see previous post (or the first of the thread). the question i was asking wasn’t ever about someone who has unlimited funds at their disposal to spend as they wish. it was about the concept of someone asking for donations to fund their a trip to go help africans at a rather large expense.
maybe i’m wrong, but since that was the initial question, it seems convoluting to toss in the aspect that anyone who has enough money to do whatever they want and go anyplace they want shouldn’t be criticized if they want to spend it on a trip to africa.
because of course they shouldnt. that was never a debate.
Okay, I guess I totally misread many posts. There’s been a lot of discussion of why voluntourists are not particularly helpful, and a small number of mentions of someone asking for donations.
Someone asking for a donation for their vacation is wrong. Just because they’re going to dig a well instead of seeing a museum doesn’t mean it isn’t a vacation. Somewhere there’s a line to be crossed from voluntourism to actual charity work, but the OP’s friend clearly isn’t very close to that line.
There’s no much room for a debate, either, in the question asked in your first paragraph. It’s rather obvious that your donation is helping mostly your friend and not much Africans. That’s why I said it’s more IMHO than GD material.
obvious to you, because that’s your opinion. but a lot of volunteers (most of them) would argue you to the death. as they would me (and have). it’s easy for you to just make a blanket “clearly this is correct” statement from your internet throne, but trust me–until i asked here, i hadn’t found a single person involved in this stuff who agreed. don’t under estimate the disconnect between someone’s well-meaning, whole-hearted intentions and the conflict of reality. whole hearts obfuscate practicality sometimes.
my friend who went to chad guilted me for “my clearly cynical attitude” to the point i started to wonder if my point of view was forged from being a terrible person (probably it still is, probably).
if you think the answer is obvious and this just wankin’, don’t participate. i think if it wasn’t a debatable topic, the mods would have moved it (maybe complain to them?)
i can assure you, i won’t have ask had i not been seeking honest input. and i wouldn’t have asked *here *if i hadn’t thought there would be disparity in viewpoints.
but for as much as you’re insisting it wasn’t a debate, you seem rather enlightened by the article above…
reality is the idealists and the pragmatists rarely meet in the middle. i dont see nearly as many idealists on this forum as i find in my daily life, so this community’s point of view is far more objective that my real monkeysphere.
Frankly, jumpy, I am doubting your willingness to engage in nuanced, not-black-and-white thinking.
Some people are indeed naive dreamers. What are you going to do about it? Badgering them into feeling like bad people isn’t going to do the trick. It’s just going to make them defensive and make you come off as a know-it-all asshole.
The best way to temper naivety is actual real-life firsthand experience. If your friends are so starry-eyed and deluded, they would probably benefit greatly from having an in-person encounter with how stuff actually works. Working in development is rarely a feel-good experience. You encounter a lot of bad stuff, and it hardens everyone eventually. Maybe if they go out there and see the corruption, the bullshit bureaucracies, the contradictions, and all of the evil assholes who are getting in the way of development, they will realize that the solutions are not just a matter of cheerful goodwill.
Consider, for a moment, that maybe this is what your friend needs right now. Maybe they will eventually come to see things your way, but they need to make that journey on their own so that they can come to their own conclusions. And maybe this trip is filling in some hole in their knowledge, experience, or emotional life that needs to be filled before they can move on to a more mature understanding of the world. It may not be the best thing, they may be ultimately wrong, but it may also be exactly what they need right now.
You are not going to be the one to make them see things otherwise. Whether they are motivated by naive enthusiasm, religious fervor, residual missionary impulses or just mis-information, the knowledge they need isn’t something that can be learned second hand.
Precisely, the links covers much more issues than simply youngsters asking for money to go to Africa. There are many articles about people donating stuff, for instance. Or whether or not supporting orphanages is a good idea (something I hadn’t considered until now as being possibly an issue). Or the problems of voluntourism (as in : you pay your own way) which you want to exclude from the debate. Even the issue : “should you donate anything (including money)?” is covered. It’s much broader.
