Volunteer to Change The World Yourself
Photo credited to Kevin Dugan, founder of Fields of Growth
I posted a photo to my Instagram page; a “hashtag throwback Thursday” captioned I think it’s clear who had the best summer internship, location tagged as Trenchtown, Jamaica. It’s a candid photograph of me at the weekly USA vs Jamaica soccer match. The match is being played in the background of the shot, it’s out of focus but clear enough to provide context. I’m facing away from the camera, looking instead at the small boy to my right sporting a stained white t-shirt and a toothy grin. On my left is a little girl in an oversized green and yellow jersey with zigzag braids in her hair. I’m holding both of them. My lips are parted slightly as though I was on the verge of laughing. We look so happy and it’s pretty freaking adorable.
The picture is a lie. I remember the exact moment that photo was taken, and it was not a happy moment. The little girl was called La La and, had her face been angled toward the camera the picture would have told a more accurate story because she upset. The other kids had been picking on her, and I was holding her because someone had taken her shoes. I was holding the boy because he kept trying to pull La La out of my arms so that he could be held. I was not laughing at him; I was yelling because as soon as I had picked him up, he slapped La La across the face. Then someone shouted “Smile!” and click, it’s a pretty picture of an ugly moment. The photo earned 137 likes, which may not seem like a lot to most people but my pictures usually peak around 110 likes so it’s above my average. There are five comments on the post, all of which express admiration for my service or claim that I am an inspiration.
In 2016, I was scrolling through my instagram after lacrosse practice when I saw a photo that caught my eye. I normally don’t pay attention to the sponsored advertisements that pop up on my instagram feed, yet this photo that featured a large group of smiling people holding lacrosse sticks sandwiched between a Jamaican flag and an American flag caused me to stop absently scrolling through photos. I clicked the link and was lead to a website for a program called Lacrosse Volunteer Corps which is offered through the Fields of Growth organization. I had never been on a volunteer trip before and this seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to do something good and also have a great time in another country. I chose to go to Jamaica because I wanted to positively impact the state of the country and returned to the states feeling as though the country had made a positive impact on me. That’s great and all, but it all felt too self-congratulatory and disingenuous. My intentions had been good and my heart was in the right place. However, whenever I look at that picture, or similar pictures posted by my fellow volunteers, I feel overwhelmed with an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Photo credited to Kevin Dugan, founder of Fields of Growth
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I reached out to Shawn Humphrey, an economics professor at the University of Mary Washington who runs a blog on which he writes about his own experiences with volunteer work. We spoke on the phone and Humphrey explained to me why it made me uncomfortable; I had been a victim to a concept he referred to as the “Do-Gooder Industrial Complex.” He provided me with a link to his blog post where he wrote about this concept in greater detail. The term is similar to writer Teju Cole’s “White Savior Industrial Complex”, but Humphrey’s narrative excludes race as a factor and instead chooses to focus primarily on the privilege of Western world. Voluntourism is the act of traveling to a remote location under the pretense of providing a service for a community or a cause. The trips almost always involve a group of young, privileged travelers who share the same idealistic belief that their donated time is enough to save the world. Voluntourism is, in a way, a vacation in disguise. According to my research, Voluntourism is a 200-billion-dollar industry. The average price tag for week-long service trip is around $1,000 per person, some can cost upwards of $3,000, and hardly any of that money benefits the destination’s community. “It is not a selfless act,” Humphrey said. “It’s an experience that [people] are paying to have.” The impact volunteering has on the volunteers can be invaluable, however, if you really want to make a difference, well, your dollar is a lot more valuable than your time. Many of my fellow interns had expressed similar feelings of discomfort while we were away. I reached out to one of them to see if they still share the same discomfort. “It was conflicting,” Chris Gilbert had said. “On one hand, I felt like we were doing a good thing for those kids. We donated our time and our stuff, but it didn’t feel like enough to make a difference. Yeah, we gave them some clothes and some memories, but is anything really going to change?” It takes a lot more than a few old t-shirts and a couple soccer games to make a real impact on people’s lives. So why do it?
