• Salamander
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    fedilink
    31 year ago

    That’s a very negative perspective and I disagree with many of the points made. I do agree that a volunteer trip is obviously more valuable to the individual volunteer than to a whole continent - but what’s the point of such type of comparison? If you look at the value added in a case-by-case basis, and you quantify the value that a volunteer adds to specific individuals, then the equation becomes much more complex. A volunteer can add a lot of value to people’s lives. Many volunteers literally save lives.

    The common volunteer attitude is not one of a person that wants to be a “savior”. People who volunteer want to travel and learn about other cultures, and want to do so while interacting with the locals. Volunteering is a way to achieve this while adding some value to the community. The bar of being a ‘savior’ is indeed too high, but that’s not the bar that a volunteer strives to achieve. I would say that the “volunteer” category should be compared to the “tourist” category. It is a different form of doing tourism, and I believe that it is much more rewarding and provides more direct value to the locals than many other forms of tourism. Stating that building a school adds no value is simply not true. It is true that you also need teachers. And those teachers need a school. Which someone has to build.

    The article is written in ways that emphasize volunteers posting about their volunteering in social media. I think that whether the volunteers post on social media or not is completely inconsequential to the value added. But the fact that the author of this article emphasizes this fact makes them come off as bitter.