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Leave the world a better place |
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Friday, 18 July 2008 |
www.voluntourism.org
As the word implies, voluntourism
combines holiday travel with
volunteering at the destination visited.
Search the web and you’ll find dozens
of organisations, both non-profit
groups and travel businesses, deeply
involved in organising volunteering
holidays, and with a common intent of
leaving the world a better place. It
has also spawned a new vocabulary:
voluntourist, ethical holidays, travel
philanthropy and so on, aligned with
the more established concept of
sustainable tourism.
Probably the best place to learn about voluntourism is VolunTourism International’s site, which
provides a wealth of articles about the concept, offers a free Voluntourist e-newsletter, and
sponsors an annual Global Voluntourism Forum in the US. It tries to mobilise the travel
industry to partner with non-profit organisations and service-learning programmes, and provides
an excellent introduction to the whole idea of voluntourism, starting with an article, ‘The most
important question of all’, which is ‘Am I right for voluntourism?’ The site has tools to help
you decide which schemes are likely to suit you best, and links to sites of various groups
working in the field, such as Cross-Cultural Solutions (crossculturalsolutions.org) or Earthwatch
(earthwatch.org).
The tone is realistic, and points out the negative and positive aspects of the business: when
it’s well-organised and thoughtfully planned, the traveller can indeed use holiday time to great
advantage, helping the host country and gaining many personal benefits. Some criticise the
system, saying it simply expands the trend of episodic volunteering, in which feel-good bursts
of service give the volunteer pleasure but do not result in much useful help for the recipients or
the complex cause. For all the pros and cons and a host of useful information, check it out.
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