Photo credited to Courtney Abbot, featured bottom center
Monique Morrison, a close friend of mine, became involved with Fields of Growth when she was 16-years-old and the program had just been founded. Morrison had been one of the most promising Jamaican campers and continued to work with the organization as a coach following her graduation from high school. I had many conversations with Morrison about her opinions about the volunteers and texted her to elaborate. “There’s some good ones. Some of the girls need good people. It’s the volunteers that take the time to talk and to teach the game that I like. Those are the ones that really get [the purpose of volunteering].” Morrison has met hundreds of volunteers over the years and has only spoken to a handful of them after they returned to the states. “They’re all nice to me when [they’re] here, but now I can tell when it’s fake. It [doesn’t] bother me as much as it does the younger girls. [A lot of the] kids [don’t] have good people to look up to at home and so they start looking up to the volunteers.” Morrison explained that this is problematic because the Jamaican youths form strong bonds with temporary people. Humphrey’s statements during our conversation supported Morrison’s thoughts. “I am not against people going abroad to meet other human beings living in communities that are different than [their own]. I think there is a tremendous value in it,” Humphrey said. “However, the rewards are skewed towards the volunteers. Community members probably do get something [out of it], but the volunteers just get so much more.”
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People often ask me if I was paid for my three-week internship and are appalled when I inform them that I wasn’t, in fact, I actually had to pay for work that I did in Jamaica. Why would anyone pay to do work? Simple: because it looks good. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t include my volunteer work in my resume, in fact, I have been told by a potential employer that I was selected over another applicant because my extensive list of volunteer experiences proved that not only was I qualified, but I was also a “good person”. Someone (my mom) commented on one of my Instagram posts from my first trip to Jamaica saying that I am a hero. Scrolling through the photos posted by other volunteers, I noticed the word “hero” is used quite often. I can’t understand why, though. I don’t feel like a hero because heroes save the world and I essentially just went on a really exhausting vacation. The typical voluntourist has a camera roll full of photographs of him/herself smiling beside various miserable looking poor children whose names they can’t remember. We don’t know these children at all, yet we feel the need to capture memories to feed into our own egotistical perception of ourselves and our heroism. Developing countries are not a backdrop, and poor people are not props. – moved this stuff up. Think it should just be shortened and perhaps be part of this scene. Sort of … you’re having this discussion with the professor and you come to this realization about your trip.))) (Would be good if you had convos here with other people you did this trip with, if possible.) It is not to say that I am anti-volunteer groups. I had a very rewarding and positive experience in Jamaica overall. But I had an understanding now of the fact I was part of the “Do-Gooder Industrial Complex.” Volunteering is not evil, but it can be problematic if volunteers do not recognize that the benefits are unequal. Society paints volunteering as this selfless and heroic act which perpetuates the role of Westerners as the benevolent giver and poor people as the grateful receivers. Voluntourism is a beautiful way to experience the world, but it is important for voluntourists to understand that they are not heroic saviors just because they hopped on a plane, painted a house or two, then hugged a few orphans before returning to their cushy, privileged lives. In order to make a real impact, the focus needs to shift from the volunteer to the people living in the community they are volunteering in. My friend, Jada Williams, a highschool student in Kingston, Jamaica, has been involved with Fields of Growth and the lacrosse camp since it began 5 years ago. Jada has interacted with hundreds of volunteers over the years, many with whom she formed close relationships with. I spoke with her via an instant messaging app that allows people to engage in international communication for free. “They [the volunteers] take photos with me [and] they post it [and] brag [about being friends with me],” Jada wrote, “I build a good bond with them [and] it just ends in that moment [and] never [hear from them] again.” She had been wary of our friendship and began to distance herself during the last week of my internship. She and I had formed a close bond and, as the date of my departure neared, it became real to her that yet another person she had let into her life would be leaving. My last day, she made me promise her that I wouldn’t be like everyone else and that I would come back. I intend to keep that promise. Only this time, I will be hesitant to post photos that portray me as a heroic savior. I will be more aware that my role is a visitor in the country. I am not a hero, I am simply a person who is experiencing the world and building friendships with people from other countries. Once I stop allowing myself to become brainwashed by the “Do-Gooder Industrial Complex” is when I can actually start doing good.
Photo credited to week one volunteer Kendall Parker