Tag Archives: poverty

Perspectives on Volunteering: Voices from the South

Leave a reply

A new book on volunteer activity is in the making for the ISTR Book Series: Perspectives on Volunteering: Voices from the South. The aim of this volume is to articulate and examine theories, and perspectives on volunteering in the “South”, meaning presenting various angles of volunteer activity in countries considered developing countries and countries in transition. Comparative issues of all countries are welcome as well as examples of volunteering in  North/South or South/South experiences.

There is a group authors already involved in this publication. “We are interested in would be authors that are working on these issues. To researchers with an interest in this topic, this is an open invitation  to attend a meeting at the ISTR conference in Muenster [Germany]. For those who cannot attend and are interested, please contact the editor.”

Place: University of Muenster (Germany). Room Vom Stein Haus  VS-17
Time : Friday, July 25.   12:30 PM.
parallel to the International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) International Conference

Editor:  Jacqueline Butcher, Ph. D
RSVP: jacqueline.butcher@ciesc.org.mx

More info:

The chapters in this book approach volunteering through a series of essays and case studies that present recent academic research, thinking and practice on volunteering. Working from the premise that volunteering is “universal” this collection draws on experiences from Latin America, Africa including Egypt and selected parts of Asia. There is a focus on developing countries and countries in transition documents a fresh set of experiences and perspectives on volunteering. These accounts complement the conventional focus in the literature on ‘the developed’ world – largely northern or western experiences from Europe and North America. While developing countries and countries in transition are in the spotlight for this volume, the developed country experience is not ignored. Rather it is used in this anthology, as a critical reference point for comparisons, allowing points of convergence, disconnect and intersection to emerge.

The primary aim and contribution of this anthology will be to articulate and examine the opinions and perspectives on volunteering in the South. The second objective is to provide a counter point to the dominant conceptual and empirical account of volunteering. Consequently, in identifying chapters the proposed editor did not discount evidence from northern and western countries and rather included this where possible in survey and quantitative studies as a useful reference point and basis for comparison. Finally, the tertiary objective promotes the fuller complexity and texture on volunteering, highlighting its promotion through an appreciation of its potential and promise for expression and impact in different cultures and contexts.

Authors and suggested chapters to date:

Section 1: Volunteering: An introduction and theoretical framework

Chapter 1: Volunteering: a complex social phenomenon
Jacqueline BUTCHER

Section 2: Patterns of Volunteering

Chapter 2: The economic value of volunteering: Comparative estimates among developing, transitional, and developed countries.
Lester SALAMON and Megan HADDOCK

Chapter 3: The effects of volunteering on poverty and development in China, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nepal and the Philippines
Volunteer Services Overseas (VSO) and the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University.

Chapter 4: Youth, service and volunteering: A comparative perspective in developing nations.
National Youth Service (NYS)

Chapter 5: The global perspective in corporate volunteering: a focus on the South.
Ken ALLEN

Section 3: Empirical approaches

Chapter 6: Organic/ indigenous practices of volunteering in Uruguay: The influence on Public Policy.
Analía BETTONI and Javier PEREIRA

Chapter 7: Solidarity and Volunteering: a Mexican Study.
Jacqueline BUTCHER and Gustavo VERDUZCO

Chapter 8: Individual volunteering and giving: How and why ordinary individuals give in the context of South Africa: a case study of Gauteng Province.
Susan WILKINSON-MAPOSA

Chapter 9: Promising practices from national programs across the African continent: Preparing youth for citizenship , employment and sustainable livelihoods.
Helene PEROLD and Karena CRONIN

Chapter 10: A typology of local and International volunteering experiences from Tanzania and Mozambique.
Helene PEROLD

Chapter 11: Volunteering at the grassroots: Celebrating the Joy of Volunteering in India
N. DADRAWALA

Chapter 12: Beyond images and perceptions: How important is voluntary action in Buenos Aires?
Mario ROITTER

Chapter 13: Employee volunteering in South Africa.
Fiona BUDD

Chapter 14: Models, developments and effects of trans-border youth volunteer exchange programmes in eastern and southern Africa.
Jacob MATHI

Chapter 15 : Volunteerism and the state: understanding the development of volunteering in China
Ying XU and Ngai PUN

Chapter 16: NGO management of volunteers: the case of Egypt.
Hisham EL ROUBY

Section 4 Conclusions -Volunteer participation.

