Due to the high “demand for globally-minded people,” it is becoming increasingly more important for young adults to travel abroad for their professional careers. Through travel, one may gain a global perspective, a strong independence, and acquire valuable skills for their future professional careers such as, networking and bilingualism (Rodriguez). In addition to advancing one’s professional career, young adults are driven to travel to gain personal experience. Unlike previous generations, millennials prioritize personal experiences over ownership. This millennial generation has the natural urge to explore and experience the world. Due to the importance of gaining experience and a global education, the opportunities available for travel abroad have drastically increased over the years, particularly for college students. A type of study abroad that has recently blossomed is international volunteering. Volunteering in developing nations has become so popular among young adults today that an industry has formed from it.  This industry is referred to as voluntourism, a term that binds volunteering with tourism. Although only prominent since 2000, this industry has grown to be a $173 billion-dollar industry annually. This industry was supposed to benefit both the volunteers and the developing nations, providing volunteers with a once in a life time experience while developing nations “benefited from the rise of tourism and labor” in their communities. Though voluntourism organizations claim to be positively impacting developing countries, they are in fact doing more harm than good. They are criticized for its laudable character, ethical status, and increasing amount of commercialization (Benson). Voluntourism organizations and their volunteers, though unaware, are practicing irresponsible volunteering by creating dependency on westward civilization and lacking the long-term solutions necessary for developing nations. Voluntourism is an irresponsible way of volunteering due to dependency on westward civilization and the lack of long term solutions, therefore principles must be established to ensure volunteering is beneficial to a community. 

Voluntourism organizations are harming developing nations and exploiting their volunteers through the overpricing of their service trips, all for “the sake of profit and corporate advantage” (Saiidi).  Volunteer vacations are extremely expensive, costing thousands of dollars for food, lodging, airfare, and other expenses the organization may have. World Teach, a voluntourism organization specializing in international trips for educators, offers packages ranging from $1,000 to nearly $6,000 teach in Columbia, China, or developing African nations” (Cox). Volunteers believe their money is covering the cost of their living expenses and funding volunteer projects that the community would benefit from. Rather than their money going directly to the host organization or local community, voluntourism and intermediary organizations are pocketing most, if not all the money. These organizations are only interested in making a profit, and they are simply taking advantage of the volunteer’s good intentions and desire to change the lives of others around the world.

Short-term solutions from voluntourism are causing developing communities around the world to become dependent on the aid of western societies rather than fulfilling their own society’s needs. A prime example of this dependency is demonstrated by the numerous medical mission trips that are taken annually to Honduras, the most dangerous and poverty stricken country in the world not currently in warfare. Medical teams from all over the world arrive in the local communities of Honduras roughly around every three months.  Due to the consistency of the volunteer’s arrivals, community members often postpone the treatment of their symptoms to until another medical team arrives in the area. Individuals would rather prolong their suffering rather than address their needs or concerns immediately. Lauren Kascak, a former voluntourist, observed that if community members were aware of an upcoming medical trip in their area, they were less likely to purchase health insurance. They did this, and continue to do so, because community members rely on these teams to bring them medication and treat their illnesses. 

Due to the delay treatment, communities are left “susceptible to disease” and the ill continue to suffer (Wesby). Individuals who wait for the aid of medical teams could be unemployed for months due to their illness or situation. In result of this unemployment, this person now has no income and is unable to support their family. Now if this person would have gotten insurance, they could have visited a clinic, could have been treated, could be healthy, working, providing for their family, and contributing to their local economy, yet they didn’t get insurance. The doctors and individuals who make up these medical teams, have pure intentions. Volunteers hope to heal and transform many lives during the duration of their trip yet they are often unaware that their actions could be detrimental to community members in the future. 

Not only do short term mission trips influence the future of community members, the unprepared and untrained volunteers associated with these trips have an immediate influence over individuals and their lives. Although some volunteers have the necessary training and skills required for participating in their volunteer activities and practices, many do not. Appalling enough, many of these amateur volunteers are found among medical teams preforming tasks they have no prior knowledge or experience with. Many of these volunteers are aspiring medical students who want to gain experience and offer their assistance. They preform duties such as consulting, delivering babies, and preforming amputations. Dr. Jessica Evert, a physician and avid advocate for global health education, attended a medical mission trip to Kenya during her first year of college and was required to perform a spinal tap on a child. The child “was held down and there was no anesthetic…[she] ended up not doing the procedure [correctly] so it delayed his diagnosis” (Fu). Dr. Evert was put into a situation she was then not prepared or trained to handle and in result, the poor child suffered. Unfortunately, events like Evert’s happen all the time in developing countries. Patients go to clinics set up by these medical teams expecting to receive the proper medical care, yet they are unaware they’re being diagnosed and treated by “untrained and unlicensed students who are poorly supervised” (Fu). Pre-professional medical and amateur volunteers should not be “treating or administrating medical care without the proper training” (Fu). This is an example of irresponsible volunteering, allowing these individuals to do so is extremely dangerous for patients and overall unethical. 

Rather than focusing on short term solutions like medical mission trips, volunteers should focus their efforts on providing a long-term solution. Though short term solutions do help in the moment, it’s like putting a Band-Aid on a shot wound, it doesn’t address the real problems. 

