SAIH is an organization of students and academics in Norway. SAIH focuses on education in development cooperation and created a wonderful if over-simplified parody of the “White Savior Mentality” that permeates so much voluntourism: “Who Wants to Be a Volunteer?”
So much voluntourism today does focus on glorifying the volunteer and making the beneficiaries seem helpless. But BeachCorps is trying to change that. BeachCorps is a model 9 years in the making that focuses on great causes, not the egos of volunteers. After years of developing our model, we were delighted to learn of the seminal work “Toxic Charity” that talks about the dangers of good intentions doing harm through volunteer work. As we read the book, every single danger was one we had already thought of–we just hadn’t expressed it so well. And we were glad to see our model avoids those mistakes. We talk a lot about Toxic Charity on our website. http://www.beachcorps.com/avoiding-toxic-charity.html
So ultimately while we believe a lot of voluntourism is bad, not all of it is. We subscribe to the #MendNotEnd philosophy that says you can indeed do good on short term trips if the focus is the cause, not the ego of the volunteer. Our marketing focus is on the great non-profit and for-profit partners that are working to empower local communities. The folks who are fighting to empower local communities to promote education, community development, protecting the environment/animals are the heroes, not BeachCorps, not our volunteers. Our volunteers are but a “Little Grain of Sand” in our view. A little sand in the wrong place can do harm. Only a lot of sand accumulating and supporting the right causes can help. We are starting in the Dominican Republic this year but hope to expand.
We hope that folks will see if we are keeping our promises!
#Voluntourism #SustainableDevelopment #SustainableTourism #SustainableTravel #DominicanRepublic #VolunteerVacation