Chapter 17: Conclusions about experiences and perspectives that come from the South.
Jacqueline BUTCHER

More information about the editor:
Dra. Jacqueline Butcher García-Colín
Directora, Centro de Investigación y Estudios sobre Sociedad Civil, A.C.
conocimiento  para la acción social
Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Ciudad de México
Escuela de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales

Extreme poverty is not beautiful

Leave a reply

(a version of this blog first appeared in March 2009)

I was in a convoy heading to the Pansjir Valley in Afghanistan once upon a time, when a non-Afghan man in the back seat, a fellow aid/development worker, started talking to a colleague about how beautiful and simply the people lived in Afghanistan, how idyllic it was, how it was a shame to bring them aid and development if it meant they would have to give up their beautiful, simple life.

I wanted to stop the SUV, throw him out of it, and let him see how he liked living “simply” for a few weeks.

Being poor is NOT the same as living in extreme poverty.

Dolly Parton and my grandmother grew up poor in Tennessee and Kentucky, respectively: there was no money to buy new clothes when they were children and, often, their mothers made clothes from whatever they could find (such as used potato sacks), their families had to grow most of their food, their families didn’t have a car, etc. But they were resource rich: they could grow and raise their own food, they had access to free, clean drinking water, they had access to doctors for emergency medical care (though a long walk to such), the fathers lived at home most of the time rather than having to live far away for most of the year to send money home, the families never went hungry or suffered from extreme cold, and they had access to wood for the stoves in winter. They never had to sell any of their children in order to feed the rest of the family. There was no danger of a rival tribe or religious zealots or a mafia looking for money or revenge breaking down the door and killing everyone or taking all their animals. Yes, there were hardships: many babies died in infancy, many women died in childbirth, diseases and injuries that are curable/treatable now were deadly back then, many children had to work rather than go to school, people died young compared to today, etc. But often, there was freedom and time for children to play safely around their homes. The whole family could read by the time they were teens. Talk to people who grew up like this, and they will tell you stories of hardship, but also of laughter and family and dreams.

By contrast, there’s nothing at all beautiful about extreme poverty, especially in Afghanistan. Extreme poverty means a family that has no means to grow its own food and, therefore, starves without the means to purchase food or attain food aid. It means women who die in childbirth, and babies that die in infancy, at rates that far exceed most other places on Earth. It means children sold as child brides or slaves in order to raise money to feed the rest of the family for a few weeks. It means a life expectancy of around 40. It means having no resources to build a fire or cook food — if there was food to cook. It means few people, if anyone, in the family being able to read, which means less of a chance of accessing health care and food assistance that MAY be available. It means people dying by the thousands regularly from preventable diseases. It means being a repeated victim of criminals and having no protection or justice because there’s no money for the bribes the police or the militias require. It means absolutely no way, on one’s own, to ever improve life for the family. It means no freedom, no time and no safety to play or dream or plan. It means no control over your life at all.

I’ve never forgotten that guy’s comments. And what’s sad is that I heard it again just recently in a video by someone I consider a dear friend . That there can be any confusion between living off-the-grid and living in extreme poverty is astounding to me.

Want to help combat poverty? There no better organizations than these, IMO, to donate to, and to spend your time reading their field updates:

Also see:
*Another* Afghanistan Handicraft program? Really?

Tourism as a tool for economic & community development

Leave a reply

I’m an aid and development worker.

I’m also an avid traveler.

And in engaging in both of those activities, I’ve seen firsthand how tourism is a major driver of economic growth and sustainable development.

Tourism as a tool for economic and community development has been of interest to me for several years, and something I’ve researched on my own, as my time and resources allow. I’m particularly interested in

  • how local people and small businesses learn to attract both domestic and international tourists,
  • how they learn to attract and cater to non-luxury travelers: budget travelers, backpackers, motorcycle tourists, etc., and
  • how they learn to attract and cater to women.

