A few summers ago, I was lucky to spend almost a month of my summer volunteering, traveling and learning in rural Guatemala. I was part of a group of fifteen students of more or less my own age from all over the United States and Europe who applied and were accepted to this program.
Teen service and learning trips, like the one I went on, are often criticized, and the industry is called “voluntourism.” The main source of scrutiny stems from the idea that these trips are centered more on making the volunteers feeling “warm and fuzzy” inside rather than doing actual, meaningful and tangible work that helps the community. They are said to be resumé and college application boosters only for those who can afford the often hefty price. They are criticized for the lack of service actually done. And, because we are in the year 2015 and social media is weaved into almost every aspect of our lives, these trips are criticized for the types of pictures posted on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc.
While I won’t deny that some of the criticism of these trips is completely warranted, I do take issue with the utterly negative lens that many articles portray these trips through.
I won’t deny that most of the other volunteers on my trip came from extremely privileged backgrounds. This is because cost is a limiting factor, which is problematic, because I think that there is real value in these trips that can be beneficial to people of all socioeconomic backgrounds. What I will say is that, speaking for my group, we were diverse in other ways. Coming from different parts of the world, we had different cultural, religious and social beliefs. Learning how to work, get along and have fun with people that at first seemed so different from me, but as time progressed became similar to me, was one of the most valuable lessons I learned.
On the topic of these trips being solely for college applications or resumes, I take a huge issue. It is ridiculous to me to think that someone would pay to go on a trip like this and spend a decent portion of their summer abroad solely for the purposes of boosting their college application or resumé. In fact, more and more, it is being said that what you actually have done is becoming less important in contrast to what you do with what you’ve done. I won’t lie: I put it on my college application. But more than that, what I learned from my trip served as something I could write about and draw from. I would like to think that my ideas and interpretations spoke louder and had more weight than simply the trip on an extracurricular list.
The idea of these trips being more about the volunteers feeling fulfilled and less about helping serve an actual community is where this becomes more complicated. Let me start by saying that I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive. Volunteers can feel fulfilled while helping serve a community that desperately needs help. But moreover, I don’t think there is anything wrong with feeling fulfilled or good about yourself. Where the fulfillment comes from is what is important. Fulfillment should stem from empathy, not sympathy. If you feel good about yourself because you feel bad for the community that you are supposed to be helping to uplift, you’re missing the point. Sympathy drives people apart. Empathy drives us together. Relating, in however small of a way, to the struggles and challenges of whatever community is what drives change. Because change comes from understanding. And understanding drives us to action.
If we are talking about these trips purely on the basis of resource management, then these trips are a total waste. It would undoubtedly be better for the community and economy if the money we spent on airfare, lodging, etc. were instead given to people in the community who could do the same work we did (and probably better/more efficiently). This is where I get torn. If the purpose of these trips is to help build a community, even in such a small way (my group built a classroom and painted a mural at a rural school), then we should just donate the money and be done with it. But I think these trips are about something more. They’re about forging connections, however brief, between people of seemingly different worlds. These connections may not be tangible, but that doesn’t make them unimportant.
I’m not here to defend to the death these trips. There are faults to them, just like there are faults to everything. I do think that the basis of the criticism and the vast generalizations made are unfair. I had an amazing time. I met amazing people and got to help, in such a small way, a community that so desperately needed it. But I learned from them too. Sure, this trip wasn’t “life-changing,” and I probably go about my day to day life just as I did before, but it did help me become a little more aware and a little more appreciative of what I do have. And that is valuable.
