Why we are sceptical of volunteering during your vacation overseas

Humans want dignity and respect, meaningful work and fair pay, to be be free to choose our own destinies. Would you want to depend on volunteers and donations from abroad? Probably not. The same applies to people living elsewhere.

Here is why it is so challenging to add value to your destination and local communities by volunteering during your vacation overseas:

• Manual work: Lower income countries are usually not in need of cheap labor—to the contrary, they usually have an excess supply of labor and are challenged by high unemployment rates. Flying labor from rich countries around the world to do manual work in a lower income country with excess labor has unnecessary negative effects on our climate and takes away employment opportunities for local communities.
• Work with children: Children are emotionally and psychologically vulnerable. That’s why our teachers and caregivers have psychological and pedagogical training specifically for working with children, and work with children over the course multiple months, if not years. When travelers leave again by the time a child has developed an emotional connection with them, or worse do not even have the necessary training for working with children, the longer-term outcome often is more disruptive and harmful for children than possible short-term benefits of volunteering.
• Technical skills: Before we can contribute our technical skills to a cause and create meaningful solutions, we first need to thoroughly understand the problem and local realities. This means that locals need to dedicate significant time and resources to train and educate you first. A normal vacation of up to two or three weeks does usually not permit sufficient time to add meaningful positive net value.

For meaningful volunteering opportunities, please consider contributing to projects in your own community. We would also recommend you to directly approach organizations working for impactful causes that you feel most passionate about and can commit contributing to for a longer period of time.