Essay On Volunteering

There is no doubt that volunteering is beneficial when applied locally and done with truly altruistic motives, but when the concept of volunteering is marketized in poorly constructed volunteering trips aimed primarily at high school graduates looking to make a change in the world by visiting a so-called “Third World Country”, it opens the door for unskilled volunteers to unintentionally be part of the neocolonialism debate and to develop the idea that a privileged, wealthy, benevolent white person can be the sole savior of the whole African continent after painting a wall in a rural village in Ghana.

With the increasing popularity of the Gap Year, more and more students are taking off a year from their studies to indulge in different programs,

Instead of acknowledging and addressing the difficulties in their own country, they seek new experiences and a story to tell, meanwhile oversimplifying a foreign community’s problem and ignore its intricate complexities rather than educate themselves on how to efficiently be part of the solution. Then they land on a shortcut that leads to a dead end without any long-term solutions. Building a house in Haiti won 't address the lack of technical and professional skills people have, forcing them to beg in the streets for food. Talking about empowering women in other countries won 't help “to strengthen the social infrastructure that left these women disenfranchised” (Ruge 2016). Visiting orphanages and playing with orphans won 't deal with the fact that the volunteer’s sole presence is helping a detrimental business fueled by guilt. While the volunteer’s mind is fogged by the potential future benefits a volunteering trip will have with employers and schools, these types of counterproductive activities are not so clear, and solidifying the idea the voluntourism is a form of