Volunteer tourism has become a niche in developing nations tourism market. A simple search on Google and you will find lots of SE Asia “non-profit” NGO offer whole range of volunteer programs in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand for minimum 2 weeks to 6 months or more. And yes, most of it comes with a fee, from few hundreds to few thousands USD.
It has always been at the back of my mind to volunteer while visiting a country, but another voice prompted me to do more research online and not simply jump on the bandwagon nor taking this good cause lightly. I started to ask myself questions like “does my brief stint of volunteer work make any positive change?”, “do i make more harm than good?”, “with the fee that i’m paying, how much is given back to the community and how much is used to cover the administrative cost of running the organisation?”, and the list goes on.
There is nothing wrong in volunteering for a good cause, but it needs to be done responsibly. We need to know how the money is spent by these NGOs, and making sure that we are not supporting the act of simply turning orphans, endangered animal species, threatened ecosystems into cash cow or marketing object for these organisations.
Here is a list of things you need to consider responsibly before signing up for your next volunteer travel program. If you care enough to know where your money and good intention channel to, read on.
Why Choose Volunteer Travel?
Typically, people choose this type of travel because they want to experience the culture, interact with the local people, visit the country and on top of it all, to give a positive meaning to the travel experiences. The most popular volunteer program would be teaching English to the less fortunate kids. Other programs also available for instance health care, creative classes, human trafficking awareness programs or non community development programs like wildlife and marine conservation programs. So what is your motivation?
Pay a Fee for Your Volunteer Travel
There are so many organisations out there charging a fee for your good intention. The justification for the fee is to cover your accommodation, food, transportation, insurance and administrative fee (pay their permanent staff and utility bills for running the orphanage etc.). You might think, yes, that is fair enough. But think again, do your research and compare a few organisations. Why is NGO A charging way more than NGO B for the same amount of duration for the same community work?
Self-arranged Volunteer Travel
In marketing gimmick terms, you will see the word “free” on Google search. When they use the word “free”, it doesn’t mean your whole trip is sponsored by them. It simply means you have to pay for your own expanses. The difference is you don’t pay the organisation a single cent for your volunteer work program (although donation is very much appreciated), you just have to arrange your own accommodation, transport, insurance and food separately. In this case, how much you pay to support yourself for this trip is very much accounted for by yourself. I find that this is the best option, but you need to be independent, resourceful and self-sufficient in order to do this. Are you up for it?
How Much Time do I Need?
Like working in any organisation, you need sometime to fit into the system and in some cases, pick up new skills. Though there are minimum 2 weeks program available out there, but a good organisation will tell you it requires at least 3 months to make a significant positive impact. To put it bluntly, permanent staff will have to brief and monitor new volunteers coming from different background. Should you only stay for a short period of time, it is a waste of time and resources for them to teach over and over again at the high turn over rate of new volunteers in a year. How much time can you spare?
Choosing the Right Organisation
Choosing the right organisation for this meaningful work is very important. You do not want to support an organisation that is not transparent with its spending, not giving enough back to the community and has very little empowering work being done in the program. The key towards a sustainable volunteer travel program is to get the volunteers (you and me) to empower the local people in order to enable them to teach others, able to do the work continuously even after you left the program. This is to ensure that there is a continuous effort being carried out. Imagine kids coming into the classroom to learn the basic ABC, you wouldn’t want to see them learning the same thing over and over again each time there is a new volunteer with different accent from different parts of the world. This structure is more to satisfy the volunteers and there is no real benefits for the children.
Ask the right questions the next time you write an email to inquire about their program, do they have code of ethics in place? How do they manage the fees collected from volunteers and the money collected from donors? How many percent is going back to the program? Do they hire local permanent staff? Do you teach the kids or do a certain job directly or is there a local person that you will be supporting and empowering?
Things to Bear in Mind
Respect: You have to understand that you will be volunteering in a foreign country, there is a difference in culture, religion and the way of things being done. You have no rights to bestow your benevolence on other people. Respect others as you want yourself to be respected in the same manner.
Emotional roller coaster: If you choose to be in the teaching programs (especially dealing with children), do consider the emotional attachment and detachment that they have to face each time there is a new volunteer walking into their life and saying good bye after the program. It might have a long term negative emotional impact towards the children if the organisation is not helping to cope with it carefully.
Be Ready: What you might see and experience might be something unimaginable especially if you are coming from a developed nation into a rather poor country. You need to be mature enough to deal with your emotions, to adapt to the situations, lead by an example, humble enough to understand what the people are going through, stick to the work that is assigned to you and not leave it half way through because you come unprepared mentally, emotionally and physically.
At the end of the day, it is your responsibility to choose an ethical organisation that you support by channeling your money and time into it and it is your responsibility to carry through the task that is assigned to you. By supporting a poorly managed organisation, you might put the life of others at stake (especially in the community development program). Again, there is nothing wrong in volunteering for a good cause, but it needs to be done responsibly.
