http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mario-machado/the-privilege-of-doing-de_b_4832836.html
The topic of voluntourism really
intrigues me and not just because of the witty play on words. I was first struck by the term in GPP 115 when
the class was assigned an article that left me quite discouraged about the
previous outreach experience I’ve had, especially since I left feeling quite
satisfied about what I did to help. When
I read Professer Talwalker’s article earlier this week, this time I felt a lot
less discourage and more so aware and critical of my role as a volunteer.
I found an interesting article titled
“The Privilege of Doing Development Work: Voluntourism and Its Limitations.”
The article is about a volunteer reflecting on his two-year work with the Peace
Corps in Paraguay. Through the
experience, he realized what it meant to do good and bad Development work. He points out that although spending two
years in Paraguay, he felt that he should have stayed longer since building
essential relationships with the community takes time. A last critique is that
as an outsider, we have intrinsic biases that influence what we presume to be
the solutions and needs of the community. Furthermore, he states that if one is
not critical of our privileged positions as outsiders who are able to do
development work, then that propagates this idea of “voluntourism” rather than
quality volunteer aid. This parallels
Talwalker’s article when she describes ”our privilege as our
impoverishment.” As outsiders who limit
our understanding as development equated to westernization, then in facts it’s
us that are the impoverished.
After reading these articles, I
realized in terms of my practice experience that as a six-week volunteer, I’m
not going to individually make a large impact in the lives of the community. However,
in six-weeks, I can get a glimpse of the work of an organization (Blue- Med
Africa) as well as the communities that the organization targets through its
clinics and medical outreach. I will not
be offering a skill-set like medical experience that I know I do not have, but
I do have the tools, which I will continue to develop in GPP 105, to be
critical of the work that my PE organization (which is composed of
professionals offering a special skill set) is doing and its impact.
I think this article summarizes nicely a lot of the shortcomings of voluntourism that we have all learned in the GPP minor. A month or two is completely insufficient to make any sort of lasting change in a foreign, developing country. But as the author points out in the last paragraph, cultivating worldliness in young people should not be trivialized. Globalization is happening on an increasingly large scale, and it is critical that our generation develop awareness of the issues and realities faced by people in other cultures. Doing so should at the very least affect our voting and consumerist habits, and hopefully also creates a generation of engaged and informed people, ready to tackle whatever issues (both domestically and abroad) come our way.
ReplyDeleteI agree with many of your concerns. Your statements seem to hold many truths, so I was wondering if I could further that issue with the concept of compassion. Given with such limited circumstance in time and resources, what could be the best for both you and the people whom you would like to serve. As discussed in class about Professor Talwalker's text, social "obligations" should be the main focus of poverty action. However, when we are given with restrictions to deliberate our "good" intentions, how much compassion is necessary? I don't know. The fact that you are conscious of such shortcomings seem to suffice your concern.
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