Amelia Colón

With so much poverty in the world, people who want to do good will be willing to pay thousands of dollars to help out in poorer countries through volunteerism. What they believe they are paying for is an opportunity to help people in need. What they are actually paying for is a completely selfish experience in which they can feel good about themselves without actually having done much. 

Volunteering should not be for everyone. Some people do have skills that they can share with others to help them. There are good, helpful volunteering programs, but for these you are usually required to have a certain level of education in a certain field. These programs are also more specialized, so when volunteers sign up for them, they know exactly what they’re there to do. A good example of this are programs that volunteer against the Ebola crisis, in which the volunteers are healthcare professionals. 

For most volunteering programs, however, you don’t need any skills: you just need to have “a positive attitude and be willing to help”.

People who are volunteering sometimes don’t have the skills to do so. For example, Volunteer Forever shows how volunteering is marketed towards people even if they don’t have the skills listed below.

• Medical skills
• Educational degrees and credentials
• Foreign language skills
• Trade skills (plumbing, carpentry, electrical, etc)
• Professional skills (business, law, IT, etc)

They state: “Don’t worry if you don’t have these skills or experiences yet, because later in the article we will share how you can volunteer abroad even without experience or a degree.” According to NCVO, “Volunteers feel they benefit from their volunteering in a number of ways, with enjoyment being the highest rated (93%). Those who volunteer frequently particularly feel these benefits.” In fact, volunteering abroad is sold to people as something they can do with no degree, experience, or education at all. However, without the proper tools and knowledge, there is actually very little that can be done. For example, without any helpful skills of teaching, in medicine, or construction, they have to consider what they are bringing to the table rather than just volunteer to say that they helped others. This lack of efficiency is what turns the inherently selfless act of volunteering into a selfish practice.

A good example of why this is true is that volunteerism is often seen as a good way to build a resume. Most colleges see volunteerism as a positive bonus for your resume. In fact, a lot of High School students volunteer abroad just because it will help them get into a good college. This practice is called resume padding. A study by Lewis A. Friedland found that resume padding and the pressure put on young people to go to Ivy League colleges is a major motive behind volunteerism. “The increasing pressure to achieve is a driving structural context for many young people, and, as such is a powerful motive that can organize other motives,” according to the study, when it comes to volunteerism. 

Friedland also explains how while there’s no direct link between a poorer performance and selfish motivations, “When civic activity and volunteerism is more closely linked to personal and instrumental benefit, it is possible that the longer term effect of that activity may either decline or change its meaning and/or its form.”

Volunteering provides more of an opportunity to grow as a person than it is to help others. Although this is not necessarily negative, it does defeat the purpose of volunteering, which should be focused on helping others, giving it a whole new meaning. Volunteers often feel proud that even though they don’t have many skills, they can still step out of their comfort zone and do things for the greater good. This is simply the illusion that they paid thousands of dollars to believe.

If you want to help the cause, the most effective way for helping would be by donating to programs that help clean water reach poor towns, according to the World Bank. It is one of the most efficient ways too, as it costs $10 per year for one person, and reduces infant mortality rates by 35-50% in the villages helped. Another plausible and helpful thing to do is donate insecticide-treated bednets, which can help decrease instances of malaria by 50%. Malaria accounts for 1 in 5 deaths amongst children in Sub-Saharan Africa, and each bednet is only worth $5-10 dollars.

Furthermore, volunteerism feeds into a very specific global view of poor countries: that they need help from the West. And despite the intentions behind volunteering, we have to look at the message that it sends to the world. 

Statistics from the Center for Social Development indicate that 85% of volunteers abroad within the years 2004 and 2014 reported being white.  An article by Miles Astray explains that imposed ais as “help from the outside addressing a need identified by foreigners”. Furthermore, they explain the problem with it. “The problem with imposed development aid is that it might be invasive to local communities and ignore their actual needs, agendas, perspectives and cultures. If this is the case, the term White Savior seems applicable. One example would be a project that uses donations to give a monetary handout that actually hinders the economical sovereignty of locals, who would benefit more from empowerment (e.g. through micro-businesses). Such a handout could be institutional, when given regularly by nonprofits, or individual, when given by volunteers.”

What volunteering truly does is create the feeling that the West is already so developed that they need to help other countries be like them. This, however, isn’t completely true. The West may have less problems of a certain type compared to poorer countries, but it doesn’t mean that all their problems are solved. In fact, if volunteers want to make an impact in other people’s life and help them, the best thing to do is start in the communities that they live in. Helping your own community permanently in this way would be much more efficient than paying thousands of dollars that won’t completely go to the people in need, rather they will go to your housing and travel fees.

Not only this, but volunteerism in orphanages harms the mental health of children. When volunteering in orphanages, children are encouraged to create an emotional bond with the volunteer, just for them to leave a few days or weeks later. As orphans, children in the orphanage already have a high risk of developing attachment disorder. But with a never ending cycle in which they form an emotional bond with a volunteer, just for them to leave and the next one to arrive increases this risk tremendously. This cycle causes children to not invest in healthy relationships.

In conclusion, volunteerism has many reasons for being an inefficient practice. People who volunteer often don’t have enough skills to make an actual impact on the communities they intend to help. Without these skills, they aren’t really paying to help people in need, rather they are having a lie sold to them, in which they visited poor countries and helped others. Furthermore, it can help them get into good colleges, which is a major motive behind High School students volunteering, rather than the actual desire to help others. Volunteering in orphanages can also cause more harm than good, as it increases the risk of the orphans developing attachment disorder. If volunteers want to truly help, they should either donate to charity or volunteer in their community, making a true impact on our day-to-today lives.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blake, T. (2014). Africa doesn’t need (dumb) volunteers. Global Citizen. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/africa-doesnt-need-dumb-volunteers/ 

Lough, B. (2015). A Decade of International Volunteering from the United States, 2004 to 2014. St. Louis; Center for Social Development, George Brown School of Social Work. 

Friedland, L. (2005). The Changing Lifeworld of Young People: Risk, Resume-Padding, and Civic Engagement. Madison; The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. 

Volunteer impacts. NCVO. (n.d.). https://www.ncvo.org.uk/news-and-insights/news-index/time-well-spent-national-survey-volunteer-experience/volunteer-impacts/ 

Forever, V. (2024, July 17). Volunteer abroad without experience or a degree: No skills required. Volunteer Forever. https://www.volunteerforever.com/article_post/volunteer-abroad-without-experience-or-a-degree-no-skills-required/ 

Who is that white savior with the complex?. milesastray. (n.d.). https://www.milesastray.com/who-is-that-white-savior?srsltid=AfmBOorFXsgt2xPRFGLGdkqoI-LyiCphjUn9c372xXzdL-KyLC7htq2V