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| Some brothers collecting firewood and achieving more than the average volunteer |
I want more.
Nothing seems to satisfy.
I don't want it, I just need it.
To breath, to feel, to know I'm alive.
Stinkfist - Tool
Volunteering in Africa and Asia makes you look like a great person and gives you many photo opportunities. You can say any one of the following and appear to be doing something helpful.
- Oh! Oh! Look at me planting mangroves!
- Yeah baby. I'm teaching the youth of Asia. Look at me go!
- But wait... I also teach the elderly of Africa as well. I am the man.
- And check out these photo ops with Refugee kids. I am such a top bloke.
- I even paint schools.
Man, my poo must be white and not smell.
This is all - of course - a little tongue in cheek. The gifts, texts and three (!) leaving ceremonies I got from the good people of Dumangas is proof enough that I am making some sort of difference.
I do see volunteers arriving and not making much of difference. In fact, sometimes I think they are doing more harm than good. I've seen too many instances of good intentioned one-month volunteers coming in, disrupting the class room for a week or so as they find they feet, teach one or two classes per day for a couple of weeks, and then leave. How can that be helpful for the students? Was the quality of education increased by their presence? I think not.
This was also true for me in Ghana. While some of it was my own doing - weirdo social phobias preventing me from asking teachers for students to tutor - some of it was the system itself. I got bounced from classroom to classroom as teachers jockeyed for use of my services. It turned out to be a big fat waste of time. I disrupted classrooms and achieved stuff all. The best thing I did was shout at a very corrupt man.
Sometimes I think the only thing that volunteering really adds is money to a hopefully well intentioned NGO (Non Governmental Organisation).
I am in the fortunate position of being assigned to MACRO, a grass roots, non-corrupt organisation. MACRO goes to the poorest of the poor in Uganda. It goes to where nobody else goes - isolated, desperately poor villages.
I really enjoy going to the villages. Talking to the locals and experiencing village life is fantastic. How can one not enjoy being part of village sporting events and huffing and puffing my way through a community bike race? All good stuff.
Here's the thing though. While those things are undoubtedly fun, I spend very little of my time actually doing useful stuff. I occasionally teach the elderly to read, give a talk or two (on a topic I usually don't understand) and plant the odd cabbage.
I think this is all part of the package the GVN offers. GVN - the New Zealand based agency I volunteer through - offers volunteer tourism. You get to do the odd bit of volunteer stuff, but most of the time you're just experiencing the culture of the country - which is a lot of fun.
After reading The End of Poverty by Jeffery Sachs, I can't help but think I could be doing so much more.
I think I have somehow out grown the GVN experience. Ghana, and the Philippines have been a lot tourism with some volunteerism thrown in for good measure. I plan to make my experience here in Uganda primarily about the volunteerism with some tourism thrown in for good measure.
But how do you plan to do that Crazymalc?
[...]
Time to switch it around and get my teeth stuck into some sustainable, long term projects that will hopefully benefit the people of Uganda.
Best Practice Volunteerism
I've been thinking a lot about volunteering recently. [...]
The two major questions that every volunteer needs to ask themselves are:
- Would this of happened if you weren't here?
If the answer is Yes, then what is the point of being here in the first place?
While talking to groups of people is fun, it would of happened if I wasn't here. Ditto for the construction of dish-drying tables and the planting of vegetable gardens.
The question of efficiency also comes into play. If you can make an already existing process more efficient, then you're doing a good job.
A good example of this is the work done by Marie and Eric in the mangrove plantations of Nalu-Oyan in the Philippines. They both worked very hard and contributed many good ideas to ensuring the best quality mangroves were planted.
- Will it carry on when you're gone?
This is really a question of sustainability. Projects that carry on after you leave are the best sort. All too often I am seen well intentioned people start up projects which carry on really well when they are there, and then just fall too pieces when they are gone.
I heard about some water pumps that were installed by an NGO in the Philippines. The NGO did all the work and supplied all the materials. They left the locals with the pump and went onto other projects. Eventually the pump broke as pumps are wont to do. The locals expected the NGO to return and fix it for them.
The key ingredient that was missing from the project was ownership. The locals didn't feel as if they owned the water pump. The NGO built it, therefore they owned it, therefore it was their responsibility to fix it when it broke.
Emma - an Englishwomen with whom I volunteered in the Philippines had a good idea for the water pump project that she did. She supplied all the materials and the locals provided all the labour. The locals had some ownership in the pump and - I assume - will now be more likely to fix it when it goes wrong.
Other similar stories abound about poultry projects and pig farms.
Anything I plan to do while I am here in Uganda, must satisfactorily answer those two questions.
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