Can do-gooders do good?

William Hamilton cartoon, New Yorker

There have been numerous articles lately challenging the notion that wanna-be do-gooders in developing countries actually do any good. The criticism is primarily aimed at white, middle-class volunteers. And the image is that they do little more than pop into some rural village just long enough to feel smug and take selfies with small, smiling brown children.

One article describes how the author, while volunteering in Latin America, discovers that the brick wall she and others are trying to build has to be torn down and redone properly each night by the villagers they are supposed to be helping. She ends up concluding that her volunteer time is better spent raising money for good causes, rather than trying to do work on the ground. Another story in the Guardian quotes a study concluding that, "voluntourism is more about the self-fulfillment of westerners than the needs of developing nations.”  The Onion also gets into the fray with a satirical story about a supposed volunteer describing how her 6-day stint in a rural Malawian village has totally transformed her Facebook profile picture.

Well, that’s all very fine. I agree that voyeurism and selfies may not seem like appropriate motivations for volunteer work. And I’m sure that not every volunteer project is valuable.

But I also think it’s easy to be critical. 

Living in Peru and Kenya has shown me multiple examples of places where well-meaning, foreign volunteers actually do make a positive difference.

Our older son was involved with a group that spent years building houses for people who had lost everything following a dramatic earthquake and tsunami in southern Peru. Staffed almost exclusively by short-term, foreign volunteers, they not only laid the bricks properly but also successfully moved countless families in need from shacks made of straw and scraps to solid, if basic, housing. Was it enough? No. But it was a step in the right direction. What’s more, they filled in where no one else would. The government’s response was negligent, at best. And the town suffered a fate similar to poor parts of New Orleans or Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina – left in the wake, while wealthier and more touristy areas were rebuilt.

Here in Kenya, government investment in human capital and potential is meager to non-existent. I had lunch with two Kenyan women recently, who argued that the only working health and education services are either private and expensive or run and supported by NGOs. That might not be 100% accurate. But it’s clear that large swathes of the population lack access to basic services, such as decent schools, sanitation, clinics, roads, power, clean water, and anything resembling a social safety net. 

So it’s the private sector that fills in many of the gaps, including not only the entrepreneurs and NGOs, but also lots volunteers.

In our year and a half of living in Kenya, we have met an impressive array of people who have mounted schools and businesses and organizations aimed at helping to improve the lives of those the government leaves behind. It is a testament to the incredible potential, energy, and enterprising spirit of this country.

But the task is great. And in some cases, it benefits from the help of foreign, wanna-be do-gooders.

In February, I visited an orphanage just outside of Nairobi for children whose mothers are in prison and have no fathers or other family to care for them. I was with a small group that was bringing them donations of food and art supplies. The center has a school, dorms, playgrounds, and kitchen, eating, and cleaning facilities. Everything is very basic, but also bright and cheery.

While the staff and teachers are Kenyan, the center also uses the help and hands of non-Kenyan volunteers (many of them white, middle-class foreigners), who come for periods ranging from one month to one year. The volunteers live on site and help feed, bathe, clothe, teach, and play with the kids. Some have further professional skills, like a physiotherapist we met. But mostly, they offer affection and support to children whose experiences of trauma and challenge seem so much bigger than they are.

Critics of volunteerism, and voluntourism especially, will site examples of projects that are ill-advised, exploitative, and more likely to deepen divides between the haves and have-nots than to build mutual understanding. This really gets to broader issues of what it takes to create programs that are actually useful, appropriate, and effective. Development specialists have been arguing and struggling with this question forever, though most agree that you have to listen and learn from local stakeholders about what they see as the key problems and potential solutions.

Clearly, being paternalistic, patronizing, or self-promoting is not the ticket to successful volunteerism. But all I’m trying to say is that not every volunteer’s selfie represents a portrait of selfishness and superficiality. Sometimes, there is a measure of good in do-gooder efforts, even if it comes in pint-size packages.