Volunteering Abroad - Things to Know Before You Go
Is this you?
Your
children have grown and fled the nest. You are graced with good health and
energy and are comfortable with your profession and possessions. You are retired
or in a position to take some time away from work. Lately you have been
thinking you want to stop taking and start giving and try and make a difference
- somewhere, somehow, in the lives of those who have so much less. You are a member
in good standing of the generation that was supposed to change the world for
the better but so far has failed. Now the time has come to do something about
it.
As
you think about all of this, you conclude that maybe it’s time to volunteer
abroad. However, you have never spent much time in the developing world beyond
a few enclaved vacations in some tropical hotspots. And you have certainly not
left Canada to immerse yourself as a worker in a developing country.
This
profile paints a good picture of the state of mind in which my wife and I found
ourselves when we decided to spend three months of a planned year off volunteering
in Africa. It was our first trip to the continent, our first time living in a
foreign community and our first long-term volunteer experience anywhere. We
learned a lot — about Africa, ourselves and each other.
When we returned home, we had time
to reflect on we learned before we left and, more importantly, what we discovered
“on the ground“. I have tried to distil our experience into some important questions
that you might want to ask yourself if you are thinking about volunteering
abroad.
Knowing the international volunteer
market
Before
I jump into this – permit me a few words on the volunteer “market” are in
order. Happily, a quick scan suggests that there are plenty of opportunities
for volunteering abroad. After all, the need is enormous, and many faith-based,
eco-based, pandemic-fighting, educational organisations — from the conventional
to the unusual — actively seek volunteers who are prepared to invest the time
and commitment to serve in another country.
With
opportunities abounding, the first thing that might come as a surprise about volunteering
abroad is that you likely will have to pay for it. No matter how magnanimous
you might consider the donation of your hard-earned holiday time or the personal
sacrifice of taking leave without pay, this will not compensate for the up-front
fee that many volunteer organizations request. Most charge fees to build their
coffers, to sustain programs and their administration and contribute to the
sometimes considerable costs of volunteer training and management. If you find
one that does not, consider this a warning signal and investigate.
Demand
for volunteering is high and, depending on the cause or country, you might find
yourself in a “seller’s market.” You may be asked to organise a fundraiser
before you leave home. From the organisation’s perspective, this may not only
be a chance to funds and raise extend its funding network, it will also test
your personal commitment to the cause through your sweat equity rather than
your chequebook.
You
will also be asked to pay for your travel to the site and contribute to on-site
living and accommodation costs as well — although many non-profits assist in
making such arrangements through their networks at home and in the host
country.
And
now to the five key questions that are worth asking yourselves in considering a
volunteering experience.
1.
Why do you want to volunteer abroad?
The
first, most fundamental question is a primary motivation check: Why do you want to do this? What is that
deep-burning desire you are you hoping to satisfy? And how much are you prepared to sacrifice to meet it? Your answers
to these questions will have a profound impact on shaping your volunteering
opportunity.
Bringing
clarity to purpose is an important aspect of volunteering, both for individuals
and for organisations. A personal mission to “change the world” or “save Africa”
may resonate deeply with you but is likely to set you up for frustrating
disappointment. Many emotions drive our guilt-plagued generation. We realize
that most of our contributions have been self-directed and that we are
beginning to suffer from a serious bout of “affluenza.” Many people feel they have
taken one too many self-indulgent holidays at all-inclusive resorts and can no
longer avoid peering over the fence to see living conditions unimaginable at
home. Others are beginning to feel a slow and steady pang in the gut that makes
them seek a larger purpose for their lives. While these may describe strong and
admirable conditions, they are not necessarily practical motivations for
volunteering.
For
us, the answer was easy. We had supported our chosen charitable organisation from
the day it was founded several years ago by a dear friend and now we wanted a
chance to help “on the ground.” In the end, we were happy to have a simple but
meaningful motivation to inspire us. Had we sought to go to Africa to
fundamentally change our lives and those of others, I suspect we would still be
searching.
2.
What are your expectations?
The
second group of questions are clearly linked to the first: What do you hope to achieve in your volunteer experience, both for
yourself and for your volunteer organisation? What do you expect the outcome to be? What
will you consider to be a “success”?
We
went through a process of setting expectations at home that were steadily
refined and levelled on the ground. Some volunteer assignments may be well
structured with roles and expectations tightly defined from the outset — for
example, build a house, assist in a health centre, teach English as a second
language. Others, however, can be much more open ended and free flowing, with
the local situations defining general responsibilities under an over-arching
mandate to help when and where the need arises. While opportunities in the
latter category can be very inspirational for those who like to shape their experience,
the lack of defined goals and boundaries
can be very frustrating — especially in a foreign environment.
