Volunteering to help the poor

Obviously there is a trend of young people from industrialized countries towards volunteering some months in a „developing country“. One commonly ignored point concerns many small-scale NGOs who get most of their funding from Western countries: Highly motivated, creative and mostly young volunteers come to help the poor, without salary, of course. What sounds great at first glance, in practise is quite questionable.

In general, selection mechanisms based on formal qualifications are ignored when it comes to appointing volunteers. This results in getting additional non-trained staff that does not speak Hindi (sometimes not even fluent English) and usually has no pedagogical background at all; not to talk about desired work experience within precarious social environments. Since the children usually lack positive attention, they long for people who fulfill this need and cling on the caring and hard-trying volunteers. The volunteers are, on the other hand, delighted by the affectionate behaviour of the children. Hugging children and being close to them is seen as a sign of helping them.

What they usually forget is how their leaving will affect the children. The unstable emotional binding within their families find their continuation in the loss of the recently met caring person. This pattern is repeated again with every new volunteer. This happens in the Jeevan-School as well. From the viewpoint of the Samneghat children it might look like this: Rich, white people come from somewhere, wear strange clothes that accentuate the tits, are very friendly, give presents, take pictures, do exciting things with us, don’t understand a word we say – and they inevitably leave.

This experience definitely does not convey a message of supporting the feeling of global citizenship, or sustainability as a mindset. It rather widens the gap of perceptions that distinguishes between “us, the poor” and “them, the rich”. A more guarded and sensitive volunteer policy is needed in order to positively change these preconceptions.

Some vague ideas of how this might happen: At least 6-months commitment, minimum standards (experience with children, pedagogical background or specific qualifications in crafts), telephone interviews, only observation for the first two weeks on the ground and so on. This is nothing new for a lot of organisations, but still necessary in many NGOs in India (including the one I work in, I admit).