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Friday Sep 04, 2009

Making a difference?

Telling people I was volunteering in Ghana, I would cringe inwardly. People would inevitably react in one of two ways, both of which made me uncomfortable:  ‘You’re a naive idiot who thinks they can change the world in two months’ or ‘aren’t you fantastic, a wonderful person, so giving’. Neither is true.

The question is why did I go to Ghana? Obviously, I went for a number of reasons, but I certainly didn’t go to Ghana because solely because I wanted to make a difference. If the only reason I was going was to help others then I could have spent the summer in England volunteering and donated the flight money to Ghana.

I’m not saying for a second that I didn’t want to help, but it would be delusional to pretend like it was my only motive. My motives were to learn about development, another culture and have an experience of a different way of living. I wanted to explore the world and have a challenge. As a career in the long run I want to work in NGOs [Non Governmental Organisations] and development so this summer was an experience for learning about the NGO world.

The story I hear from friends again and again is they went to a developing country to make a difference. The reality was they came back frustrated, disappointed and questioning why they went.

The charity I went with ‘Tzedek’ told us again and again making a difference is for when you come home .The time in Ghana is to learn. Ten months volunteering with the charity in England is part of the program.  The charity is almost entirely volunteer run, so they want you to stay involved for a lifetime ideally.

Making a difference in a foreign country isn’t simple; who is some twenty-year-old volunteer to know how to help people they have just met, from a different culture.  The advice we were told on our orientation is, try not to do any harm. The question when volunteering is always, what happens when you leave? Is this action sustainable? Someone gave me some useful advice for volunteering, never presume you know the problem and never presume you know the solution.

Teaching skills to people who do a job is always better that doing things yourself, for example teach the school’s teachers to improve. Rather than working on documents, teach the NGO workers computer skills. Little things make a difference; my proudest moment was with the introduction the magical to do list. A concept my co-workers loved and put proudly on the wall, smiling broadly as they crossed things off. It took me two months to see it might be useful. The problem is that by the time you have settled in and worked out how to help, you leave. Any changes you do make also might not last, I have no idea whether they are still making to do lists, but realism tells me probably not!

At the end of the day it is difficult to know what’s changing another person for the better and even more difficult to actually implement the changes in a sustainable way. Positive change takes time and thought and is difficult to do in two months, not impossible but unlikely.  The only thing for certain that can be meaningfully changed is yourself, in the hope you will be able to give in the long run and in my view that’s a worthwhile and legitimate reason to volunteer abroad.

Posted by Lucille ( 2:28 PM )
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