Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
orphanage
Children at an orphanage in the Central African Republic Photograph: MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images
Children at an orphanage in the Central African Republic Photograph: MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images

Volunteering overseas: the best method for creating new aid workers?

This article is more than 9 years old
Anonymous

One aid worker reflects backs on volunteering they did early in their career and tries to answer the age old question - do volunteers do more harm than good?

I started my career in development in a small orphanage in a developing country. It was run by a national religious charity, and most of the children living there had parents, but had been removed from their care by the judicial system. These children had been abandoned several times by their parents, wider family, and the authorities. After a significant period of time attempting to provide them with some love, I did the same: I left.

Not long after I went, another young person filled my shoes. While she was there, one child was kidnapped by his parents who wanted him to pickpocket in the market for them. This put him in danger of abuse and a potential prison sentence, if not worse. Soon after the incident,the new volunteer left as well. And eventually, the charity collapsed and the children found themselves spread across a new set of institutions, or simply back on the streets.

Several years later, I returned and met up with some of the same children. They were bitter and angry at me. I couldn’t blame them. I too had abandoned them, betrayed their trust. Had they grown up in western Europe or North America, they would be offered a hell of a lot of psychological therapy for that kind of childhood.

It wasn’t until several years later that I discovered Mary Anderson’s Do No Harm principles. The principles focus on the impact of aid on conflict, but the idea that we should all be responsible for the consequences of our actions rings true for all those working in another country. However, this requires awareness, which young or inexperienced volunteers don’t always have. Very few of my fellow young volunteers would see any harm from what they did during their three months in Uganda or two weeks in Nepal. And most probably didn’t cause any harm. But did they help? Or was this purely a learning experience for them?

I learnt a lot from my first experience. I left aid work and began a completely different career which made me much better suited to the sector when I did return. Nevertheless, that very first job had shown me some of the problems with the sector, so that when I returned, I did so with open eyes. Volunteering on a small project overseas quickly builds essential experience for aid work, such as an understanding of working in a developing country, an ability to work with a diverse range of people from different backgrounds, and a willingness to live in basic conditions.

However, voluntary service can also instil the wrong attitudes and ideas which can be extremely damaging to the humanitarian sector. Voluntary service is included in some lists of humanitarian principles, namely those of the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, but the original Dunantist principles focus on humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence. Few, if any volunteers are provided with the longer list of principles. Back in the orphanage, I had no idea about impartiality or neutrality. I was encouraged to get money or resources from any possible source. I was taught to believe that if I didn’t then the children wouldn’t have any bread for their breakfast. I cosied up to local politicians, and I put on a frock to attend high society events with the cutest looking child. Much worse, I never considered that my short-term presence could do more harm than good, or that the children I worked with could ever be angry with me for my “help”.

By effectively requiring new humanitarian workers to have worked as volunteers, we are instilling the idea that aid is just volunteerism, plus money and better technology. These new aid workers often come from an environment where they were never asked to think about whether they could do harm, and where it was inherently assumed that they were doing good just from being there. The attitudes which are instilled at these early stages of a career are apparent throughout the aid sector. If we want to professionalise the sector, we could start off by professionalising our volunteers.

This blog was originally published on Aid Leap. Follow @aid_leap on Twitter.

Have you volunteered abroad? How did it shape you into the development professional you are today? Share your memories through our latest Guardian Witness assignment.

Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @GuardianGDP on Twitter.

Most viewed

Most viewed