Voluntourism: Benefit or Harm?

Traditionally, being a volunteer involves working at disaster sites with emergency aid or providing professional skills to assist with third world development. Most volunteers spend more than three months, sometimes a couple of years working on their projects and are sometimes recognised as political/social ambassadors from their country.

A trend has started in the recent years, where more people want to be involved with volunteering abroad, without the full commitment required of a traditional volunteer. Many now want to include a short time volunteering while travelling, with the desire to experience something different.

The tourism industry has taken on this new challenge demanded by the new breed of travellers. Voluntourism is increasingly taking over the traditional holiday options for the young and the old, with many opting to volunteer their services as a GAP year option between school and between jobs, from a couple of weeks to as long as a year on voluntourism projects.

Voluntourism, according to Adrian Yalland, CEO of the Different Travel Company, means "combining travel and tourism with work on projects". These projects can be any length, any time, differentiating voluntourism from the traditional forms of volunteering. Often, these trips do not require the tourist to have particular skills. A lot of the work simply involves teaching at a local school or helping out on a farm. To a lot of people, this can be a novelty indeed.

Every travel brochure I flip through these days seem to offer such opportunity, to get out of the tourist trail, incorporating sometime working on communities sites as part of a tour package. It was only a while ago that I, myself, had joined a group of thirteen enthusiastic individuals on a volunteer mission to Peru. All of us, eager to help and make a difference, endured the harsh local conditions, believing that it was the only way, to show the world we cared.