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Why I stopped being a voluntourist

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Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#81

Post by jstevens85 »

1stop wrote: post #75
gnerd wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is the second largest single country economy on earth and growing. They will be completely covered with healthcare in the next 10 years. They are the largest holders of gold on earth, hold the largest amount of debt from the US. They are developing, but as a nation, they are not poor. > Blaming westernized companies (by which I mean both western companies and local companies like Reliance/Infosys that try to ru…

Are you seriously using the most westernised Asian country as an example of non western business practices?

Your point still stands, but Singapore is far more western than Japan.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#82

Post by pekk »

khc wrote: post #56

I don't remember where I read it, but someone famous once said "for most people the best way to do good is to make a lot of money and then give it away" (or something to that effect). I couldn't agree more.

If by "do good" you mean "give money to whoever has their hand stuck out the furthest."

Those aren't necessarily people in need who will use the money for some good purpose, often they are in a special parasitic class of professional beggars and con artists.

Hopefully the point is to do more than show off that you are rich and generous.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#83

Post by draugadrotten »

kumarski wrote: post #43

The absolute worst thing is when the voluntourists don't speak the native language and stick out visually like a black man in Sweden.

> stick out visually like a black man in Sweden

You haven't been to Sweden lately. Demographics have changed. A snapshot from Sergels square, Stockholm : http://thegambia.nu/files/2012/06/IMG_0514.jpg

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#84

Post by yummyfajitas »

gnerd wrote: post #65
yummyfajitas wrote: post #37

If you want to do voluntourism, I suggest something different: start a business or help set up an outsourcing center. You'll definitely have a positive effect on people by teaching them about western business practices. I'm told by my former coworkers that my standard US egalitarianism was quite unusual. By "egalitarianism", I simply mean "I'm CTO, you are a mechanical turk, we can go eat pancakes and you aren't obli…

> But drop me in India and I'm suddenly a crazy feminist ranting against rape culture (FYI India has one, the US doesn't). So none of those men in US jails and prisons are being raped? You should enjoy another country without imposing your values on them, it is OK for you to like or love your way of life, you are absolutely allowed to be proud, and so are they. What is not in good taste is assuming your way is always…

On the topic of men in prison, the US does indeed have a rape culture. I thought it was clear from context that I'm using the term the way western feminists do, but I guess I should have been explicit.

Of the specific business practices I suggested, which one do you believe is not a good way to make money?

I'm not sure why you use the term "impose". I'm a guy with a laptop, I have no power to impose anything on anyone.

The only value I've ever imposed on anyone is my opposition to eve teasing. I'm hoping political correctness hasn't gone crazy enough to consider that one culturally insensitive, but who knows?

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#85

Post by k-mcgrady »

Good article but why did she have to bring race into it? This had absolutely nothing to do with race. The problem was that unskilled people were volunteering to do skilled work. They should be volunteering to do work they have the skills for.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#86

Post by yardie »

saraid216 wrote: post #51
tim333 wrote: post #39

Regarding the OP's >"Sadly, taking part in international aid where you aren’t particularly helpful is not benign. It’s detrimental." I'm not sure that's true as you will still generally be bringing money to the country either in donations to the good cause or in the way that all tourists do by spending at local bars, souvenir shops and the like.

I'm not sure I'm morally okay with economies driven primarily by tourism. Nothing I can back up with reasoning or data, but whenever I think about it, I get the same gut reaction I do when I see a code smell.

A lot of cities rely on tourism because it is so cheap to invest verses the amount of money it brings in. If you have good weather and beaches it might be the only natural resource you can exploit.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#87

Post by makomk »

gnerd wrote: post #65
yummyfajitas wrote: post #37

If you want to do voluntourism, I suggest something different: start a business or help set up an outsourcing center. You'll definitely have a positive effect on people by teaching them about western business practices. I'm told by my former coworkers that my standard US egalitarianism was quite unusual. By "egalitarianism", I simply mean "I'm CTO, you are a mechanical turk, we can go eat pancakes and you aren't obli…

> But drop me in India and I'm suddenly a crazy feminist ranting against rape culture (FYI India has one, the US doesn't). So none of those men in US jails and prisons are being raped? You should enjoy another country without imposing your values on them, it is OK for you to like or love your way of life, you are absolutely allowed to be proud, and so are they. What is not in good taste is assuming your way is always…

The usual feminist meaning of "rape culture" these days doesn't include prison rape (at least not when it's happening to men). Indeed, I've seen people labelled as anti-feminists and misogynists for suggesting it does. It usually though not always encompasses prison rape jokes because those are considered to harm women, but not the rape itself.

From a modern feminist perspective, billboards of scantily-clad women have more to do with rape than men being non-consensually forced into sex.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#88

Post by User8712 »

aaron695 wrote: post #61

It's pretty simple stuff where locals work for $10 per day, your labour contribution is only $10 per day for unskilled labour. IE helping orphans, cute animals, quick bouts of teaching etc As a libertarian I'm big on spending heaps of money on localised products(With low resource costs) while visiting these countries instead, I make an effort to do stuff that normally I might be stingy on. I figure the money trickles…

Agreed, your biggest advantage is your western salary. Why visit a village in a developing country and work like a local, contributing $3/day worth of labor? That's $1,000 for a year of work. Why not stay home, earn $50,000, and donate $10,000 to the village? They can spend that money to employ 10 local residents.

You just made 10x the difference by staying home, and you could probably contribute a few thousand dollars to your personal savings as well.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#89

Post by sien »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #7

White people are finally starting to "get it". http://youtu.be/dyf2Cf5GkTY See Dambisa Moyo's interview about her book "Dead Aid" The statistics showing how aid is actually hurting African countries and not allowing them to develop on their own the way the rest of the world has.

Don't just read Moyo.

Read 'Poor Economics' by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. Duflo is at MIT and is all about trials to figure out what works with aid.

Read 'The Bottom Billion' by Paul Collier who is a development economist at Oxford.

Read 'The Idealist' by Nina Munk which is about how we can say that Geoffrey Sach's millennium village project has failed.

Read 'Africa Rising' by Vijay Mahajan about how many countries in Africa are actually been doing well economically for the first time in decades.

Read 'The White Man's Burden' by Bill Easterly about how he thinks aid has all failed.

The development of the poorest countries is incredibly important. These people all have thought heaps about it and are very serious about wanting to help.

Nobody really knows what the answer is but at least get a picture of the different viewpoints.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#90

Post by cafard »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #10

I took a trip to Africa to go on a Safari and climb Kilimanjaro. I was amazed at how many do gooder tourists there are. The conversations go like: Me: What are you here to do? Them: Build a school. Me: Oh, you are a carpenter. Them: No, part of a school program. Me: Oh, you are providing unskilled construction labor. Didn't realize Tanzania had a shortage. Near the end of the trip, I met a friend's cousin, asked what…

A friend went down to Central America with a group to do basic construction stuff. They were all from the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, where the majority of construction laborers are from Central America, so it seemed odd. On the other hand, the volunteers did have passports to get back into the US.
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