How to be an Ethical Volunteer

It is impossible for a volunteer to fully understand the intricacies of a new culture on a two-week trip. Instead, many participants are riddled with judgment based on their own culture’s values. They dismiss their ignorance with the false perception that the countries they visit are so underdeveloped that every bit helps when that cannot be further from the truth. By staying mindful of your own biases, you can mitigate unintended cultural consequences of your trips. You can achieve this by undergoing extensive training and conducting research on the region, as well as exhibiting service-oriented behaviors when in a volunteer setting.

Before Volunteering

1. Educate yourself on the customs. Learn about a location’s values, culture, and self-perception from both observers and local authors. It is impossible to rid yourself of all biases, and no one expects you to. But by comparing your research to your own cultural assumptions, you can mitigate culture-centrism and understand how your background might lead you to view things differently or have a different response. Don’t show up to the site expecting an entire course on the area; the locals meet dozens of volunteers every year, and they should not have to explain their culture and justify their values to outsiders constantly.
2. Assess your motivations. The best way to mitigate the white savior complex is to frame your focus on supporting the local community’s initiatives. Many volunteers intend to implement their own ideas to get a story of how they directly influenced an underprivileged community. However, the natives understand the problem’s intricacies better than any foreigner, so your actions should include following their lead and deferring to their decisions. 
3. Choose programs that align with your abilities. Popular volunteer projects include building houses and animal rehabilitation, yet most volunteers participating in these programs are not certified construction contractors or vet technicians. The outcome quality is mediocre at best, and could bring physical risk to inhabitants. A common solution is to only engage in projects requiring unskilled labor, but that also floods the labor supply and takes away jobs from locals. Instead, assess your skills (e.g., if you have a background in supply chain or digital marketing) and add value by bringing your experiences into the field.
4. Have a basic understanding of the language. Most international volunteer programming happens in locations where English is not a primary language. The natives who can speak English are likely more educated or wealthier. Therefore, these people may not have the same priorities as the population you are trying to help. So even if your organization promises that you only need to know English, knowing at least the language’s basics would allow you to make your own evaluation of the local response.
5. Ensure that your organization is taking steps to become more ethical. In Oct 2019, leading volunteer organizations came together to create the Global Volunteering for Development Standard. Here is some more information on how you can use the framework to assess your organization. One great sign is that they have a native partner organization and emphasize selecting and training qualified volunteers.

During Volunteering

1. Commit to creating a long-term impact. Trade the resume-perfect weeklong project for one that has beneficial long-term effects. If you are on a project that will bring about lasting change, be prepared to accept that you will not be present to see the impact. Instead of trying to fit years’ worth of change into your trip, your emphasis should be on solution sustainability and ensuring that locals have the knowledge to continue operating the solution once the original facilitators have left.
2. Be ready to change your assumptions as you gain new knowledge. All the reading in the world could not give a volunteer a complete image of someone’s life. Come with an open ear and a genuine eagerness to learn. In the best-case scenario, the program manager has worked closely with the natives to design a project that exactly fulfills their needs. But circumstances change, and flexibility of thought and action is what allows an outstanding volunteer to maximize their offerings.
3. Accept that people aren’t always looking for new ideas. Volunteers who are looking to buff their resumes are especially prone to the pressure of creating something new. Volunteers may suggest new forms of operation with good intent but aren’t there to see anything through. The lack of knowledge and continuous involvement leads to a myriad of half-completed approaches that are misaligned with the local culture, sparking frustration amongst inhabitants who are pouring their resources into ineffective solutions.
4. Maintain strong communication with the locals. Connect with the host group throughout your volunteering, and make sure that the project truly aligns with their needs and desires. Run any solutions you want to try by the locals; ultimately, it impacts their lives, and their area-specific expertise could aid you to further improve on your proposal. The constant communication also mitigates reductive seduction— the notion that an issue can be easily solvable. 

After Volunteering

1. Keep in contact with the connections you made. Not only will you hear first-hand accounts of the project’s effects, but the relationship also allows you to jump right into the heart of the problem if you choose to volunteer there again.
2. Create more ethical volunteers. If possible, help lead training sessions and share your experiences of being an ethical volunteer. It is helpful for new volunteers to learn about scenarios that actually occurred and that they may encounter. You should also give constructive feedback to the organization you volunteered with; together, you can help shape the organization to be more ethical than ever.
3. Prioritize returning to sites you’ve visited. Expertise and efficiency compound with time spent at a site. It is easier for the locals if a volunteer already knows the process and does not require training and briefing. In fact, focusing on your home community would allow you to make the largest impact with minimal unintended cultural consequences.

The globalization of volunteering has pushed the eradication of the white saviorism to a new level of urgency. As volunteers, we must mitigate the negative effects of our presence in other countries. By actively negating our own biases while increasing our openness to new cultures, we strive for a level of uplifting interaction that is not steeped in Western-centered ideals.