Regardless
of the setting, it is essential that you know what you hope to achieve in your volunteering
opportunity. Moreover, it is important that you try to identify this early so
you can share it with your sponsoring organisation to ensure that there is a
realistic and mutual “fit.” Then get ready to refine your goals as your
experience unfolds.
In
setting your expectations, much will depend on how much time you are prepared
to commit. Expectations for a one- or two-week volunteering stint will be
different in scope than a three-month or one-year assignment. Some organisations
will not accept volunteers for less than a defined time period. You might
discover that the main results of your volunteer experience may be no more than
an opening of your eyes — something that might prompt more fundraising at home
or a commitment to return for a longer stay in the future.
Any
expectations of making a real difference in the lives of a community or
individuals will be hard to measure. After all, you are not likely to be delivering
a “post-volunteer experience evaluation survey” to your “clients” in order to
form an answer to this big question! That said, while we were suffering some
personal angst over whether we had achieved anything on this score, we both received
letters on the day we left from a young woman we had worked with who told us we
had changed her life - so it can happen. You can have a big impact with what might
be considered to be simple deeds, especially in communities where young people
are often starved of attention from their parents — if, indeed, they have any.
It
is important to remember that no matter how attached you might become with the
individuals and communities you are working with, from their perspective
volunteers come and go. When setting your own goals, understand that your time
on-site will be a small part of the larger work that your organisation is doing.
You are part of a river’s flow. While your contribution is short-term, your
organisation is there for the long run and you are best served to set your
expectations accordingly.
Changing
the world, a country, a community, an individual are bold and ringing goals. Think
of them as directions rather than destinations for your volunteer experience.
In the end, small victories rather than monumental milestones are more easily
achieved and more rewarding. I found helping to build a demonstration project
for sustainable vegetable growing for grandmothers much more achievable than trying
to transform local food production practices for an entire community over the
course of a growing season.
3.
How tolerant are you?
This
is a complex question, and your answer to it will give you some important
insights about yourself: How tolerant are
you of cultures, religions and lifestyle practices that are fundamentally
different from yours? How judgemental are you — can you see beyond the lenses
of your “first world” perspective and accept that there are other ways of doing
things? How do you feel about being a visible minority in the community you
will be working and living in?
Your
first volunteer experience in the developing world will be full of challenges.
Your capacity to tolerate differences will be tested at every turn and many of
your own values will be tried to their core. As much as you might like to think
you will quickly “blend in,” you are and will always be seen as “different,” “foreign”
and “rich” no matter how long you stay. You may impress with your ability to
learn the local language or some native songs and dances, but you do not live there.
Perhaps you are more than a tourist — but you are a visitor and, at some point,
you can and will leave.
If
you think that the developing world is steadily marching along a path to attain
Western standards of life and prosperity, get ready to encounter many cliffs
and chasms on this particular road. You will experience some profoundly
different conventions relating to religion, the family and gender roles that
are often deeply ingrained in a culture that is possibly millennia older than
yours. Taking these on by suggesting accepted Western ways of doing things may
lead you smack into some very high walls.
We
observed this several times in Western efforts to curb the HIV/AIDS pandemic in
Southern Africa. Our “logical” solutions of promoting safe sex, abstinence or monogamy
often find themselves wrecked on the shoals of deep-seated cultural and gender
roles and values. In other words, it is not just the lack of condoms that is
the problem; it is building acceptance that they should be used at all. On the
other hand, we found that many local practices were often written off as being
imbedded cultural differences. This often does disservice to the quest for
legitimate change. Learning as much as you can about the culture of your host
community before you arrive will help you to identify the really important cultural
barriers and those that may be less so.
We
found it easy to be quite judgemental, for example, on the matter of garbage
strewn far and wide in our community. Surely the dictates of hygiene and
sanitation, not to mention aesthetic factors, made the case for the
introduction of garbage collection and recycling schemes such as we have at
home. And would not this create jobs as well? When we discussed this with a
local senior administrator, he said that his country was so strapped for cash that
it had to draw the line somewhere. Health and education were the ranking
priorities. Garbage collection did not make the cut, so it was left to
individuals to take it on as best as they could.
What
such experiences taught us is that Westerners should be prepared to change their
lenses and pause for reflection before leaping to hard-wired First World
prescriptions on “what needs to be done” and how things can be fixed.
Finally,
challenges imposed by local living conditions and lifestyles are probably the most
universal tests of tolerance in any volunteering experience. Like us, you may have
done your fair share of camping over the years - but this was never considered
a way of living. For three months, we lived in a remote community without
electricity and the means for refrigerating food in a very hot climate. More
importantly, as we were to find, we were without a dependable supply of water.
The availability and choice of food in the local shanty shops in our village
were both limited and undependable. Despite the cheerful friendliness of the
local people, we were housed in a building that was locked down at night behind
grilled windows and barbed-wire fences and patrolled by a night watchman to
protect us from anyone who might think nothing about robbing us — or worse.
