I would like to share an
excerpt from a reading that has influenced me exceptionally during various
volunteer experiences that I have had. I first read this article during
training with an organization called AMIGOS, a youth empowerment organization
that sends high school volunteers to Latin America for 6-8 weeks. This article always
inspired a long discussion, where some people maintained that AMIGOS was
different from the type of volunteering that this organization describes, while
others like myself were far more critical. I think it is important to reread this
any time I find myself engaging in volunteer work abroad, and in this case in
the context of my practice experience in Chiapas Mexico this summer. Below is
an excerpt from the end of the reading. You can also find the whole article
here: http://www.swaraj.org/illich_
“If you have any sense of responsibility at all, stay with your
riots here at home. Work for the coming elections: You will know what you are
doing, why you are doing it, and how to communicate with those to whom you
speak. And you will know when you fail. If you insist on working with the poor,
if this is your vocation, then at least work among the poor who can tell you to
go to hell. It is incredibly unfair for you to impose yourselves on a village
where you are so linguistically deaf and dumb that you don't even understand
what you are doing, or what people think of you. And it is profoundly damaging
to yourselves when you define something that you want to do as
"good," a "sacrifice" and "help."
I am here to suggest that you voluntarily renounce exercising the
power which being an American gives you. I am here to entreat you to freely,
consciously and humbly give up the legal right you have to impose your
benevolence on Mexico.
I am here to challenge you to recognize your inability, your powerlessness and
your incapacity to do the "good" which you intended to do.
I am here to entreat you to use your money, your status and your
education to travel in Latin
America. Come to look, come to
climb our mountains, to enjoy our flowers. Come to study. But do not come to
help.”
This powerful message brings up many significant points to
consider when American volunteers, many
of whom know little about the context in which they work, go abroad with a
mentality of superiority, or claim that they are “giving up” their summers to
do something good. In my case, I will be
going to Mexico this summer to work with Fundacion Cantaro Azul, which works to
provide access to water for communities around Chiapas. I think that it is very
important for me to remember my impact and really consider my ability to “make
a difference”, when I am not educated extensively on issues of water quality,
and did not grow up in the communities that I seek to serve. I think this
article ties greatly with Talwalker’s article, “What Kind of Global Citizen is
the Student Volunteer”. Despite all of our efforts and intentions, we must
realize that this is coming from a very privileged background, and that
realistically our small stay will not have a profound impact on the larger
issues at stake.
At the same time, with the passion that many of us have to
changing the problems of inequality in the world today, I think that few would
be comfortable being told to stay at home learning about poverty, but never
actually going anywhere because we are only going to make it worse. And this is
why I continue to volunteer abroad, despite being told and realizing through my
own experiences that I am not making a dent on issues of global poverty and
inequality. I think that rather than giving up all together, we can continue to
learn—through classes at Berkeley and experiences abroad—what our impact really
can be. While must be aware of the challenges, and be sure not to come in with
a mentality of “helping others” or making people look just like us, I do
believe that there is a space for the educated and humble American volunteer.
This is not to say that any American has the right to show up in a rural
community abroad to build a school or teach about the environment. However, if
volunteers like myself go abroad with the mindset of learning and exchanging,
and continue to discuss these ideas throughout my academic career, I only hope
that at some point I can be more than a hopeless American do-gooder.
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ReplyDeleteThis post reminds me a lot about how I chose my practice experience. I remember when I was in high school and even up until my first year in college all I wanted to do was "help the world" in places where there was poverty and they needed a savior and I was going to be that person. When I got to college I realized that my thoughts and perceptions about poverty were twisted and ignorant. I also began to learn that as much poverty as there is around the globe there is also here at home. This is why I chose to do my practice experience locally in West Oakland. I felt that I would have more power over the poverty action that I wanted to engage in if I first understood it in a place that is only a few miles from one of the most prestigious universities rather than seeking it in places I did not understand culturally. I admire everyone who goes abroad and that too is one of my goals, but I first need the knowledge of how poverty exists in a country of so much wealth. Although the stigma of a privileged do-gooder will still surround me, even in West Oakland, I will be able to control it in a place where I am somewhat familiar rather than a place that I know nothing about. I also believe that there are and can be American volunteers who know how to check their privilege and practice humility in areas of poverty where we are outsiders.
ReplyDeleteThree people come to mind when I read your post:
ReplyDeleteDambisa Moyo, author of Dead Aid, Franz Fanon, author of The Wretched of the Earth, and Professor Roy.
Moyo, which we discussed in GPP 115, claimed that aid has only weakened the economic state of Africa. Although her argument is based on economics, she would certainly agree with that excerpt from "To Hell With Good Intentions."
Fanon's argument lives on the middle ground. In regard to the revolution in Algeria, he does believe that the bourgeoisie can become a part of the peasantry. Transformation can happen, and the bourgeoisie can become supporters of the revolution. But, his audience is aimed almost entirely toward the African people. He is an advocate of the "native intellectual." By working inward, Algeria can create their own culture that is unique and he disregards the colonizer completely.
Professor Roy, I think, would disagree with Illich's excerpt. When he writes, Illich has the stereotype of an ignorant, arrogant U.S. student in his mind. Professor Roy and the GPP department clearly address Illich's point by educating students and creating volunteers that think with a global perspective. Illich's argument is an important one but I would argue that it is too simplistic. The solution to the problem cannot simply be "do not come."
I agree that we are the sons and daughters of the United States but we are not it's choices.
(I don't like using the word "American" because Canadians, Guatemalans and Argentinians are all American.)
Thanks so much for sharing that! I've never seen it put so bluntly. It is definitely something people who are doing volunteer work, abroad or local, should keep in mind.
ReplyDeleteI remember in high school partaking in local Habitat for Humanity builds and leaving the sites thinking, "Wow! We just made their lives so much easier." I don't know what Habitat builds here in the US look like, but back in Indonesia where I'm from, we usually drive out to a rural village where all the houses are just small huts with mud floors that hold way more people than they should. Generally, the people who we're building for--the men at least--have jobs involving some type of physical labor. They are much more able to build their own houses, but it's almost as if they are giving us the opportunity to feel good. We are told what to do, often even by the house's future owner himself, and guided the entire time by Habitat for Humanity staff and members of the local community, and yet we are for some reason still under this clouded belief that perhaps this work would not get done without our help, or at least not as fast or not as well or not as efficiently. As a result, you leave after "hard" day of work thinking you've really made a difference.
In hindsight, I can't believe how naive just thinking that is. It reflects a superiority complex that so many of us enter volunteer situations with. From a position of privilege and wealth, it is so easy to step into the lives of people with so much less and think you have the authority, ability, and know-how to make a difference. Upon reflection, we were the ones taught how to make cement, how to lay down the foundation, how to rebar, etc. but despite that, it's completely ridiculous how uncommon a thought to think, "They could've done this without us."
While I would hope they were appreciative of our efforts, I personally failed to keep in mind the fact that "it is profoundly damaging to yourselves when you define something that you want to do as 'good,' a 'sacrifice' and 'help'". I completely agree with you in that this doesn't mean that we should quit engaging with such programs, but instead be mindful of the real (often insignificant) impact we are making. Instead of thinking of ourselves as giving to them, we need to think of them as giving to us--of enriching our own experiences, reframing our own ideas of volunteerism, and reminding us of the more structural issues of poverty and inequality.