From disasters to development: When volunteering goes under scrutiny

When Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines in November 2013, Christopher White called up some of his friends and did what many groups did at the time: volunteer on the ground. Back then, White was a travel director for an extreme adventure tour company based in Beijing, China. Mobilizing 25 people from different backgrounds, he initially led a team of volunteers — most of whom paid their own expenses to travel in the Philippines — to help and achieve a simple goal a month after the disaster: work with local groups to deliver food and medical supplies, clear debris and build ten houses in one of the hardest-hit areas in Bantayan Island, Cebu. But what was once a modest and humble coming together of like-minded individuals and friends who want to help in emergency relief operations has now become a full-blown commitment to aid Haiyan recovery efforts. White co-founded Young Pioneer Disaster Response with several peers who are committed to long-term programs and solutions as part Haiyan recovery efforts in Bantayan. The organization is now accredited both in the Philippines and in the United States. According to its website, YPDR was a realization that “short-term solutions would be ineffective in addressing … [the] problems.” Employing short-term solutions — not just in disaster situations but also in the broader context of international development — is akin to shooting water from a water gun to a barren land and expecting the deed to address drought and harvest issues. More than a year after Haiyan’s onslaught, White’s organization has built at least 950 houses and refurbished 90 classrooms in Bantayan. This is a remarkable feat not just for a startup but also for an organization whose identity, mission and capacity to carry out tasks traditionally in the purview of larger groups have gone under intense scrutiny. Perhaps the most common question posed to White and his colleagues: Why risk your life on the field when you can just donate to more established organizations that have a foothold in the country and considerable experience in disaster response and recovery? And then there are those who have branded White and his peers simply as “voluntourists,” or people who visit a developing country and volunteer for short-term stints. While there are differing opinions on the merits and pitfalls of this approach, for many development experts, volunteer tourism does more harm than good. The former tour director and construction specialist quickly clarified, however, that what they do now with YPDR is not — or, in his words, more than — aid tourism. “YPDR is not based on volunteer tourism, it was based on a group of friends that wanted to help out,” he told Devex. “When people say volunteer tourism, I think it has a bad name to it. We brought in volunteers … [with] very high skills sets. There are companies [or organizations] around the world that charges [people] to volunteer. [We] never charge anyone any money to come [and] volunteer.” This negative perception is not without basis. Following the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010, the country saw a surge of voluntourists fly in to the Caribbean nation and pay to “help” in disaster relief operations. Their reasons range from wanting to do good on the ground or gain experience to simply satisfying their curiosity. Martine Haentjens, a former aid worker in Haiti, told Devex these aid tourists who suddenly became disaster volunteers made “quite a lot of mistakes” on the field due to their “lack of experience and adaptability.” And the Philippine experience is no different. A report about trends in volunteering abroad in 2014 by Go Overseas revealed that the Philippines was the most searched country for volunteer programs mainly due to the high interest in helping communities affected by Haiyan. Visiting Tacloban, considered ground zero of the catastrophe, confirms this trend: Many development professionals and even local officials have voiced their concern about this sudden influx of “inexperienced” volunteers. Clearing the air But aid tourists can become key players in development efforts, something White’s experience can attest to. When YPDR first started operations, White shared that there were “larger NGOs that looked down on us” because they don’t have the experience and the institutional foothold in the development community — a conundrum startups often find themselves in when it comes to securing funding and building a reputation. “[I]n the beginning [some people] judged us because we didn’t have shirts [and] heavy trucks with our logos on them. We didn’t have a huge budget,” White said. The negative associations and borderline discrimination they experienced as a startup presented a harsh culture of acceptance in an industry supposedly open to collaboration and partnerships. And White is not the only who shares this view. “I think within the industry, the organizations that have been around for a long time [view] those relatively new in the industry [quite differently] as in any kind of industry,” Colin Salisbury, founder of Global Volunteer Network, told Devex. “You get the big boys kind of, you know, feel a little threatened because the smaller organizations are more adaptive.” The Global Volunteer Network is not a small startup like YPDR; it’s a well-established organization in New Zealand that has sent almost 20,000 volunteers around the world since 2001. Even so, the concerns of these large, well-established development organizations should not be dismissed. In international development, especially in disaster situations, there is a need to reduce the margin for error. Stephanie Tam, a sanitation and hygiene researcher and a former volunteer, told Devex there’s a need to clear the air so the industry can distinguish and eventually weed out the handful of organizations that are only in it for the money and not because they have a genuine desire to help communities achieve their development goals. “[In] my experience … there are a lot of monetary interests … and they oftentimes overshadow the needs of those the volunteers are meant to serve. Many engage in it to get experience abroad and have something interesting to put in their [curriculum vitae],” Tam said, adding that addressing this issue can also prevent “helicopter aid,” where people can just fly in and fly out without dealing with any of the (good or bad) consequences. Managing expectations So how can startups and the rest of the international development community address this while maintaining an open and collaborative environment between stakeholders? It is all about managing expectations of all stakeholders, including volunteers, organizations and the host communities, said Vietnamese volunteer Phuong Thuy. “Some [of the issues] are poor management [or] the volunteers were not very serious in their volunteer efforts,” she told Devex. “[Other] organizations just want money from [the] volunteers and sometimes, the head of the local community just want money too.” While it is a monumental task to dispel self-interest in activities like these, Tam said that “those who want to ‘help out’ need to be very critical with themselves about why they want to do so, and what they think ‘helping out’ means.” This is where other stakeholders like national governments and independent groups can help in monitoring situations and outlining guidelines to help prevent such instances from happening. White shared that while the blame cannot be concentrated in one actor when things turn sour, the organizations should be the ones that have to bear majority of the responsibility in the end. “It goes back to the management and the programs that are available,” he shared. “You can bring in volunteers from around the world that have a good heart that wants to do something, but if the programs are not set up correctly, then they can turn very bad.” The former tour director added that implementing a reward-punishment system to monitor and improve activities can help, as well as having a very detailed program for volunteers to follow. “We also made it very clear to volunteers that they [are guests and should] act like one, and if for one minute they didn’t follow, we drop them or make them leave,” he said. 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