Journal 2: Volunteering versus Service

Reaction to a TED Talk.

My reaction to Daniela’s talk is that I agree with the entire discussion. As someone who has done two previous volunteer tourism trips abroad, one where we helped rebuild a primary school and one where we spent time in an orphanage, Daniela’s talk really resonated with me. While I do believe that what Daniela said about volunteer tourism programs is very real, I believe that the previous programs I attended and the one I am participating in now in the Dominican Republic have taken a “learn first, serve later” approach.

I am very grateful for this approach because as Daniela said in her talk, it fosters the desire to pursue long-term development work that will empower communities to solve local problems. I really enjoyed her use of the metaphor for service: “If you plant papayas, you can’t get mangos.” This metaphor applies to service because when volunteering you cannot produce long-term development solutions by focusing on the short-term, which is why she wants to change the development aid vocabulary from “service-learning” to “learning-service.” I believe that this change in approach will positively affect UF and ISA’s reciprocal relationship with Acción Callejera because it will more accurately frame both of our expectations of “success.” I would define “success” when it comes to my service placement with Acción Callejera as fulfilling my role as a helpful observer.

Focusing on the short-term is very common in travel volunteerism and it can cause more harm than good. For example, traveling to an orphanage to volunteer could keep young children trapped in a situation where they do not have access to their parents. Travel volunteering differs from service-learning because service-learning is designed to focus less on providing aid and doing, and more on observing and education. Service-learning attempts to address and ameliorate the issues raised by travel volunteering and voluntourism by taking a less hands-on approach and focusing on listening to community organizations true needs. Service-learning does not attempt to solve complex problems overnight.