Want to do good and travel at the same time?: Be a voluntourist!
- By Savueroftheworld and Khineseoul
- Oct 23, 2017
- 1 min read
Visit the tranquil rural village of Cambodia and experience the REAL life while helping others! Perfect solution to escaping city life, ain’t it? Because our modern technology-hungry life is no longer considered authentic, it can only be found elsewhere. What’s more? You can play with young children and takes lots of those inspiring selfies showing the world how much love you shower on those endearing little angels! P.s. your resume (and facebook profile pic) will also look a whole lot better *wink*
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Seriously tho,
Travel guides often promote the benefits of being a voluntourists to both the volunteer and the community. While there are tangible benefits of volunteering overseas, it is important to be ask yourself: What are your motivations and intentions for deciding to volunteer overseas? This is important as it can affect your expectations of the voluntourism trip and when your expectations are unmet this may negatively influence your interactions with the local community. You may also inadvertently reinforce certain stereotypes of the host community and perpetuate unequal power relationships. For instance, the seemingly innocent act of posting photos of yourself and young children might actually reinforce the unequal power relations of yourself as the privileged “tourist” helping the less privileged “local” who passively accepts your care without taking into account wider structural issues that perpetuates this unequal power relationships.
If you have ever volunteered overseas, what were your motivations for doing so?
Image sources: Travel Centre Australia and Volunteer Weekly
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