Voluntourism has taken hold in western culture with students and professionals taking time to travel to foreign countries to provide “aid” in some form or another. People do this for various reasons but almost always the desired end product is the self satisfaction of having helped someone else in need. However, often times these volunteers aren’t helping as much as they would like to believe, in fact, sometimes they even undermine the ability for their host country to become self-sufficient from this type of “aid” in the future.
I had the opportunity to see Bill Clinton speak last May about his recent philanthropic work in Haiti. He spoke fondly of his time in Haiti and described the Haitian people as strong and with a proud culture full of ideas. He went on to say how the response received to the disaster by Americans and Canadians was incredible, with so many people donating money and time to this country in a time of great need.
However, President Clinton went on to say that despite all of the time and money given, it wasn’t enough. No, if we are truly to “re-build” Haiti it would require something that many voluntourists tend to leave in their home countries; open ears. Haiti needs to be built from the ground up with the Haitian people making the decisions as to how their country should be run.
Often volunteers go abroad with service programs only to be part of a system that unknowingly becomes a permanent crutch for the problems rather than a long term sustainable solution. I don’t believe that anyone is at fault for how foreign aid came to be this way as it is a by-product of a lot of factors in our home countries from budget constraints, media coverage to the impatient but understandable desire to want results “now”. But, if we are to truly help countries rebuild then we need to set our sights on the horizon rather than at our feet. Sure, sometimes when a countries infrastructure isn’t well established to handle some disasters it is good to give what I call “band-aid aid” to help alleviate the stress on the current civic resources but in places with no resources and no infrastructure then all the band-aid aid in the world won’t make a difference until a solid foundation is in place. In order for countries, like Haiti, to do this they don’t need a helping hand, they need partners who can commit resources and time to long term solutions.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, I look forward to questions or comments. Right now I’d like to ask what you think is the best way to go about achieving these long term solutions with these countries.
How can we help establish a framework for self-sufficiency from foreign aid?