International service trips are a good example of a type of charity that is unsustainable. Oftentimes, people who are unqualified to do a certain type of work are sent to a developing country and then expected to complete that work for a community in need. This creates a multitude of problems. Not only is the work they complete not up to par, but it also does not teach the community they are helping the skills needed to complete that work. Take building a library for example. Volunteers can go lay brick for the library, but the bricks that they lay are probably not going to create a sound structure. This is exactly the issue Pippa Biddle seeks to address in her blog post titled “The Problem With Little White Girls, Boys and Voluntourism.” In her post, she says the she paid $3000 to go to Tanzania to build a library with her classmates. She says that each day they would lay bricks for the library and each night men from the community would have to undo their work and rebuild it. She states that it would have been “more stimulative of the local economy” for them to just have donated their money. Another thing to consider is that by going to that community to build the library, volunteers are depriving people of the community the opportunity to learn how to build a school/library so once the volunteers leave they are able to not only maintain the completed building but also build others. By going to the community and then leaving only a school, they are not going to gain any skills. Biddle hopes that before embarking on an international service trip, people evaluate their own abilities and consider if they are implementing a short term solution or a long term one.
I agree with you in some ways. I think that these people are doing some good (“it’s the thought that counts”) and by Kantian Ethics, this is a very good action because these people certainly have good wills. I think part of the reason people do this is because they want to be able to physically see that they’re helping (or at least think they are). I think it could also differ on a case-to-case basis; sometimes it may be better to simply send money to an impoverished area, but sometimes it is good to go down and interact with and directly help the people in need.
I agree with Nathan, I think that this is on a case-to-case basis. I think that in some cases, what you’re saying is correct but I also think that there are some cases where the volunteers are trained well enough to where the volunteering that they do really does benefit the community and they truly do know what they are doing and the best ways to help out. But you are correct in some ways that there are people who volunteer to do somethings that they aren’t fully experienced on.
You have a good point in your blog and I think many service trips can be see as not very useful, but many international service trips are seen as beneficial. For example, a church that goes on a mission trip to “spread the word of God” may be seen as a great cause because people are enlightened about Christianity. But some people believe that this is pushing religion onto another society – it can be seen in different perspectives, both positive and negative. This does not have to do with physical labor of course, but it is considered “service” for religious people.