Though many people think of a college student's winter break as a time to return home, catch up on sleep, and pile in as many home-cooked meals as possible before returning to school for the spring semester, many millennials take advantage of some of their weeks off to volunteer on international service trips. In recent years, there has been a significant push among all age groups to invest more time into researching NGOs and other service-based organizations before sending them money or signing up to work with them.

It makes sense that people have become increasingly critical of service foundations as the menu of organization have multiplied and as more issues are being addressed on an international scale: people want to see their money go as far as possible for those in distress. Scandals involving embezzling and fraud, among other crime, have made the global community increasingly aware that not all charities are as well-meaning as they appear; moreover, there has been a growing drive to fund projects and organizations that focus on needs as prioritized by the local community. Sustainablility-based service has also become a priority for many volunteers: projects in which foreign aid is only needed to gain momentum, but then are able to be continued through locals' participation. This last concept is particularly important given the number of issues being addressed in this day and age; no longer is an organization viewed as considerably worthy if it can never be left to function without external oversight.

Yet, despite the increase in awareness directed towards NGOs themselves, individual volunteers still often lack an essential component of meaningful service: cultural humility. Though many may roll their eyes at the term, cultural humility is critical in keeping service from turning into "poverty tourism." Imagine walking out of class one day only to find a group of people taking pictures of you and your classmates for no other reason than to bring evidence of how strange your life and environment are to those in the visitors' societies. It is unlikely to occur at a given American university or hometown, but it is occurring everyday in underserved communities across the globe. Many college students, even those who have never gone on international service trips themselves, have seen the photos on Facebook that were taken by peers abroad, and a majority of them are of impoverished living conditions and of unknown locals. These pictures probably are the results of experiencing the novelty of seeing a chicken running around a house, of seeing a structure that would never be considered a house back in the States. This is a taste of poverty tourism, and service rooted in it is more about self-gratification -- feeling fulfilled for helping "others" that are to be "pitied" -- than actual service. To have cultural humility does not mean one cannot document one's time of service; it just means, one ought to be taking pictures not of strangers, but with those whom they wish to remember because they have formed close connections. It means taking pictures of a landscape or a structure because it is beautiful and not because it shows the extent of a community's poverty. I often struggle with this concept because it isn't about actions so much as it is about one's mindset and motives behind them, but it is not to just be brushed aside as a result.

Cultural humility means recognizing that no one society is superior to another; not all cultures view economic wealth as the measure of success and development, and this fact is not necessarily wrong. Our nation may be fiscally strong and technologically advanced, but it is far from perfect and could improve by being more receptive to other cultures' strengths and values. When volunteering in Jinotega, Nicaragua I always reestablish the importance of living in the present; at college, I am always looking ahead at the next thing that needs to be done to the point where anxiety becomes a normal feeling. I never take the time to step back and realize that there is always going to be something on the horizon, and that this in itself is proof that I should take a break from time to time in order to embrace and appreciate all that I already have. This notion is reaffirmed to me when I go to Nicaragua, because its culture sees this way of life as the norm. Thus, for the work I do in Nicaragua, I gain just as much in return; by following the community's lead in living in the moment it becomes all the easier to leave my camera in the suitcase and focus on the work I do, the connections I make, and not on the differences between our cultures and whether one or the other is better or right. It is through cultural humility that one can serve a community without exploiting it and in fact, can reap as much from the experience as one gives. So put the camera down, experience a new culture, learn from it, and most importantly respect and value it.