The Importance of Ethical Volunteering.
When you think about volunteering & traveling programs to India to help those in need, you do have to keep in mind the concept of ethical volunteering.
What is ethical volunteering? The best way to approach this is to explore the exact opposite of ethical volunteering.
When you are planning your trip abroad to volunteer in India, you should remember the main purpose of your visit. You should be working to help others, not just to benefit yourself. There are plenty of organizations in the world today that arrange for volunteers to have two weeks volunteering and two weeks enjoying a luxury vacation in a tropical paradise like India. Critics refer to trips like this as ‘voluntourism’, and it is arguably not ethically volunteering. The main focus or at least half the focus of trips like this is for the volunteer to enjoy a holiday and feel a little better about themselves in the process.
Ethical volunteering is quite different. For these projects, the main goal is to help the people in need whether it’s children learning English or people who need their homes rebuilding. The volunteer may still have time to explore India but this is a side option and not one of the main reasons for the project.
Ethical volunteering is crucial because if volunteering projects are not ethical than the processes and trips can actually do more harm in India than good. Volunteers may feel better about themselves, but they actually have little impact on the individuals they are supposedly their to help. So, how should you make sure that you are participating in an ethical volunteering project?
Look For The Right Organization
As already mentioned there are various organizations that help people volunteer in India, but you need to make sure that you are working with the right one. Make sure that the main focus of their projects is to help people, rather than to provide volunteers with a holiday. There may still be mentions of exploring India and experiencing the culture or even the sites. But these should all be bonuses of going to the country to help the people there who need support.
Think About Duration
While micro volunteering can be effective, if you are traveling to India to volunteer you may want to consider staying for a longer period of time. Rather than going for a few weeks, consider spending the entire summer there. This will allow you to build relationships with the people who you are helping and provide you with the best chance of making a real difference in their lives.
Put In The Effort
Before you even get on the plane, you should ensure that you are making an effort to put the most into your volunteering. If you are traveling to India to volunteer it is worth learning as much Hindi as you can. This will allow you to communicate more effectively with the people who you are there to help. When you start volunteering, you need to take your role seriously. This is the only way to be a true ethical volunteer and actually do some good during your time in India.
We hope you see now why ethical volunteering is of such great importance in India and how you can ensure that you are part of the solution, not the problem.