By: Esha Bagora

Media Production Editor

While many people embark on exotic volunteer trips, commonly dubbed as ‘voluntourism,’ with good intentions, they often end up causing more damage than intended. Voluntourism is not a sustainable way to create good change in an underprivileged community, as it exploits the volunteers for profit, perpetuates the ‘White Savior’ complex, and creates dependency. 

Organizations set up volunteer opportunities for many privileged people to go on a weeklong excursion to ‘help’ a community in need. Rather than employ residents of that particular community, or set up long-term welfare programs, organizations use volunteers to cut down on costs by taking advantage of their kindness. This takes away potential jobs from people who truly need them, as many of the residents of that community struggle to make ends meet, one of the primary reasons why the voluntourists are in that area in the first place. 

The voluntourist’s presence in the communities also forces the underserved community to be dependent on the volunteers coming to improve their lives. The organizations do not train any of the locals to maintain the projects created, give the locals any money they could use, or offer them jobs, creating long-term and often generational problems. 

These trips exploit the volunteer’s time and money. Most international volunteering programs require the volunteers to pay their boarding, lodging, and flights to the organization directly. Organizations can also use these volunteering excursions as tax breaks, further using these events for their arguably unethical benefit. 

Additionally, many trips venture into third-world countries or areas to build homes, wells, walls, and dams, but these volunteers are not skilled laborers. The fees to go on these trips are high and most members of these volunteering programs tend to be well-off people trying to give back. How much of an impact is one of these construction projects making if the locals need to repair it once the volunteers leave? An LGHS teacher, Tiffany Hamm, mentioned a particular mission trip to Ethiopia, where a mission trip before them had built a well. She said “We had come to celebrate this well that had been created [before us], and then realized that the water was bad because wildlife got caught in the well, because it wasn’t built properly. To my knowledge, it was fixed later, but I have noticed throughout my time of service that oftentimes, over the years, you go in thinking you know what they need when you [actually] don’t.” 

The last and possibly worst part of voluntourism is the White Savior complex it perpetuates. Voluntourism often comes across as a modern version of colonialism, the mentality that Western cultures need to ‘fix’ or ‘save’ other countries. The underlying idea behind these trips is that only people from Western backgrounds are most capable of devising culturally appropriate solutions for issues primarily caused by historical White imperialism. Many of these voluntourism hotspots in Africa, India, and South America, were left in such desolate situations because of their colonizers and their lasting impact. The religious organizations that often take volunteers to these continents to help the poor echo the forced conversion from the time of imperialism, where missionaries would help disadvantaged communities and later convert all of them to some form of Christianity, a historically predominantly white religion.

Consider donating the money you would have spent on your voluntourism trip, or raise awareness of these issues you care deeply about.  

(Sources: Organization for World Peace, New York Times, The Atlantic, Medium, University of Michigan)