I wrote about the organization SCAD (Social Change and Development) in my previous story. I told you it’s a big and rich organization, which does a lot for all kinds of underprivileged people. I ended up staying with them for two weeks. I worked in a centre where physically and mentally challenged children are given care and education. One man, by the fantastic name of Stalin (a pretty common name in Tamil Nadu), forms the “orthotic unit”. He has a workshop where he makes all kinds of orthopedic devices for the children: crutches, braces, splints, even wheelchairs. He makes all these things, which can be pretty expensive when you buy them from big manufacturers, in his own creative and low-cost way. The idea was that I would see if I could help him improve the design of some devices; if it didn’t work out, I would just leave. Quite frankly, I didn’t expect much of it – but I thought, why not give it a go? And in the end, I must say, even though my stay was relatively short, I think both of us (me and Stalin, yes) were satisfied. Of course, I didn’t have much to contribute to this man, who has been doing this job for more than ten years. And of course, for me as an engineer, it was too basic and low-level to really allow me to apply or improve my skills. But on the other hand, we get so much theory and so little practice in our education, that it’s always interesting to have some hands-on experience. And to keep it as simple as possible is a challenge in any design. It was really fun to design something and see the result in a matter of hours. So, I’m satisfied, and I hope Stalin was too; he did say I gave him a couple of good ideas.
Like last time I was at SCAD, I stayed at the fancy guesthouse on the campus. I was all alone in this building that can accommodate a dozen people, and so I even had my own private cook, who always made me delicious food in ridiculous amounts. Since I wasn’t sure about the value of my contribution to SCAD, I paid them the amount my stay would cost them. Apparently, some people pay 30-50EUR a day, which is a pretty high amount in India, even considering the comfort. I think this is a good time to talk about volunteering, as I promised before. Actually, before even talking about volunteering, I have a lot to say about NGO’s; but I decided not to get into that now, as it would lead me too far.
Both the times I worked as a volunteer, not only did I work for free, but I paid money to the organization. As I said, in the case of SCAD I supposedly paid only to cover my cost – even though the amount still seemed a bit high, especially considering the salaries; I estimate I paid three times what the cook earns. In Cuddalore, on the other hand, I am sure I paid much more than Bhanu could spend. She had the honesty to admit that, which I appreciated, but I suppose that someone coming straight from Europe wouldn’t even realize that. In many cases, volunteering is a way of getting funds. I’ve seen websites where people pay 1000$ to volunteer for two weeks. One thousand dollars! That’s what I spend in three months! But some people are ready to pay this. All they want is a “life-changing” experience, something to impress their friends with and/or put on their CV, without having to go to the trouble of arranging everything. A lot of the volunteers I met in Pondicherry were Danes; they paid a Danish organization to set them up with a Dutch organization, which they paid to set them up with a local organization. Volunteering is big business. People don’t only work for free, but they pay money on top of that. In return, they get there life-changing experience. Sometimes, in the best of cases, the money they pay goes to the organization – nothing wrong with that then, is there? A win-win situation, you say? It depends. I, for one, do not like it so much. First of all, it’s not transparent: you don’t know how much of your money is actually spent on your food and accommodation, and how much goes to the organization. Second, you don’t really know if they want you for the work you do, or for the money you pay. Third, paying to work doesn’t really improve your motivation - I’ve seen with my own eyes the attitude of “I’m paying for this, so if I don’t want to work, I don’t” in some volunteers. Four, they will still try to give the volunteer the impression that he’s doing useful work. In many cases, that means people are doing work that someone else could do much better than them; their work is useless, and sometimes even counterproductive - couldn’t this persons’ time and energy be used in a better way? What’s even worse, is that they might be used to do someone else’s job for free.
In Cuddalore, the original purpose was for me to go to villages to tell people about the dangers of HIV/AIDS, with the help of a translator. Why on earth should I do that? Will they not listen with much more benevolence to someone of there own culture and language? Bhanu admitted this was true, and even conceded that whatever the volunteer says, the translator knows what to say. The volunteer is completely useless – it’s one big farce. I told you about my English teaching. First of all, nothing proves that I’m even remotely competent to do that. But more importantly, what’s the use? I went there, taught them some vocabulary, and went away; they probably forgot everything again by now. It would have been much better if a competent person had trained a local person to teach them. And even then, I don’t really know why I had to teach English to precisely those children. They were healthy, didn’t seem poor, and most of them went to school and learned English there. Sometimes I felt like I was just being used to entertain the bored village children during their summer holidays.
To be perfectly honest, there are cases in which the volunteers do perform useful work. The girl who set me up with Bhanu did a lot of organizational work, and another girl, a real English teacher, trained local people to be teachers. But in at least as many cases, the work the volunteer does is either useless, or could be done better by someone else. And additional, important question is: why should we come here to do this work? There are so many people in this country, and more and more of them have knowledge and money. In fact, the Indian embassy doesn’t issue visas to volunteers anymore (that’s why they always take tourist visas) – India can handle his own problems. The only answer I have to this question is that we are still in a better position to afford working for free for a while.
What about me, you may ask? Am I not guilty of the crimes I plea against? Partially, Your Honor. One of the objectives of my Big Trip was to learn more about the world of NGO’s, to see if there’s a possibility for me to work in that field someday. So, by doing some field work, I wanted to gain insight in the working of the type of organization where I would, perhaps, someday, have a more high-level function. Besides, I feel a bit guilty about being able to afford such a long trip on only a couple of months’ savings, just because the value of my currency is so much higher than the local one - as the cliché goes, “I wanted to give something back”. That’s one part of the truth. Another part of the truth is that I don’t really like the feeling of being a tourist. I much rather feel like I’m really living somewhere, and volunteering is an easy way of obtaining that. I have never denied it’s a kind of tourism. I have never thought or pretended that what I did was noble. Volunteering abroad is great; you’re in a completely different environment, have the craziest experiences, and end up with amazing stories to tell your friends. To me, the real noble people are the ones who work as volunteers back home: people who work with disabled people, or the poor, or elderly people, humbly, without bragging about them or writing about it on some blog. And back home, it seems, is the only place you can really do good work. Of what use can I be in a country where I can’t even properly communicate with the people, let alone understand their culture? Of course, this insight is far from being new; that’s why, nowadays, big NGO’s support local, grassroots organization, instead of doing the work themselves.
As an attempt for a conclusion: I think volunteering abroad is only useful in very specific situations. If volunteering is a kind of tourism – which, in many cases, it is – it is no doubt better than brainless, polluting mass tourism. But I only agree with it under three conditions:
1) The volunteer is aware he’s a tourist
2) There’s full transparency regarding where the money goes
3) The volunteer makes sure he’s doing something useful, or at least not harmful, and that he’s not taking away anyone else’s job
The last point is extremely difficult to assess, especially from a distance, in an unknown situation, in a different culture. When I look back at my “work” in India, there’s not much to be proud of: Delhi was a joke, Cuddalore was probably not harmful, but not so useful either, and Tirunelvely was okay but very limited. I’ve changed India forever…
