With spring break just two weeks behind us, and summer only a few weeks ahead, trips abroad have been a reoccurring topic of discussion. This May I will be travelling to Arusha, Tanzania with the Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship (HESE) Program at Penn State. After purchasing my plane tickets to Arusha earlier last week, the once distant trip is now becoming more of a reality than ever. Interestingly enough, this will be my first time off of the continent and my “second” experience abroad… if you count a middle school family trip to Niagara Falls and Toronto as abroad. Either way, I am very much anticipating this trip, as I am incredibly excited to experience a new culture, working with students in Arusha, and researching the region’s brick making process.
Just this weekend, at a small theta class meal, we were discussing ‘voluntourism’ and the perceptions associated with studying abroad. We noted (both jokingly and seriously) that when many students go abroad, they come back saying how much they “helped the children so much” and so on. In HESE and in this dinnertime talk, we’ve discussed that this is the wrong way to go into a service/research based experience abroad. In HESE we learned that many volunteer trips end up being very ineffective, sometimes even disrupting the local economies because of the introduction of many free giveaways. In many of these cases, tourists/outsiders project what their perceived needs of the local people are, and act on those (often false) perceptions. Rather than actually learning and working with the local people to create effective, sustainable solutions, many relief or volunteer agencies end up wasting their resources, making false promises, and in some cases creating unnecessary dependencies on aid.
Through HESE and my travels to Arusha, I will try my hardest to not fall in these voluntourist traps – while the work I am doing in Arusha has a possibility to one day create value for the end user, my experience in Tanzania will not be one of an American savior, but instead of a college student eager to gain a newer, more worldly perspective. I am very glad that HESE has revealed many of the downfalls of volunteering, and instead has promoted the importance of working with locals to devise effective, sustainable, and impactful solutions.
Also, if you are interested in travelling to Arusha, Tanzania this May to gain some great field work and research experience, let me know! Our professor has some funding available to be able to bring more students than anticipated!
Hey Jack! I love that you are thinking about all those different dynamics that arise in the development context. Just two years back I was traveling with HESE to Zambia to complete my field work. I think that what you say about having the intention to learn, it is also important to think about how you can engage and collaborate on an equal playing field. Many people will be looking at you as a white savior even if you yourself dont try and come off that way. Those are dynamics you are going to have to engage with when you are doing your work. For example, many kids will come up with you and be awed and curious about you because you are both white and American. The biggest lesson I learned working in Zambia was that I had to admit the power dynamics that existed, because they would be placed on me anyways. But, also that any work that I was engaged with a disadvantaged group there would be unintended consequences to my work. However, what was important was the impact of what I was doing should outweigh any harm my presence may cause in that community. Such questions are crucial to answer and think about! But do not let them get you down to a point of inaction. Best of luck, and keep us updated!
Thanks for your post, Jack.
I think the way that we speak about volunteerism makes a huge difference. By saying that a student “helped those poor people so much”, they almost end up dehumanizing the people that live there, implying that the locals were something like lost puppies unable to to take care of themselves. By creating this narrative, they ironically end up hurting the very people that they sought to help.
This reminds me of a story that I was told in my engineering design class about some charity (I can’t remember if it was a university or some other group) that bought a boat and decided that they were going to go down to a foreign country and solve the people’s problems when their boat landed in each town of their journey. The endeavor ultimately failed.
The “volunteers” never took the time to understand the people or what their problems really were. They just took a first impression of the area and “fixed” things they thought were not right. Unfortunately most real-world problems are more nuanced than their initial appearance, and it is both absurd and demeaning for anyone to believe that they can just walk into a new place and know more about how to better their lives than the locals who lived there.
I really appreciate the time that you took to share your perspective on this. It was apparent from your writing that you are going to try to make a real impact with your trip, and I wish you the best of luck.
Thanks for this post – I’m consistently interested by the topics you write about. This is something I’ve thought about before and for similar reasons. A difficulty seems to not be be in just the service projects themselves, but in the attitudes of the people who go. It seems to me that this false savior mentality contributes to this issue. I personally have never really liked the “resume building” perspective that many people share because it makes it easy for those being helped to be seen as lesser. It’s difficult to assess the real reason or reasons why someone decides to take a trip, but it is easy to measure the effectiveness of the trip. I’m not sure if actually measuring the effects of different types of trips would prove one particular opinion right, but I do think it’s worthwhile to do. I’m curious about the service you’re going on and what separates your trip from the category of “voluntourism.” Again, worthwhile topic – I appreciate that you shared your thoughts!