Going to my first training session at the zoo, assuming it would be about the specific responsibilities and tasks as a volunteer, I was surprised to be learning how to respond to criticism. Throughout my time at the zoo, I encountered many people who thought our educational items (i.e. pelts, skulls, etc.) were inhumane, or the people were against animals in captivity. It is hard to volunteer, especially in a more “controversial” area, without any criticism from people. These criticisms, and oppositions, are not always fairly represented; however, some criticisms are realistic. Most controversies stem from the themes of lack of education, or knowledge, and passion, but there are solutions and good to service.
Volunteers try to “serve” and bring positive contributions; however, often times volunteers only bring more harm to the subject they are serving. Education is one of the biggest factors leading to this destructive volunteering. People believe they are not required to have skill sets in the area, or any knowledge before trying to help. If one is not able to provide this service for a cost, than one is not qualified to serve in this area. An analogy: “When someone goes for a work experience or internship placement in a law firm or an accounting company, they do not expect to be leading a case in a courtroom, or managing their own clients - they understand their number one job is to learn (and bring the coffee). Yet when we go abroad, we sometimes forget that we have to learn before we can serve” (Papi). This source represents the “double standard” of volunteering, people believing they are qualified when they are clearly not. People need to learn before they go abroad or any service in general. Without this education, organizations and people will bring harm to the people that they are trying to serve, and be ineffective if not detrimental.
Especially abroad, Americans struggle to relate to economics, language, and cultural differences. As Illich said, “If you insist on working with the poor, if this is your vocation, then at least work among the poor who can tell you to go to hell.” He is saying not to work in foreign countries because they are unable often to stop the “service” (Illich). While, in America, often people would be unappreciative and offended if people tried to do the same type of service. Another criticism is this “…new breed of volunteering tends to concentrate disproportionately on certain types of work and people, resulting in uneven development” (Simpson). People donate money to things that “tug on their heart-strings”; because of this, orphanages and children are often the only focus of donation and help. This is a problem because there is a wide variety of issues, not just the ones that are the most appealing. The uneven distribution will greatly affect the community because some areas that are in greater need would be ignored because they are not “cute”. This is a major concern with volunteering because needs need to be addressed without bias, and in order of need and importance.
Another severe criticism, or issue, is the concept of volunteering in areas that could be done by locals. Because “wealthy tourists prevent local workers from getting much-needed jobs, especially when they pay to volunteer; hard-pressed institutions waste time looking after them and money upgrading facilities; and abused or abandoned children form emotional attachments to the visitors, who increase their trauma by disappearing back home” (Birrell). It would do more good for the local community to “fix” things on their own, providing intracommunity development and benefits. If it can be done without outside help, the project will create substantially more benefits, helping a greater number in the community. Especially, when companies try to “look after” the volunteers, who paid, the focus will be on the volunteers not the project, which is harmful because the outcome is about the volunteers’ experience, not the success of the service. Because of this “projects that are primarily about you as the participant tend to be short lived, low-effort and frequently without a long-term goal – since the “goal” is not developmental at all. It is about making you feel good. Putting the power of the free market to efficiently satisfy demands together with narcissistic fantasies of helping the impoverished is a recipe for disaster” (“Why You Shouldn’t Participate in Voluntourism”). Paying to volunteer, the majority of the time leads to greater consequences to the community and ineffective service.
Now, volunteering has become a phenomenon, colleges requiring it for acceptance, and it is needed on resumes. This seemingly good thing is in fact very bad. This “requirement” to service causes people to serve out of force, not passion. If one is not passionate towards the service, the work done will not be as good, and the attitudes will be bad. In a high school volunteer study, “…the number of hours volunteered made no difference to the likelihood of engaging in problem behaviors and that the only volunteer work that had this beneficial effect was work students selected and found enjoyable, and which challenged them to think about future goals and taught them new skills” (Musick). So, volunteering can have benefitting affects to the server; however, if they do it because they are forced, it has absolutely no effect. Students and volunteers need to volunteer by choice with passion in order to actually achieve a good, positive, outcome.
Another negative of volunteering is the “narrowed in” problem. Volunteers will address only one issue in a community that was perceived to be a problem by the media and outsiders, not the community. Often the issue does not affect the majority of the community, and thus the help is not benefitting the community as a whole. This is caused because people see “these negative images, which can be conceived as a kind of mental “map” of the neighborhood often convey part of the truth about the actual conditions of a troubled community. But they are not regarded as part of the truth; they are regarded as the whole truth” (Kretzmann and Mcknight). This causes volunteers going into neighborhoods thinking if they solve one problem, they solve all the problems. Often, lacking knowledge on the issue and inside, causing the problem to repeat. The volunteers often do not solve the problem because the community needs to be involved in order to solve the problem, and truly help. There are many criticism of volunteering including education, misconceptions, voluntourism, and others.
