What are your motivations?

Yesterday, after a talk with the EIESL team (Ethics of International Engagement and Service Learning) a friend of mine sent me this video and I think that it’s something that every person has to consider before engaging in any kind of ‘volunteering.’

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxoT8mH06xM&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

The Student Involvement Showcase in Brock Hall a few days ago made me think about this too… It was funny to see even the girls in charge of the Orientations booth joke about how many people volunteered only to get a shirt that says ‘I am UBC.’

It’s kind of sad, isn’t it? What do you think?

About Valentina

I'm from a small and beautiful town next to a big and amazing lake in Guatemala.
This entry was posted in Careers / Work, International, Involvement / Leadership, Wellness. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to What are your motivations?

  1. Miriam says:

    I was just thinking along similar lines again today. I wish I took the “So you want to Save Africa?” workshop at SLC to get more info about all these youth global volunteering programs…I’m sure they have good intentions, but…I have my doubts in terms of the efficacy…

  2. valentina says:

    Hey I took that workshop and it put things in a very good perspective. It wasn’t about volunteering but rather about how we speak out for what we believe in and how sometimes having good intentions is not enough. We tend to think that we can ‘solve’ a ‘problem’ when really the reasons for those problems are way over our knowledge. It’s kind of sad when we think about it, but it’s nice to see people talking about this and trying to find new ways to act.

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