Hearing Aid Comparisons

A conversation on development, human rights and the role of volunteers

This conversation has been generated From interviews with staff from Global Volunteer Network, an organization that connects volunteers with communities in need in 17 countries. Annika Lindorsson is the Program Coordinator for the Philippines, India and Vietnam and has an MA in Development Studies. Michelle McGinty, the program coordinator for Kenya and Tanzania, holds an MA in international relations. Hannah Butler, who is part of the team of administration staff the GVN, completing a Bachelor of Arts in Development Studies and Media Studies. The interviews were conducted by Megan tady, journalist and GVN media advisor, who holds a BA in journalism and international studies.

As the disparities between rich and poor expand, so do confusion for ordinary citizens on how to change this global trend. How can we tread lightly on the rest of the world, while continuing to help communities in need? What is the proper way to help? How can we approach the humanitarian aid personal level, the sustainable level and graceful? Four women discuss the role of volunteerism in a world that has had its share of Western "development", and assess the impact that volunteers can have in creating a more just and compassionate future.

Megan: Why is volunteering important?

Michelle: I think there is someone to see that the world is much bigger than just to live in their own country. Although you can see that in news, you do not really understand what it's like to deal with other cultures and people. If you are an American, for example, to know that there is more life than the American way. I do not think the world is supposed to work in one direction. It is intended to work in all different ways. The more people who understand and know that I think that the world be a better place.

Annika: For me, the volunteers provide the first step. I do not think it is necessarily the ultimate solution to development, but its something you can do while you are working on building capacity in these countries.

Megan: How many different volunteering as tourism?

Hanna: It deeper than tourism. Tourism is a bit plastic. People are usually just do what tourists want. It is not their real life. Sometimes it can be a good bit.

Megan: It's so difficult to travel without being a burden to the community, regardless of how you're conscious of it. You take a cruise that takes you away from your own community to another community where it dumps waste in their waters wash their beaches and pollute their fish. You get dropped off in a port and thinking, "I am helping the community by buying things here" But more often you buy large companies. And all the water you drink and eat good food good, while local people are left to the bad water. So it makes me think, how can I get out?

Michelle: I share the same view. This is something that plays on my mind as well. But if you not volunteering right in a way that does not strengthen the system and the general trends in global world, that may be helpful.

Megan: How do you think it impacts a community when someone gives of their time, money, resources and level of comfort, even to volunteer with them?

Hannah: One of the main factors of development is self-esteem and national pride. When I volunteered in India, it is sometimes felt that I really did not do that. But in some places, where we were the first foreigners to come there, people realized they were not forgotten. They thought: "We are worthy of helped. "

Michelle: Very often you hear that the developed countries to take advantage of developing countries. But volunteerism allows developing countries to see that there is another side of people, and how people want to be in the world.

Megan: There is always a concern that sending volunteers to the West in developing countries can be harmful, especially taking into account the history of Western to impose their own ideology and way of doing things on other cultures, often at a terrible cost. Why is it important to be wise this?

Michelle: I would say that my worldview is very much guided by the knowledge that there are other ways to things. I just do not see my way, or American, or how the British, imposed on local communities. I do values that take only ways that these reflect the true value of life.

I think some people do not have a complete understanding you can not impose your ideas on others. I hope that if they try to impose their ideas to other people and it turns bad, they learn from it. I think it is to learn about the world and how it works and there is more than one way to do something. What is GVN and the information we provide to volunteers, is to communicate that.

The development is much a reflection of who we are as a people and a world. I do not think that some of the international attitudes there are good enough yet.

Megan: What precautions are taken to avoid a volunteer imperialist approach to development?

Hanna: We want to help people develop to maintain. We do not want to modernize them and to leave our impact on them. We want to help in the right way. Volunteers must be at their best behavior and they should be so sensitive because it is sensitive, pristine environments they go to. They have to be respectful of their society and their standards, even with simple things like dress and demonstrations of affection.

Annika: You do not want people to arrive in these countries as if they were Santa Claus, giving gifts and having the attitude that they will be able to change things immediately, then leave a few weeks later. It is important that volunteers are aware of this.

Megan: It is difficult to know what the right way to help. You should check your definition of "development". What it means to succeed as a nation? Does that mean that you are developed when you have an X-Box in every home?

Michelle: I agree. When Australia was first developed, the British came along and saw that the Aborigines had a different way of life on earth. They were a nomadic people. The British came in and decided they were civilized and developed. They took that as a reason to go and kill Aborigines and take their land. I think it shows really arrogance of developers' point of view. They are not taking the time to understand that there are values more there than money. I hope only that in 100 years that the work we do does not help to implement a world that values money. The only way you can do is to educate people. If you equip them with skills necessary for decision-making power, you must have faith and see what happens.

Hanna International aid has been pumped into the country for the last 100 years, and it has not been effective. The gaps between the rich and the poor get wider. We are therefore looking for alternatives, because what we are doing is inappropriate and inefficient. The key is community involvement and local empowerment.

Megan: I was struck by a volunteer told me the other day. From his experience as a volunteer, she said, "I have done nothing that they could not do if they come to apply. "This statement is very scary for me, which implies that almost all people in developing countries are poor are lazy or because of their own actions. But I think that this opinion prevails among Westerners.

Hanna: Sometimes we need new people to come and do something because you can not see the forest through the trees when you are in it. You just drop the life-long. Many of these people do not know they should expect more from life and their rights as individuals humans. We sometimes forget that it is a human right not to be poor.

People must open their minds and realize that these people are stuck cycles that just link them to poverty and is ultimately not their fault. There are so many reasons why they can not get out. I hate the attitude of them and us. The Western world forgets that we are the minority. Most of the world survives with no bank, no credit cards, no TV and no running water.

Megan: It's easy for people to think that those of developing countries do not know the sadness and pain the same way we do because that because their children die more often, they should not cry too deeply.

Hanna: Often people think that the poor are not real people. But they are and they have real lives. You can not romanticize poverty, but they have special things happening to them. They have ups and downs.

We are all people at the end of the day. There are no differences when you strip everything else. It's one thing I found by volunteering. I worked in one of the biggest red light districts in appalling conditions, where the women have AIDS and have sex with men less than a dollar. But at the end of the day, I was still sitting there laughing and joking with them about what was TV and cups of tea. That was then, on a parallel to an afternoon that I owed my mother and friends, or just a woman to. I could not get an extra life from mine, but when you take away the fact that they are prostitutes and they are Indians and they have AIDS and I have a house and a car, we were still sitting sipping tea, are women, to have such a link.

For more information Volunteerism, visit: http://www.volunteer.org.nz/

For more great articles on volunteering, visit: http://globalvolunteernetwork.blogspot.com/

© 2000-2007 Global Volunteer Network

About the Author

Megan Taddy is a freelance writer with a B.A. in Journalism and International Studies who completed a media internship with Global Volunteer Network (GVN), an organisation that helps connect volunteers with communities in need.

http://www.volunteer.org.nz

Please ensure that all GVN content has an accreditation to the GVN website. You may not directly or indirectly change, edit, add to or produce summaries of the GVN content. A courtesy copy of your publication would be greatly appreciated.

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