Notes from “What?” Dialogue Event

Group 1

• Do we go to a country to help or should we wait for them to invite us?
• Attitude of us as volunteers or workers toward the communities we work in
• Tourism – should we go to other countries as tourists and feed the local economy so that the work can be done internally, or should we go and do the work?
• “untrained” students doing the jobs of skilled workers in international settings – does this imply that our resources are only valuable for our own students?
• Should you research issues before you go abroad or “find out” when you arrive?
• History & cultural understanding is very important pre-travel
• Important to see people as people, move away from the charity model
• Important to educate yourself about the culture and people who live in the region where you hope to work.
• To what extent should we self-educate? Can a “façade” of cultural knowledge lead to misunderstandings on deeper aspects and history of the culture.
• It is important to be honest about the fact that you are still learning, that although you may look like you understand the culture you are wanting to learn from the people you are interacting with
• Knowledge & understanding can be secondary to attitude; approaching things with humility is important
• Understanding you need to “help” with respect; move away from the saviour complex.

Group 2

• Understanding the community that we would work in, are we there for how they need us or how we think they might need us?
• Who are we “replacing” by coming into another community and working there? Who else might do this job better as a citizen/resident of that community? Why are we “replacing” them?
• The concept of donations and how they are used
• Danger of going with a “cookie-cutter” volunteer experience and being removed from the population that you are working in and the people involved in all aspects of the project
• Without being able to stop people from going, how do we ensure that people are going with the right motivation. Should we screen volunteers?
• With volunteer screening how can we help to ensure that rejected volunteers still have access to resources that might help
• The “business” side of volunteering, how funds are used, etc.
• Important to consider how we present ourselves as volunteers and who are we presenting ourselves to? What are the motivations of our community partners and the community we are involved with?

Group 3

• The common ethical dilemma of medical students (health care students) working in fields that they are unqualified for or underqualified for
• Open heart surgery by med students abroad
• Performing physical therapy on children with disabilities with the full support of the partner organization but without formal training in physical therapy
• Why does this happen and why are these students allowed to carry out these activities when local health care workers are aware that students are not qualified? Perhaps they feel pressure to allow unethical behaviour to foster the continuation of visiting volunteers/financial contributions.

Group 4

• Sense of urgency in school, might fuel the behaviour of rejected volunteers just jumping to other organizations and trying again rather than critical appraisal of the underlying reason for the rejection.
• Patience is important in approaching communities in service learning, in terms of identifying community needs that can be addressed by international service learners.
• University trains students to identify problems, address them and fix them;

Group 5

• The attitude of underqualification is better than no qualification
• This dilemma of the question of some help does save some people; is it better to not help at all?
• Concept of dignity and is that an appropriate first principle for measuring or talking about ethics. Is it enough to consider not compromising someone’s dignity as an axiom?
• This raises the dilemma of the culturally fluid definition of dignity
• Sending underqualified people into a community is a betrayal of community’s trust spoiling future opportunities for qualified support
• Is it enough to allow vulnerable people to make their own choices in times of dire need?
• Does the presence of an underqualified foreign person hinder the development of a self-sufficient system in the community
• Negative reactions & perceptions of “voluntourism & saviour” ISL opportunities, the need to find a balance and reciprocity within ISL opportunities; doing ISL in a sustainable way
• Seems to be a lack of organizations that are willing to put ethics at the forefront of their ISL opportunities
• This may occur because of the pressure on students from professional & graduate schools to have ISL experiences
• Voluntourism is a product marketed to people, and responds to a demand in the ISL community. The business of voluntourism is the driving force rather than reciprocity, exchange in trades or ethics.