When addressing all the criticism and negatives of volunteering, the positives cannot be overlooked. Especially, if people research and prepare before becoming involved in a project much of these criticisms can be avoided. Cole’s friend said, “It’s more a person-to-person thing, and it’s us trying to be a friendly to people who aren’t having the best of times. I know, it does help everyone—the community—when you go and visit the folks, but I don’t think of it as service. To me, service means, like, the military, or you’re doing something you’ve got to do, or you’ve been told to do it, or you’ve been sentenced to it. To me, what we do is—well, it’s trying to offer something from our hearts, only we all got together, and we’re organized about it” (Coles). That quote summarizes the good in service, and the correct attitude to have. Often people just want to be heard, and listened too, and feel a connection, that is service. Because “the practice of story creates a social net that makes us capable of seeing each other’s unique contributions and incapable of simply dismissing someone as “not like me”. When we live in a family, community, a country where we knew each other’s true stories, we remember our capacity to lean in and love each other into wholeness” (Baldwin). This is important to stress the good of a community, connections, and one’s personal story. Also, that service is not always about how one changes the world, but how affecting one person’s life and a community creates good, a service. Also, “community offers the promise of belonging and calls for us to acknowledge our interdependence. To feel a sense of belonging is important because it will lead us from conversations about safety and comfort to other conversations, such as our relatedness and willingness to provide hospitality and generosity. These are two elements that we want to nurture as we work to create, strengthen, and restore our communities” (Block). This shows, by developing a community, a lot of good can be created. People are treated equally and have the desire and passion to serve and help. This is good, this is a positive of service because the people are serving because of the sense of community, the wanting to help their “family”. Also, often service can make a community grow and develop a bond. A major fault of serving is “pretending service is simple, we risk turning service bad—bad for the served and for the server. And by pretending service is simple, we saddle ourselves with a burden we do not acknowledge” (Davis). This is the “solution” to the criticisms, looking at service seriously and challenging, like a job. If people serve with the correct attitude, desire, and passion, then they will be more interested and committed to the service. Also, people need to research before they join a service project to make sure the focus is the service, not the experience. Another huge impact is training and educating the servers before they serve. If they are prepared and educated on the culture and place, they will be able to create a positive outcome. The community is another important factor, service needs to incorporate the community to ensure continuation and self-improvement to make a difference. Many of the criticisms of volunteering would not exist if people did not just “jump into” a service project, but instead researched, prepared, learned, and had a passion towards the opportunity.
“Why are you even here?” this question is often heard at many service events. When it is asked, one might not know how to respond thinking to themselves, wondering if there reasons are sufficient enough. The reason this question often evokes that response is because the question comes across as a criticism. I think people ask this because they want to know one’s intentions and reasons to partake in the event. Perhaps accusatory, but also perhaps because they are interested and curious in that person. A think the responses vary person to person, but for me I would respond I am here because I have a desire to learn more and experience new things, while hopefully positively contributing. I believe it is better to show one’s intentions by having a positive attitude, willingness to learn and experience new things, and fully helping to your ability. However, I do not think it is an appropriate question, but instead “What learning occurred for you in this experience?”, or “what did you learn about the people/community” (Hill)? I think these are better questions because they replace the criticism. Also, these questions allow for a reflection on the service done, allowing the person to reflect on the impacts of what they did. This would also change people’s attitudes of people serving for negatives reasons, but instead allow the opportunity to think reflectively on the service and see the positive outcomes and knowledge gained.
Volunteers try to “serve” and bring positive contributions; however, often times volunteers only bring more harm to the subject they are serving. Education is one of the biggest factors leading to this destructive volunteering. People believe they are not required to have skill sets in the area, or any knowledge before trying to help. If one is not able to provide this service for a cost, than one is not qualified to serve in this area. An analogy: “When someone goes for a work experience or internship placement in a law firm or an accounting company, they do not expect to be leading a case in a courtroom, or managing their own clients - they understand their number one job is to learn (and bring the coffee). Yet when we go abroad, we sometimes forget that we have to learn before we can serve” (Papi). This source represents the “double standard” of volunteering, people believing they are qualified when they are clearly not. People need to learn before they go abroad or any service in general. Without this education, organizations and people will bring harm to the people that they are trying to serve, and be ineffective if not detrimental.