While we were warmly accepted into our community by its local leaders and
tribal chiefs, we were universally advised not to go hiking alone in the
magnificent natural surroundings without being accompanied by locals we could
trust. We do not consider ourselves paranoid by nature, However, realistically,
we recognised we were isolated and alone, the only “rich, white, foreigners” in
the area. The cautionary reality of seeing ourselves as a highly visible and
exposed minority and as possible targets of crime tested our tolerance to cope
at a much deeper level than anything we had experienced before.
4.
How well do you adapt?
Closely
linked to questions of tolerance, the adaptability question is particularly
important for older volunteers who, let’s face it, might have grown accustomed
to leading pretty well programmed lives by the time they have reached their
fifties. How well will you adapt to being
thrown into the deep end in a foreign environment? How quickly can you adapt to
strange and often primitive living conditions? How well will you be able to
respond in a crisis situation in a foreign environment? Are you prepared to
shed your “safety blankets” and plunge into a new experience? Volunteering
in the developing world requires you to operate well outside of your comfort
zone. Equally, many of the most memorable experiences you might have will be
those where you take a leap of faith deep into a local culture, its traditions
and rituals, music and dance, food and drink.
With
neither our own mode of transport nor an inclination to drive the treacherous roads
in our host country, we had to depend on local “taxi-vans” whose drivers, vehicular
safety standards and passenger loads would not come close to meeting licensed safety
standards at home. Yet we had little choice but to travel in these vehicles to
get to the regional centre where we could stock up on food and drinking water.
We were constantly reminded of the danger at hand as we passed the overturned
and charred remains of taxi-vans at the sides of mountain roads. Nevertheless,
many of my best memories of our host country were in the many miles we travelled
in these vehicles — the joy of our scratchy conversation with our fellow
passengers and the wonderful sing-along’s to the full-throttle mbaqanga music blasting from the
taxi-van sound systems.
With
cooking and hygiene standards well below what we would consider “basic” at
home, we experienced several occasions in communal settings where we were
offered questionable food and drink. We could not easily get away with saying, “No thanks, we just ate at home.”
Fortunately, we were not served lizard parts or monkey brains (as far as we know!)
and generally managed to pass this particular “gut check” often with the aid of
Imodium.
We
often thought about how we would react in a scenario where we were placed front
and centre in a local crisis. How would we choose to intervene in a family conflict
that violated our own principles, ethics and values? How would we, for example,
assist a wife seeking shelter from an abusive husband or a child spurned by his
extended family? What might be the local consequences of our actions given our
isolation? Fortunately, we never faced
such a situation — although we came awfully close. We were happy, however, to
have posed these hypothetical questions, developed response plans and tested
them with our host organisation in the event we needed to act.
Clearly
defined roles and responsibilities, established before you arrive, can help you
adapt to your new, far-from-home work environment. However, on the ground, your
defined working program will invariably yield to new, more pressing priorities and
you must be able to adapt — and quickly.
5.
How well do you know your volunteer organisation?
This
last question is often overlooked by volunteers. However, asking it now may
save you many headaches later. So find out: How
does your sponsoring organization operate, particularly on the ground? Does it
partner with well-established, global organizations or does is it a lone-wolf
working in isolation? How strong is its
relationship with the local community? What is its track record for managing
and supporting its volunteers? Is it clear on its mission, purpose and program
objectives? What orientation does it provide before volunteers leave home and
after they arrive on site?
You
will need to go well beyond your organization’s websites and your own
perception of its presence in your own country, where it is more likely
focussed on fundraising and government liaison than on its on-site operations.
Your organisation is not just your sponsor; it is your lifeline in a very foreign
environment. Its record, reputation and integrity on the ground will hopefully
be strong, but this is not always the case. Time invested in researching your
organization well is among the most valuable time you can spend before you
embark.
As
you will likely be paying for your volunteer experience in a seller’s market,
“buyer beware” caution is definitely in order. It is important to understand
the roles, responsibilities and managerial capacity of your organisation and its
working relationship between headquarters and operational staff. Many come to
their volunteer experience through faith-based charities, which can bring an
automatic bond and connection to purpose and mission. However, in other cases, you
might chose an organisation from a scan of websites and promotional material or
because it offers a competitive “price point of entry.” Don’t be fooled: not
all host organizations are equal. If one is charging substantially less than
others, this may not necessarily be a good deal for you. Take it, rather, as a
warning that the organization might be poorly organised on the ground and
running risks that would not be acceptable.