There is certainly matter for a debate, but I find your OP too restrictive.
you certainly aren’t one to be accusing people of “black and white” thinking. you just insisted that no one believes the things these people i’ve been talking to believe. “NO ONE,” you said.
honestly, between you presuming things and injecting your already-made-up mind and raven’s absolute misreading and full ignoring of portions of the conversation, you have convoluted this into oblivion.
and now you’re presuming i wanted to change anyone’s mind. when did i indicate i wanted to adjust anyone’s line of thinking?
because i don’t. i have no desire, nor will i even discuss this with them. this conversation was born of the things i’ve said 20 times now that you can’t seem to understand: THESE PEOPLE TOLD ME I WAS FLAT OUT WRONG. that it IS worth them being on the ground, at any cost.
you started debating at me as if my stance was helping people in general is stupid. i never attacked volunteerism in general nor did i dismiss any value in any of this stuff. i was asking about help vs cost vs efficiency.
i get it–you like helping people and and went on the immediate defense…but i never attacked volunteerism in general.
rather than just READ what i said, or asking things, you’ve assumed everything…incorrectly…and made mud of the conversation.
i never said i was out to change anyone’s mind. this was simply me asking if the way i was thinking about the specific issue of cost/help/efficiency was wrong.
i am sure there are a lot of iffy aspects of charity in general, but that seems like a much larger umbrella.
and i am more than willing to discuss those things, but i’m not sure a few people around here know how conversations work.
i ask if buying a car from a private seller is more cost effective than going through a dealer–and i’m hit with a lecture on the positive aspects of driving in general…like asking about cost effectiveness presumes i must think driving is stupid in general.
this whole things has been fairly retarded.
so–we can talk about any other aspects you want, just don’t presume stances i don’t take or things i haven’t said.
frankly, i believe charity is tricky business and must be dealt with carefully, with a lot of aforethought. most people who genuinely need help aren’t the ones out asking for it; most of the people out asking for it do so because it works and it’s easy. not because they are in genuine need.
it gets into a lot of very complicated aspects of sociology and economics, but we sure can talk about it.
How these things are supposed to work is that you pay your own expenses and anything you raise goes direct to the charity. I would agree that it is inefficient and possibly immoral to raise money for the trip itself under the guise of helping africa.
I would also agree that there is possibly a grey area but that would be at the point where the expenses are of low material value versus the charitable work itself, which in the examples in this thread they are not.
Whats wrong with helping the poor in your own communities ?
Not exotic enough maybe?
Stories not so interesting when you’re at parties afterwards ?
A bit too close to the nitty gritty of getting your hands dirty perhaps ?
These schemes are little more then adventure holidays for people who want other people to feel good about them, and hopefully pay out for their holiday.
Agreed, going to Africa to “do good” is counterproductive-the money spent for you would be better spent hiring local people-they could use the wages. Its like what happened in Haiti, after the earthquake-thousands of NGO employees flooded in, all equipped with 4WD trucks. These people were mostly paid in cash, so restaurants (featuring imported food) sprang up for them. All the money was eaten up by the “Aid Workers”, very little went to the locals. Professional do-gooders (like Bill Clinton) showed up, gave speeches, and went home. Net result, almost zero.
And Parisians would benefit more if Americans simply sent their vacation dollars directly to them, as opposed to having Americans travel to Paris and take up valuable space on the Metro.
Volunteering at home is good, too. I’d rather see someone make a sustained and deep commitment at an organization at home than a short trip abroad.
But traveling abroad is a good thing in general. Cultural exchange is always a good thing. Broadening your horizons is always a good thing. Getting to know a new place is always a good thing. You can do these things at home, of course. But being in a different language, culture, physical setting and way of life can be lead to a lot of learning in a short time. On a social level, America needs intercultural skills in order to remain internationally competitive.
It is not either/or. If volunteer tourism is the only good thing you will ever do in your life, I’d encourage you to do a little soul searching. But for most people, it’s one of the many many things things they fill their life with.