Especially abroad, Americans struggle to relate to economics, language, and cultural differences. As Illich said, “If you insist on working with the poor, if this is your vocation, then at least work among the poor who can tell you to go to hell.” He is saying not to work in foreign countries because they are unable often to stop the “service” (Illich). While, in America, often people would be unappreciative and offended if people tried to do the same type of service. Another criticism is this “…new breed of volunteering tends to concentrate disproportionately on certain types of work and people, resulting in uneven development” (Simpson). People donate money to things that “tug on their heart-strings”; because of this, orphanages and children are often the only focus of donation and help. This is a problem because there is a wide variety of issues, not just the ones that are the most appealing. The uneven distribution will greatly affect the community because some areas that are in greater need would be ignored because they are not “cute”. This is a major concern with volunteering because needs need to be addressed without bias, and in order of need and importance.
Another severe criticism, or issue, is the concept of volunteering in areas that could be done by locals. Because “wealthy tourists prevent local workers from getting much-needed jobs, especially when they pay to volunteer; hard-pressed institutions waste time looking after them and money upgrading facilities; and abused or abandoned children form emotional attachments to the visitors, who increase their trauma by disappearing back home” (Birrell). It would do more good for the local community to “fix” things on their own, providing intracommunity development and benefits. If it can be done without outside help, the project will create substantially more benefits, helping a greater number in the community. Especially, when companies try to “look after” the volunteers, who paid, the focus will be on the volunteers not the project, which is harmful because the outcome is about the volunteers’ experience, not the success of the service. Because of this “projects that are primarily about you as the participant tend to be short lived, low-effort and frequently without a long-term goal – since the “goal” is not developmental at all. It is about making you feel good. Putting the power of the free market to efficiently satisfy demands together with narcissistic fantasies of helping the impoverished is a recipe for disaster” (“Why You Shouldn’t Participate in Voluntourism”). Paying to volunteer, the majority of the time leads to greater consequences to the community and ineffective service.
Now, volunteering has become a phenomenon, colleges requiring it for acceptance, and it is needed on resumes. This seemingly good thing is in fact very bad. This “requirement” to service causes people to serve out of force, not passion. If one is not passionate towards the service, the work done will not be as good, and the attitudes will be bad. In a high school volunteer study, “…the number of hours volunteered made no difference to the likelihood of engaging in problem behaviors and that the only volunteer work that had this beneficial effect was work students selected and found enjoyable, and which challenged them to think about future goals and taught them new skills” (Musick). So, volunteering can have benefitting affects to the server; however, if they do it because they are forced, it has absolutely no effect. Students and volunteers need to volunteer by choice with passion in order to actually achieve a good, positive, outcome.
Another negative of volunteering is the “narrowed in” problem. Volunteers will address only one issue in a community that was perceived to be a problem by the media and outsiders, not the community. Often the issue does not affect the majority of the community, and thus the help is not benefitting the community as a whole. This is caused because people see “these negative images, which can be conceived as a kind of mental “map” of the neighborhood often convey part of the truth about the actual conditions of a troubled community. But they are not regarded as part of the truth; they are regarded as the whole truth” (Kretzmann and Mcknight). This causes volunteers going into neighborhoods thinking if they solve one problem, they solve all the problems. Often, lacking knowledge on the issue and inside, causing the problem to repeat. The volunteers often do not solve the problem because the community needs to be involved in order to solve the problem, and truly help. There are many criticism of volunteering including education, misconceptions, voluntourism, and others.
When addressing all the criticism and negatives of volunteering, the positives cannot be overlooked. Especially, if people research and prepare before becoming involved in a project much of these criticisms can be avoided. Cole’s friend said, “It’s more a person-to-person thing, and it’s us trying to be a friendly to people who aren’t having the best of times. I know, it does help everyone—the community—when you go and visit the folks, but I don’t think of it as service. To me, service means, like, the military, or you’re doing something you’ve got to do, or you’ve been told to do it, or you’ve been sentenced to it. To me, what we do is—well, it’s trying to offer something from our hearts, only we all got together, and we’re organized about it” (Coles). That quote summarizes the good in service, and the correct attitude to have. Often people just want to be heard, and listened too, and feel a connection, that is service. Because “the practice of story creates a social net that makes us capable of seeing each other’s unique contributions and incapable of simply dismissing someone as “not like me”. When we live in a family, community, a country where we knew each other’s true stories, we remember our capacity to lean in and love each other into wholeness” (Baldwin). This is important to stress the good of a community, connections, and one’s personal story. Also, that service is not always about how one changes the world, but how affecting one person’s life and a community creates good, a service. Also, “community offers the promise of belonging and calls for us to acknowledge our interdependence. To feel a sense of belonging is important because it will lead us from conversations about safety and comfort to other conversations, such as our relatedness and willingness to provide hospitality and generosity. These are two elements that we want to nurture as we work to create, strengthen, and restore our communities” (Block). This shows, by developing a community, a lot of good can be created. People are treated equally and have the desire and passion to serve and help. This is good, this is a positive of service because the people are serving because of the sense of community, the wanting to help their “family”. Also, often service can make a community grow and develop a bond. A major fault of serving is “pretending service is simple, we risk turning service bad—bad for the served and for the server. And by pretending service is simple, we saddle ourselves with a burden we do not acknowledge” (Davis). This is the “solution” to the criticisms, looking at service seriously and challenging, like a job. If people serve with the correct attitude, desire, and passion, then they will be more interested and committed to the service. Also, people need to research before they join a service project to make sure the focus is the service, not the experience. Another huge impact is training and educating the servers before they serve. If they are prepared and educated on the culture and place, they will be able to create a positive outcome. The community is another important factor, service needs to incorporate the community to ensure continuation and self-improvement to make a difference. Many of the criticisms of volunteering would not exist if people did not just “jump into” a service project, but instead researched, prepared, learned, and had a passion towards the opportunity.
