The pushback against voluntourism – where Westerners pay large amounts of money to go to another country for a few days or weeks and engage in an activity they believe is helping people in some way with just a few hours of volunteering – seems to be getting more intense, judging from what I’m seeing online. I’m now not the only one posting about the dark side of voluntourism on sites like Quora and Reddit – which is so different from 10 years ago, when I felt like the lone voice on sites like YahooAnswers, and on my own web site, begging people not to support voluntourism.
In fact, the pushback against voluntourism is spilling over into all humanitarian action, with many local NGOs in high-poverty countries asking large international NGOs why they aren’t being paid to teach their own children, build their own schools and water wells, etc., instead of bringing in foreigners to do so and why there are so many Westerners – most of them white – starting their own NGOs in developing countries. Here’s one of a few memes I’ve seen reflecting this: 
To be fair, many international agencies have greatly evolved and already focus on hiring local people for their humanitarian interventions. Many international agencies running refugee camps are, whenever possible, hiring refugees themselves, in the camps, for the work that needs to be done.
Still, the campaigns getting the most traction are the ones against voluntourism, and one of my favorite messaging on this subject is this video, Who Wants to Be a Volunteer from Radi-Aid, an annual campaign created by the Norwegian Students’ & Academics’ International Assistance Fund (SAIH).
There’s also the even more provocative No White Saviors campaign, which I found out about via an online group for professional humanitarian workers – highly-skilled people who go to a developing country for several months, even years, to build the skills of local people so that they can take over the work themselves. The campaign is using social media to share highly provocative images and messages, which you can view and read here:
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- No White Saviors on Instagram (memes)
- No White Saviors on Twitter (memes)
It’s similar to the satirical White Savior Barbie campaign.
Here is one of their tamer memes:
And here is one of the campaign’s much more provocative memes:
I shared these No White Saviors campaign memes on the volunteer subreddit, an online group on Reddit for the discussion of volunteering, and, as you can see if you look yourself, some folks were outraged, calling the campaign racist. I disagree, and think this campaign is important in pushing forth some very important questions that need discussing – the campaigns have certainly made me reflect on not only my international humanitarian work, but my own local volunteering activities and attitudes right here in rural Oregon.
Your thoughts? Let’s hear them in the comments below.
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Also see:
- More Than Me scandal in Liberia: a lesson to all who “just want to help”
- 13 Reasons Not to Volunteer Abroad
- creating an adventure travel culture in Ghana
- Isn’t my good heart & desire enough to help abroad?
- “But I wanted to help POOR people…”
- Vanity Volunteering: all about the volunteer
- In defense of skills over passion
- Want to work internationally? Get involved locally.
- Is it really *impossible* to break into humanitarian work?
- Volunteers themselves speaking out about voluntourism
- J.K. Rowling speaks out against orphan tourism
- Medical Voluntourism Can Cause Serious Harm
- The harm of orphanage voluntourism (& wildlife voluntourism as well)
- Ideas for Creating Your Own Large-Scale Volunteering Activity