exactly why they are worth every penny we put into them.
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