I’ve compiled a web page of both my own resources related to tourism for development and links to some of my favorite resources. Have a look and, if you would like to contribute info, by all means, do!

Also, I use social media as a traveler:

Jayne A Broad Facebook page
This Facebook fan page is where I follow USA state parks, national parks, national forests, and organizations focused on sustainable tourism, getting children, women and under-represented groups outdoors, and related international organizations and sites. My travel-related tweets from the my jayne_a_broad twitter feed (see below) get posted here automatically. It’s about learning and sharing regarding tourism as a tool for economic and community development – and the importance of travel for our personal and educational growth.

@jayne_a_broad Twitter feed
This Twitter feed is focused on my own experiences traveling, camping, riding my motorcycle or my bicycle, taking mass transit (buses and trains), commuting by walking or bicycling, and various other mostly-personal interests, including politics. If you are a woman motorcyclist, a non-spandex-wearing bicycle commuter or slow girlie-bike rider, an international adventure or budget traveler, a motorcycle traveler, a mass transit advocate, a writer or researcher regarding any of these subjects – or someone that wants to cater to such travelers – you might enjoy following this Twitter feed. Note that it’s completely separate from my professional Twitter feed.

Dec. 5: International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development

1 Reply

December 5 is International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development, as declared by the United Nations General Assembly per its resolution 40/212 in 1985.

This is not a day to honor only international volunteers; the international in the title describes the day, not the volunteer. It’s a day to honor, specifically, those volunteers who contribute to economic and social development. Such volunteers deserve their own day. Such volunteers are part of the reason I bristle at all the warm and fuzzy language used about volunteers.

What does it mean – volunteers contributing to economic and social development? It means volunteers who help create and support activities that help:

  • poor or economically at-risk people access microfinance programs or get out of debt or better manage their money
  • poor or economically at-risk people become successful farmers
  • people use sustainable animal husbandry practices
  • women learn to read and learn skills
  • people understand how to protect their local environment while still making a living for themselves
  • create understanding, acceptance and support of people with disabilities in all aspects of society, including paid work
  • develop environmentally-appropriate and historically-respectful tourism that helps local economies
  • train local restauranteurs in developing countries to become more sustainable and more attractive to a wider clientele
  • create and support schools
  • celebrate the arts and bring access to theater, dance, song, paintings, sculpture or other arts to any group or community
  • use the arts to educate about any economic or social issue
  • contribute in some way to any of the Millennium Development Goals
  • give children and teens alternatives to negative/destructive activities

and on and on.

Cultural organizations, vocational programs, education programs, girls-empowerment programs, anti-violence programs, agricultural programs, schools – all of these and more contribute to economic and social development, even if they don’t say so in their mission statements. And if these organizations involve volunteers, then their volunteers also contribute to economic and social development.

How are you going to leverage the International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development?

  • Will you blog about what your volunteers are doing to help your local communities economic health or social cohesion/inter-cultural understanding or community health, showing that your volunteers aren’t just nice and good-hearted, but filling essential roles and being the best for those roles?
  • Will you create a message on YouTube or Vimeo addressing your volunteers specifically, but sharing it with everyone, talking about how volunteers contribute to economic and social development?
  • Will you write a letter to your local newspaper to be published on December 5 and talking about how volunteers contribute to economic and social development in your community?

Don’t make this hug-a-volunteer-day. Don’t turn the day into just another day to celebrate volunteering in general — there are plenty of days and weeks to honor all volunteers and encourage more volunteering; keep December 5 specifically for volunteers who contribute to economic and social development, per its original intention, and, therefore, keep it unique and interesting and something worth paying attention to!

And just to be clear: by volunteer, I mean someone who is not paid for his or her service, or, if he or she has a “stipend”, it covers only very essential expenses so the volunteer can give up employment entirely during his or her stint as a volunteer, rather than the stipend being as much, if not more, than some mid and high-level government workers of a country are making. Yes, that’s a dig at a certain organization.

Here’s how I volunteer – and economic and social development is actually a primary motivation!