Volunteering When White

I really want to be doing more to serve and help others. I’ve mentioned before my desire to do volunteer work. Naturally, I think of going to India to help out. Because it is a place that I love, respect, and am grateful to. India created and grew this religion that is such a major part of my life. I want to give back in some way to the land that has given me so much.

There’s a system in place for exactly this, and it’s called Voluntourism. Volunteering for a bit and then seeing the tourist things as well.

But something about this entire idea is making me feel uncomfortable.

It’s too much “spend a few days feeling good about yourself and then go on and do all your touristy things with a clear conscience.” But I don’t want to “help” only for show. To appease my guilt at how good I have it by tinkering with volunteering for a bit and then going off to enjoy myself. For one thing, enjoyment should come from the act of helping others. For another thing, going to another country to do volunteer work as a white person reeks of white savior complex.

I don’t want to help others because I am privileged and white and rich by comparison. I want to do it because they are me. We are One.

Opportunities to put that into practice seem to be scarse.

And then I think, how can I really help if I’m only there for a week or two? Wouldn’t it do more harm than good to, say, play with orphan children for a week and then disappear on them?

Would I be helping them or just making myself feel like a good person?

This article that I read crystallized some of these feelings for me: http://www.mamamia.com.au/travel/volunteering-overseas/

“After six years of working in and traveling through a number of different countries where white people are in the numerical minority, I’ve come to realise that there is one place being white is not only a hindrance, but negative – most of the developing world.

…Our mission while at the orphanage was to build a library. Turns out that we, a group of highly educated private boarding school students were so bad at the most basic construction work that each night the men had to take down the structurally unsound bricks we had laid and rebuild the structure so that, when we woke up in the morning, we would be unaware of our failure. It is likely that this was a daily ritual. Us mixing cement and laying bricks for 6+ hours, them undoing our work after the sun set, re-laying the bricks, and then acting as if nothing had happened so that the cycle could continue.

Basically, we failed at the sole purpose of our being there. It would have been more cost effective, stimulative of the local economy, and efficient for the orphanage to take our money and hire locals to do the work, but there we were trying to build straight walls without a level.

…It turns out that I, a little white girl, am good at a lot of things. I am good at raising money, training volunteers, collecting items, coordinating programs, and telling stories. I am flexible, creative, and able to think on my feet. On paper I am, by most people’s standards, highly qualified to do international aid. But I shouldn’t be.

I am not a teacher, a doctor, a carpenter, a scientist, an engineer, or any other professional that could provide concrete support and long-term solutions to communities in developing countries.”

I tried to talk to Brad about all this, but he wasn’t convinced that I’m not just blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Why not help? If we’re going to be visiting a foreign country, why wouldn’t we take some time to do a little good while we’re there?

I try to explain that it seems like these programs are set up to be “an experience” for us rather than being actually helpful. I express fear that the only thing we’re good for is photo-ops and that it seems to me that using my whiteness to “draw attention” to a part of the world reinforces the myth that white is special or better. He says, the “bringing attention” thing is a way to use our privilege to do good.

I’m thinking two things:

That we should do more volunteer work right here at home (paritcularly once we have kids I think this will be a good way to show that we help out wherever and whenever we can rather than going to this “other” place to “save” them.
That if we do volunteer work while traveling, we should use our contacts and friends to find a place where its more about pitching in and doing our part and less about having crafted “feel-good” memories.

I found some other articles that were critical of volunteering while traveling or in short bursts, like a gap year. One concern is people going into a community where they don’t know anything about the language and culture. I think we at least avoid that one by volunteering here at home and in India where we are quite familiar with the cultures.

What do you think? Am I way over-thinking this?