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VOLUNTOURISM
Although it may be enlightening for students/others who go on these missions and volunteer abroad, the actual value of “voluntourists” bring is rather limited. It takes a very large sum of money for someone to travel to a foreign country, and the money, in most cases, would be better spent if it were invested in local professionals who could bring about better results. For example, a student who travels abroad to bring healthcare to a third world country would require a $1000+ plane ticket, a week of accommodations, food, etc. and is not even certified to practice in Canada - what makes them suddenly valuable in a third world country? As such, voluntourism in this sense brings about the question of equality/equity: does a desperate third world country mean that unqualified individuals suddenly become qualified in that country just because they are poor and cannot afford actual professionals?
As examples, many students travel to other countries to provide medical services to developing areas. Without any formal training, they go and are somehow permitted to give vaccines among other medication to these third-world patients. It is unsafe and illegal in Canada for unqualified individuals to do this, yet society doesn’t see the paradox when this is done in third world countries. There are also those who travel to build schools or houses in developing areas. Again, what can an unqualified student bring? If they aren’t certified engineers in Canada, what gives them the right to build schools in Ghana? Using that money to purchase a door for that school would be more valuable.
Voluntourism may be beneficial for the individuals who go on the trip, and it may translate to greater awareness of issues abroad when these individuals share their stories back home, but the value these volunteers bring to the people actually living in these developing countries does not justify the cost. Voluntourism, in short, is more beneficial for the volunteers than the people they are supposedly serving. It becomes a resume padder and a way for privileged individuals to feel good about themselves because they “served those in need”. In reality, however, the fiscal investment these individuals made would be much better spent to support local professionals and media campaigns to raise awareness. The time these people spent would also be better invested in local volunteering campaigns.
This reallocation of resources does not only make the process of helping those in need more cost-effective and efficient in terms of the initial investment, but it also has positive long-term results. By donating to support local professionals to build schools, make healthcare more accessible, etc., it stimulates job creation and therefore the economy as a whole. With this greater access to jobs, younger generations will be more motivated to attend school and pursue these professional careers. This eventually develops into a self-sustaining country that does not require any volunteers from abroad. If what we are aiming for is to actually help these developing countries, we need to help them support themselves - and it’s not by using large sums of money to send unqualified individuals to a country for a week.
BRING BACK OUR GIRLS
The Bring Back our Girls campaign started on April 15, 2014, when more than 300 girls were kidnapped from their school in Chibok, Nigeria by the Boko Haram. The Boko Haram has been terrorizing the northeastern part of Nigeria (a half-Muslim, half-Christian region) with the goal of establishing an Islamic state governed by the severe Sharia law. More specifically, the kidnapped girls were forcibly converted from Christianity to Islam and were also forced into sexual slavery.
It is true that the Nigerian government has not sufficiently responded to this heinous crime nor has the media fairly covered this issue, but the Bring Back Our Girls campaign’s achievement of bringing attention to this issue does not justify the American imperialism or the negative attention it encourages.
Not too different from the Kony 2012 movement that claimed to operate in order to bring attention to the Ugandan child soldiers, the Bring Back Our Girls campaign similarly conceals its agenda that includes American military intervention by justifying its operation as an “awareness campaign”. The #BringBackOurGirls campaign doesn’t appear interested in asking the difficult questions necessary to understanding the forces behind the kidnapping of 300 young girls in Nigeria. Instead, it has become the loudest voice for American imperialism and military domination in Africa. The campaign calls for American intervention to track down the so-called “terrorist” organization, Boko Haram. At the outbreak of the news of the kidnapped girls, Obama quickly responded by sending marines to Nigeria, escalating US militarization in a country already dominated economically and politically by the West. This is especially suspicious when we consider the corporate investment the United States has in Nigeria; it brings about the question of whether or not this campaign is used to mask Washington’s mission to protect corporate theft of Nigeria’s wealth.
Furthermore, the attention the campaign does gain from Westerners is not actually beneficial to the Nigerians. As a result of the increased awareness, Boko Haram has been committing even more kidnappings; the publicity does not only allow the terrorist group to better sustain its insurgency, but it also encourages more kidnappings because of the increased level of terror it brings to local and foreign governments. The problem is that the campaign remains unable to do anything with the awareness it cultivates; the publicity without action worsens the situation in Nigeria more than it improves it.
#BringBackOurGirls supporters achieved their objective of furthering US militarization at the expense of African people and increasing awareness, but failed by all means to bring positive change to Nigeria. The #BringBackOurGirls campaign is thus ineffective, and it must be clearly understood that there is much more to the kidnappings in Nigeria than the campaign is willing to address.
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2 Comment(s)
Very interesting thoughts on the topic of Voluntourism! Ironically, I never considered the effect of volunteers on people in third world countries. The point you made about the volunteers having no experience or prerequisites for that matter is very shocking to me. I was always under the impression that there were checks on the volunteers to make sure they were "suitable" for the situation.
I learned alot from your writing and I am sure others will as well
Good job Corinna!
Thanks for this critique! I think it's very important that we ask questions that dig beneath the surface- you've raised big ones (militarism) and ones close to home so-to-speak (Canadian voluntourism). Your post got me thinking.... I like your point about how voluntourism brings a lot to the person who goes and returns (including notches on one's c.v. as well as an awareness and learning on her/his part), but is also somewhat paternalistic in that these volunteers would not be considered 'experts' in Canada but are assumed to be 'experts' in the context of the Global South. Where does this idea of 'they' need 'our' help come from and how is it reproduced? I like the fact that you are raising big questions about #bringbackourgirls. How do you think teenagers in various Canadian contexts should react when they hear about terrible injustices such as these girls being kidnapped? What thinking and acting processes would enable a type of global citizenship that interrogates and addresses rather than reproduces the 'us' versus 'them'?
Hi Karen,
The "us and them" mentality to which you and Corinna are referring has its roots in the dark history of European colonialism. European colonial powers such as France, Britain, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands attempted to justify their brutal colonial policies by claiming that Europeans were fundamentally different to people living in other parts of the world. Moreover, they claimed to be superior to other people. This historical system of oppression is one of the main origins of the notion that "we" are different from "them".
However, this problem, generally referred to by experts as the "white saviour complex", still exists today. The legacy of colonialism has left a deep scar that will take centuries to heal. As a result of colonialism, many countries in Africa, Asia and South America are on the whole much poorer than Canada, the United States or Western Europe. As a result, aid agencies from these wealthy countries have intervened, aiming to address this inequality and save lives. However, this has created the image of a Westerner going overseas to help "those less fortunate" remains engrained in our collective societal psyche and perpetuates the notion that Westerners are fundamentally different - or even superior to - people in developing nations. This can only be solved through better education of students here in the West.
Thank you!
Kieran (UTS) :)
Hi Karen,
Here are some steps I think we can take to react more meaningfully to international injustices:
Learn about the political history and social context of the event to understand its root causes
Listen to local voices to assess what they want done
Raise awareness in your community about the event, and create a discussion on actions you can take to support global actions that support native initiatives
And enable effect global citizenship
Learn more about the “human” side of the story through interviews, and investigative journalism
Understand how Canadian values and contexts differ from Nigerian values, spurring varying responses
Look at the problem on a long timeframe, and address it by enabling long-term, systemic solutions
Mudassar Javid
Feb 17, 2015