Playing with kids after class. The volunteers make the curriculum for the english classes themselves. New volunteers arrive as often as every to weeks.
By Vilhelm Stokstad – Volunteering is the new backpacking. A wish to get out of the touristy areas and experience genuine culture. By helping you get a context and a reason to be there. But if you go on an arranged volunteering trip without consideration and thought, a well established ”we and them” thinking can easily increase the social, cultural and economical gap rather than decrease it. This gets even more evident when the, in relation, extremely wealthy volunteers – a volunteering trip often costs several years of annual income in the country you visit – stays in guarded compounds, sometimes with their own chef and maid, to only do daily visits to the real world outside, to help ”them”. Working as a volunteer could be a more sustainable way to travel than, for example, charter and backpacking. There are a plethora of companies, organizations and agencies that offer volunteer travel in different forms. Some are good, but many are not sustainable and some are downright counter-productive because of the way they work and act against the local community. If the volunteer stays in a nice house it can be assumed that a smaller portion of the money goes to charity. A Swedish agency says for example that up to $160 goes to the local project you are working on – it’s not even a tenth of the total sum paid for a 4-week volunteer program. There is a lot of partying, safaris and other tourist activities offered to the volunteers.
School kids from the village play during a break. A
volunteering trip like this, teaching during a gap year, costs
around 8000 dollars.Day care center for orphans.Teaching volunteers are usually young and inexperienced, doing a gap year or just visiting for as short as two weeks. The total amount a volunteer pays to be teaching for a month, including plane tickets and insurances, could cover an educated teachers salary for about four to five years in Malawi.The "Party Dala-Dala" take volunteers on a trip around town on a friday night. Stopping for drinks at different bars along they way.Zanzibar is a mostly muslim community and drinking is frowned upon. There is a local liquor store in Nungwi Beach where you can get a drink before the monthly full moon party.Usually a local girl gets the water for the volunteers.Back inside the gated community, where volunteers and
hotel guests stay, after an excursions to the village outside.Gated communities offer a bit of luxury in between the weeks.Garden in a volunteer compound including a private stretch of the beach. The volunteers have a private chef that prepares all the meals for them. Drinks and food are all included in the price of 1450 dollars for a 4 week program.A volunteer is the main attraction at a day care center.
Volunteers who come in for just a couple of weeks compete with dedicated, educated teachers for the children's attention.The volunteers make the curriculum for the english classes themselves. New volunteers arrive as often as every to weeks.Volunteers on an excursion in the village to buy cigarettes
and cookies makes a buzz among the children.Children are "allowed" to touch the hands of a volunteer. "We and Them" mentality is widespread in the business and could rather increase than decrease gaps between volunteers and locals.The "Party Dala-Dala" take volunteers on a trip around town on a friday night. Stopping for drinks at different bars along they way.Doogles Bar in Blantyre is a common spot for volunteers in
the region.Cape Maclear in Malawi draws volunteers from all over the
country over the weekends.Locals are not allowed inside the volunteer compound, only the maid and guards, from the local community can walk freely inside the compound.Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations.Taking pictures of the children you're working with is standard procedure.The school children follow the volunteers back to their compound after class.Volunteer compound right at the beach. The school children follow the volunteers back after class.Taking pictures of the children you're working with is standard procedure.A volunteer poses for a photo next to "the rasta bar" in Zanzibar.A volunteer tries to climb a coconut tree the "local way".Volunteers staying longer than two weeks often learn to use the local transportation of Dala-Dalas, minibuses often cramped with people.Monthly full moon partys at Kendwa Rocks, Zanzibar, draw hordes of volunteers.Volunteers on an excursion in the local communities at the foot of Kilimanjaro.Playing with kids after class. The volunteers make the curriculum for the english classes themselves. New volunteers arrive as often as every to weeks.Taking pictures of the children you're working with is standard procedure.
