It's a debate as old as volunteering itself: can volunteering do harm rather than good, do volunteers steal jobs from locals, and are volunteers without transferable skills better off staying at home? While we would argue that volunteering is always a force for good and that there are thousands of opportunities available for everyone - regardless of their qualifications, there is little doubt that volunteers do, in some instances, get exploited.

Unfortunately, where there is money to be made there will always be someone willing to take advantage of the situation, regardless of its cost to other.

Just under two weeks ago, on the 14th of November, the Guardian newspaper ran an article on the darker side of volunteering. They claim that the orphans found in some orphanages are not orphans at all, that some of them have been bought simply to be exploited as a means of attracting wealthy tourists and getting them to open their wallets.  This summary statement conveys the general tone of the article quite well: "Unless we have time and transferable skills, we might do better to travel, trade and spend money in developing countries" (Guardian, 14/11/10, link above).

Kaya Responsible Travel wrote a press release in response to the above mentioned Guardian article and asked us to post it to our site, which we were of course more than glad to do:

 London – 25 November 2010 – Following the recent media coverage regarding international volunteering projects, Kaya Responsible Travel would like to issue a statement regarding their own work behind the scenes, ensuring that all of their projects are working to provide a positive impact in local communities, often in areas where tourism doesn’t exist. 

The Guardian Report released on 14th November referenced volunteer projects in Cambodia and Africa which cater to ‘tourists’ while increasing the burden on local staff, rather than working to increase local gain.

Kaya recognizes that these practices occur, which is why responsible volunteering organizations like Kaya work so hard to identify those projects with true needs where volunteers can really make a difference.

Kaya’s principles are to establish right from the onset, projects that genuinely need the physical help of volunteer workers, and often these are located far off the tourist trail. A financial need alone cannot be addressed by volunteers and Kaya strikes a balance between providing donations and financial support which ensures that the projects do not become financially dependent on volunteers – imperative when natural disasters, infectious flu viruses and other elements affect the country and volunteer numbers drop.

In most instances, Kaya has identified the projects that are being run by local communities and have addressed the issues that they themselves are dealing with on a day-to-day basis and those activities that can benefit from the help of interested volunteers. In all of these cases, volunteers provide a supporting role to local staff, ensuring that at no point the volunteer is ousting the local member of staff from their position.

Included in Kaya’s project fees is the cost of our on-the-ground volunteer coordinator. The role of these individuals is to look after the needs of a volunteer in country – not only with regards to housing and meals, but in many instances the cultural shock experienced by volunteers often result in them needing a lot of attention. With staff on-hand to do this, Kaya’s projects are not burdened with this aspect of foreign visitors so that they can focus on the work they have in hand.

So when the question is raised “Do volunteers do more harm than good?” Kaya says that when you work with reputable and responsible organizations, the people you should be asking are:
-    The children of the Philippines Bliss Housing project who have recovered from varying states of malnutrition thanks to Kaya’s community feeding and nutrition programme (when the child in the picture above joined the feeding program he was dangerously underweight and covered in sores from malnutrition).
-    The 2,000 families that have had clean-burning stoves installed in their homes in Peru over the past 10 years; lowering their incidents of respiratory disease and raising life expectancy for women and children.
-    The 3 girls from Kaya’s rural Vietnamese orphanage who were sponsored onto an international hospitality training program this year on the strength of their spoken English.
-    The 1000 children from South African townships whose computer literacy skills will now open doors to better paid jobs.

Volunteers can make a difference, and to make sure your volunteer experience benefits the right people, check out these and many more valuable projects on www.KayaVolunteer.com

For more information contact Heilwig Jones on info@kayavolunteer.com or call +44 (0) 161 870 6212

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