One
of the best ways to assess how well your volunteer organisation will be able to
support your efforts is to talk to former volunteers. Most charities are happy
to provide “volunteer alumni” contacts for this purpose, knowing that it is in everyone’s
best interest to get you as well prepared as possible before you arrive. However,
some choose not to provide these contacts, steering you instead to volunteer
testimonials on their websites. This cannot and will not replace a conversation
with someone who has been there. We spoke with several volunteer alumni of our
organisation before we left and picked up all sorts of useful information, from
advice on coping with inevitable volunteer frustrations to recommendations on
“must-bring” items for our personal comfort and safety. (Our top three “must
brings” are LED headlamps, high SPF suntan lotion and portable water filters — advice
which we now happily pass on to all volunteer aspirants heading to Africa!)
Drafting
a program for your assignment is another important test of your organisation’s
capacity to manage and support volunteers. This can and should be an iterative
process that allows both the volunteer and the organisation to align interests,
skills and capacity in a mutually rewarding manner. In some cases, you may be
“dropped into” an existing, repeatable program of activities that the organisation
has delivered on site for months or years. In other cases, you may be asked to
help start new programs or activities in more uncharted waters. Either way, you
need to know how you will be supported.
Spending
sufficient time with your organisation before you leave and as soon as possible
after your arrival on site will help answer the many personal questions and “what ifs” you may have in mind before
you start. Accordingly, the quality of a volunteer organisation’s orientation program
will be an important test of its credibility and capacity to support you during
your experience. In our case, we had a full-day orientation session with staff
in Canada before we left, followed by half a day on site as soon as we arrived.
These meetings proved invaluable and we found ourselves going back to our notes
many times during our three-month assignment.
And ... how about some more questions
In 2016, I read an intriguing article by Sian Ferguson
entitled Dear Volunteers to Africa: Please Don’t Come
Until You’ve Asked Yourself These Four Questions.[1]
(It seems I’m not the only one posing questions to consider!). The direct
nature of these questions makes them well worth considering for a potential
“voluntourist” – so I’ve included them here:
1. Does the agency you are volunteering with have the same intentions and values that you do?
Don’t be afraid to take a close look at voluntourism agencies before handing them your cash.
Ask yourself:
- How much of your money goes to the agency, and how much of it goes to your travel costs and your host charity? If your agency isn’t transparent about this, ask why.
- Do they use stereotypes of both volunteers and recipients to market their business?
- Does it promote community-led initiatives, or do foreigners look at the community and decide what is best for them?
- If they offer the opportunity to work with children, do they do background checks to ensure voluntourists don’t have a history of abusive behaviour? If not, do you really think they care about the children they claim to help?
· 2 Are you going to be doing more harm than good?
Working with displaced children, especially orphans, is a
bad idea for a voluntourist. Vulnerable children need to make stable, long-term
relationships. That’s impossible for voluntourists, who will only be around for
a few months at most. The psychological
effects of feeling abandoned by a voluntourist are
3 Would you trust yourself enough to
do this job in your own country?
Are you actually trained and qualified to do what you are
proposing to do in your volunteer experience. If you wouldn’t trust yourself
enough to do a job in your own country, don’t try to do it in someone else’s.
It’s also important to do projects that suit your skills, not just your
desires. For example, a popular activity for many voluntourists is building
structures. These structures could be houses, libraries, schools or other
community buildings. The problem? Plenty of voluntourists don’t actually have
any building skills or experience. As a result, they often make unsound
structures that could put locals in danger
This got me thinking about a supplementary question –
namely, would you undertake this volunteer work in your own country? Are you
qualified to do the work at home? Are you favouring the exoticism of working in
remote, third-world destinations over helping those who need your help in your
own community or country? Canadians are fond of building clean water systems
throughout Africa – yet we have dozens of First Nations communities who have
been without safe drinking water for years.
And ... finally ... a real zinger!
4 Would you volunteer abroad if you had no cameras with you?
Are your intentions in the right place? Are you going overseas to help, or are you going overseas to look good to others? Do you want to help people, or do you just want to post a picture of yourself helping others for Facebook? Do you want to offer your skills to a community, or do you want to bulk up your résumé?
Giving yourselves the best chance of success
Volunteering
in the developing world can be a rewarding and life-changing experience, both
in your personal and professional lives. However, its rewards are best
appreciated by those who come prepared to tackle the many challenges they will
face. You may have the requisite vigour
and passion to make a valuable contribution to the cause. But knowing your own
boundaries and safety nets will help translate this energy into a truly
rewarding experience. If you have asked and answered some hard questions about yourselves
and your prospective volunteer organisation, you will be better equipped to
operate outside of your comfort zone and your volunteer experience will be
launched with a better chance of success by any measure.
Stuart Culbertson
Rev. 3 - October 2020
[1]
Sian Ferguson, Dear Volunteers to Africa: Please Don’t Come Until You’ve
Asked Yourself These Four Questions at: https://matadornetwork.com/life/dear-volunteers-africa-please-dont-come-help-youve-asked-four-questions
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