Voluntourism

            I went to Haiti twice last year with a group of doctors and nurses from my church.  We were working with a missionary there who had been working in the community for over a decade, so I felt an assurance that our group would be helpful doing work that the missionary deemed necessary.  After we left though, it was clear that the type of work we did was more of a temporary Band-Aid that doesn’t actually do any long-term fixing.  As a result, one of the members in our group who had connections to New York Presbyterian continued sending medical equipment and materials and many members went multiple times to try to do some work that had a long-term effect.  Ultimately, I felt lucky enough to feel like we did more good than harm.

            However, I am not quite sure how I should feel about my going there.  Am I allowed to feel good about myself for volunteering?  When I read the articles, the sort of self-righteousness of the tourists who had not really done anything good, and in some cases did harm, seems especially bad.  In a way, the way the tourists and I feel after and the way we understand the voluntourism trip is almost the worst part of this issue.  Going there with the mentality of “I’m doing something good” or “I’m helping these poor people” seems to lead to a sense of superiority and the unequal relationships discussed in Sin’s paper.  Furthermore, believing that we did something good when the rippling effects of our actions, such as the orphanage markets created after tourists visited orphanages, are not always obvious also seems especially wrong.

            On the other hand, if voluntourism were framed as more of a learning experience for the tourists rather than a “saving the these poor people” experience, I feel that voluntourism would be beneficial even if the actual work the tourists did was neither helpful nor harmful.  The time tourists spend in a different country volunteering should be more of a humbling time for them to learn about the hardships faced in different countries and to learn about the culture of the local community, and perhaps to also learn about the complexity of the issues affecting a community.  Thus, even if the tourists do not do anything that is a net help to the community, they would at least have an understanding of the extent to which their work helped or harmed and would build a relationship or understanding with the community.