Ethical Volunteering

Every year, my social media gets flooded with photos of peers posing with children of color, talking about how they had the experience of a lifetime. Voluntourism has persisted for years and it’s unlikely the billion-dollar industry will dry up anytime soon.

As an Asian student in the United States, I’ve faced my share of cringe-inducing cultural insensitivity and casual imperialism. But in the summer of 2020, ironically, I was guilty of the exact same.

It’s no wonder the world of “voluntourism” has become a $3 billion a year industry. Volunteers get to travel internationally and out of pocket costs are nominal since volunteers are essentially trading the experience for their skills. And, of course, there is the good feeling side of helping make the world a better place.

There’s a fine line between feeling like you’re helping others and actually doing so.

‘Don’t do as we did,’ says Pippa Biddle, who highlights the colonial structure of industry where unqualified western tourists pay to volunteer abroad.

‘There is little incentive to provoke a privileged young person to stop and think a little more – to have them question whether their presence is valuable in a foreign place.’

We are all guilty of assuming that a certain community needs a certain kind of help. We look at homeless people and assume that we need to build them homes, when all they want might be mental health support or a stable job. So, what is the no-assumptions approach you ask?

Nepal on Thursday recorded 707 new coronavirus cases, taking the country’s COVID-19 tally close to 30,000, a senior health ministry official said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took time out of his Thursday afternoon to explain to finance committee members just how excellent the plan to have WE Charity administer the Canada Student Service Grant program was.

Part of WE Charity’s overseas trips allow people from North America to “step into the shoes of Maasai warriors” in Kenya, or “experience a shamanic ceremony and get hands-on weapons training” in Ecuador. The trips, offered through WE’s for-profit arm ME to WE, cost over US $4,000.