“Why are you even here?” this question is often heard at many service events. When it is asked, one might not know how to respond thinking to themselves, wondering if there reasons are sufficient enough. The reason this question often evokes that response is because the question comes across as a criticism. I think people ask this because they want to know one’s intentions and reasons to partake in the event. Perhaps accusatory, but also perhaps because they are interested and curious in that person. A think the responses vary person to person, but for me I would respond I am here because I have a desire to learn more and experience new things, while hopefully positively contributing. I believe it is better to show one’s intentions by having a positive attitude, willingness to learn and experience new things, and fully helping to your ability. However, I do not think it is an appropriate question, but instead “What learning occurred for you in this experience?”, or “what did you learn about the people/community” (Hill)? I think these are better questions because they replace the criticism. Also, these questions allow for a reflection on the service done, allowing the person to reflect on the impacts of what they did. This would also change people’s attitudes of people serving for negatives reasons, but instead allow the opportunity to think reflectively on the service and see the positive outcomes and knowledge gained.
- Simpson, Kate. "Is Voluntourism Doing Any Good? No!" Wanderlust June-July 2007: n. pag. Web.
http://www.wanderlust.co.uk/magazine/articles/destinations/is-voluntourism-doing-any-good-no - Birrell, Ian. "Before You Pay to Volunteer Abroad, Think of the Harm You Might Do." The Guardian. N.p., n.d. Web.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/nov/14/orphans-cambodia-aids-holidays-madonna - Papi, Daniela. "Viewpoint: Is Gap Year Volunteering a Bad Thing?" BBC News. N.p., 1 May 2013. Web.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22294205 - Illich, Ivan. To Hell with Good Intentions. New York: n.p., n.d. Print. file:///C:/Users/Kara/Downloads/Illich%20-%20To%20Hell%20with%20Good%20Intentions.pdf
- "Why You Shouldn’t Participate in Voluntourism." Matador Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2015.
http://matadornetwork.com/change/why-you-shouldnt-participate-in-voluntourism/ - Wilson, John, and Marc Musick. "The Effects of Volunteering on the Volunteer." Law and Contemporary Problems 62.4 (1999): 141. Web.
http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1150&context=lcp - Kretzmann, John, and John P. Mcknight. "Assets-based Community Development." National Civic Review Nat Civic Rev 85.4 (1996): 23-29. Web.
file:///C:/Users/Kara/Downloads/Kretzmann%20and%20McKnight.%20Assets%20Based%20Community%20Development%20(1).pdf - Coles, Robert. The Call of Service: A Witness to Idealism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. Print.
file:///C:/Users/Kara/Downloads/Coles%20-%20Call%20to%20Service.pdf - Davis, Adam. What We Don't Talk About When We Don't Talk About Service. The Great Books Foundation, 2006.: n.p., n.d. Print. file:///C:/Users/Kara/Downloads/Davis.%20What%20we%20don't%20talk%20about....pdf
- Baldwin, Christina. Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2005. Print.
file:///C:/Users/Kara/Downloads/Baldwin%20Preface%20and%20Ch%201.pdf - Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2008. Print.
file:///C:/Users/Kara/Downloads/Block%20-%20Intro%20&%20Chapter%201.pdf - Hill, Claudia. "Scaffolding Reflection: What, So What, Now What?" Experience-Driven Leader Development (2013): 229-33. Web.
https://canvas.vt.edu/courses/9068/files/folder/Reading%2520PDFs?preview=16310