Long term solutions should establish the infrastructure for the communities to thrive. This could be done by establishing structures and facilities. Instead of sending a medical team, they should build local clinic where the locals may receive treatment. They should provide them with the education and resources a clinic must have, including the education of a trained professional. By educating the community and teaching them skills, they can provide for themselves and their families in the long run (Kushner). 

An example of an organization that provides long term solutions is Students Helping Honduras. Honduras is the second poorest nation in the western hemisphere having 66.2% of its population living in poverty. Honduras has the worst gang epidemic on the planet, making it a very dangerous country where thousands of children are recruited each year to join gangs like MS-13. The citizens are in constant fear of controlling gangs and corrupt government officials. Students Helping Honduras believes the only way to “alleviate extreme poverty and violence in Honduras is through education and youth empowerment” (Fujiyama). There are one thousand villages reported that do not have schools, therefore all the children living in these villages do not have access to an education. It is Students Helping Honduras’s goal to build one thousand schools all over the country so every village will have a school and every child may obtain an education. If someone is educated they are more likely to be employed, successful, and able to provide for their families. Education is opportunity. The country will not see an immediate effect yet the individuals educated over the years will soon become the country’s future leaders (Fujiyama). 

Though formed on good intentions, voluntourism organizations and volunteers are harming the developing communities they believe they are helping. Due to the lack of communication between the organizations and the communities, projects are often completed that do not benefit the communities and their fundamental needs. To ensure that this not the case, there should be a conscious effort made to learn more about the developing community. The volunteers should understand and respect the community’s beliefs, cultures, and customs. There should also be an understanding of the significant events and the struggles the community has faced. Students Helping Honduras educates their volunteers on the issues people face in the country of Honduras and they examine what the root causes are. They also ensure that all their volunteers learn about and respect the Honduran culture. To volunteer responsibly, organizations must also be in correspondence with the leaders of the community. The community leaders know the needs of their people and community better than anyone else. They should be in communication with the organization in regards to their needs. They should then discuss the possible solutions available, agree on one, and then create a feasible plan to achieve it. Students Helping Honduras makes this easy to achieve because all staff members have a permanent presence in Honduras and interact and collaborate with members of the community daily. Additionally, the leaders of the community should be the head of the projects. By giving them a leadership position, they have a since of ownership and control of their environment. There should be no handouts, handouts create dependency. Students Helping Honduras also achieves this because “nearly 100% of their ground staff are Honduran” (Fujiyama).

Though international service trips have good intentions, their volunteer labor is depriving local communities from possible employment opportunities. Many service trips are construction based, building schools or homes for individuals in the communities. Though unintended, the free labor of their volunteers take away jobs from the locals therefore these service projects are perfect examples of the loss of employment opportunities among community members. Instead of amateur volunteers traveling to a developing country to build a school, they could pay local construction workers to build it instead. The school would be built in a timely matter and would be constructed in good condition, much better than the volunteers would have built. It would also have created employment for local carpenters, painters, and handymen. These workers now have a job, so they are earning a wage. Because they are earning a wage, they can put food on the table and provide for their families. Now not only do the workers and their families benefit, so do local businesses and the economy. This different way of volunteering is beneficial to many individuals in developing communities, yet some volunteers would be hesitant to support. 

Though financial contributions would provide employment to locals and establish necessary infrastructures, individuals may be hesitant to support.  Volunteers would not have the experience or benefits of volunteering; therefore, support would be scarce. Although volunteering is viewed as a selfless act, volunteers are in fact very selfish and always have something to gain. Volunteers are all about the experience. They want to travel, meet new people, learn more about the world, and engage in hands on activities. They want to have the experience of helping people and they want what it makes them feel, which making them feel better about themselves. There is nothing wrong with volunteers being a little selfish, they deserve to have a memorable experience as well.

It is important for volunteering to have an appropriate balance between benefiting the volunteers and the community. With that being said, Students Helping Honduras demonstrates the perfect balance between volunteer experience and community benefits. The organization puts on three different trips volunteers can attend throughout the year during winter break, spring break, and summer break. In the morning time, volunteers work alongside Honduran construction workers to build schools in surrounding villages and play with the kids. In the afternoons, volunteers experience culture through food, music, dance, language, and soccer. In the evenings, volunteers attend seminars and workshops that educate them about Honduras and the countries major issues. Volunteers get to have this amazing experience in a foreign country doing fun things, meeting incredible people, and forming new relationships.  That is not the main purpose for the trip, it is to learn about the issues of the country and understand them, experience it, and then create a game plan to fundraise for the schools to be built when one returns home. 

Though voluntourism organizations claim to be positively impacting developing countries, they are in fact doing more harm than good. They are criticized for its laudable character, ethical status, and increasing amount of commercialization (Benson). Voluntourism organizations and their volunteers, though unaware, are practicing irresponsible volunteering by creating dependency on westward civilization and lacking the long-term solutions necessary for developing nations. Voluntourism is an irresponsible way of volunteering due to the creation of dependency on westward civilization and the lack of long term solutions. Because the volunteering principles of voluntourism organizations are considered irresponsible, they should be reformed to ensure volunteering is beneficial to a community.
