It's pretty common at university to be bombarded with images of smiling friends helping poor and clearly suffering orphans somewhere in Africa for a week, then going on safari, 'teach and get a tan'. The problem arises from that fact that all too often it is only the corporations organising the opportunities who benefit from volunteer tourism.
This past summer, I was lucky enough to act as a long term volunteer for a small charity working in Sri Lanka. Part of my job was to take new volunteers to the state orphanage, a place to which a number of global volunteering agencies send their volunteers. The kids here are barely clothed, sleep in metal cots with no mattresses and receive little human contact for the vital first few years of their lives. No matter how many times I saw the same scene, the outcome was the same; I had to leave the dark room with over eighty cots because my happy western upbringing had left me totally unprepared for children crying out for attention and basic provisions. Quite aside from the problems surrounding clearly disabled children in an unsuitable environment, I couldn't help but wonder what happened to the money that these volunteers raised, as it clearly wasn't going anywhere near these children.
Working as a volunteer, you do have to come to terms with your limited capabilities to help other people. But when young people, fresh out of school, and about to move away from home for the first time want to spend their money helping others they deserve better than a corporation that ultimately exploits some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people. Volunteer tourism has become big business, but having experienced first hand the bit they don't show in the happy photos on their websites, it is hard to see the philanthropic nature of certain big volunteering companies.
Even these photos have caused debate: codes of conduct for non-governmental organisations working in the third world give clear guidelines about the type of images allowed on volunteering websites; the "universal icon of human suffering" spreads ideas of the helplessness of the third world as a whole. The tourists would be saving instead of empowering. Images of volunteers coming in and saving a group of society is simply not allowed and homogenises human experiences, creating victims.
I'm not disputing the good intentions of volunteers; it is the work of these large organisations which is part of a larger issue of humanitarian identity. I have met some amazing people who have really benefited the life of children in a few weeks as volunteers. They know precisely where their money goes, and ultimately, their impact as teachers outweighs the inevitably painful goodbyes at the end of their short but life changing experience. However, when you are paying a corporation to give you the experience of a lifetime, it is time to question where the money really goes.
I am incredibly proud of the ability of girls who I worked with to emerge from this environment and come out relatively unscathed, to still be able to challenge and teach me, as well as communicate with each other. They are not victims, they are children.