So, You Want to Go to Africa?
Ethical Volunteerism & Public Diplomacy
This article was originally published in Public Diplomacy Magazine Spring/Summer 2020. Minor edits have been made to this publishing, primarily to reflect the author no longer being a Peace Corps volunteer. The original article can be found here.
Author’s Note: In light of the recent COVID-19 outbreak, considering the ethics of traveling to remote places in developing countries is especially important—the potential for volunteers to carry COVID-19 to a remote village after long international travel has serious repercussions. Poor health systems, lack of resources, and misinformation would make an outbreak in rural areas of developing countries catastrophic, especially those with a high prevalence of diseases like tuberculosis (TB) and human immunodeficiency virus/ acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). Now more than ever in this globalized world, the ethics of volunteerism must be considered.
With increased access to the world, Americans with certain benevolence and extra resources can easily travel to developing countries to volunteer. Volunteer activities could be related to public health, infrastructure, or education. For a week up to the maximum time allowed on a tourist visa, US citizens can do work meant to improve people’s lives. Volunteering US citizens (for this paper) may go to developing countries to “aid in development” or enact “community development” activities.
Even if the goal of volunteer trips is not diplomacy, the inherent engagement with the host nation’s people and subsequent exchange of culture, ideas, or skills between them and US citizens is public diplomacy in action. That exchange is not transactional but thematic, often rooted in ideas of cooperation and improved human security for the mutual benefit of both. But often, volunteers abroad are unequipped to adequately interact with foreign publics to achieve characteristically altruistic development, falling short of the standard of a good, effective volunteer.
For this reason, I will offer a discussion of ethics in volunteerism as it relates to public diplomacy drawing from my experiences as a volunteer in four countries, my studies in public diplomacy, and then as a Peace Corps Trainee in South Africa. I am confident there is a need for this argument based on my volunteer experience worldwide and the organizations I have been exposed to. Ethical foreign public engagement must be enacted by American volunteers abroad. If ethics is a moral imperative, then a volunteer’s moral imperative should be exchanging information and building mutual understanding.
First, volunteerism is diplomacy, whether it intends to be or not.
Public diplomacy is an international actor’s policy-based communication activities designed to understand, engage, inform, and influence foreign publics to support national or international interests. Volunteers communicate in this way with locals, but their interests are often their own as volunteers. Therefore, volunteers should utilize diplomacy’s tools to set an agenda focused on the needs of a community. Then, volunteers can engage in participatory development with locals.
Volunteerism is the movement of “citizen diplomats” around the world. According to the State Department, citizen diplomacy is accomplished on the most basic level by obtaining a passport. The State Department characterizes a citizen diplomat as engaging with the world in “meaningful, mutually beneficial dialogue” (2018). To emphasize, this is stated by the State Department as the general role of Americans abroad, not only those with a motivation to help others. The “mutually beneficial” aspect is what I have observed too often be lacking in volunteerism. For example, while volunteering for a week in Mexico, my team and I would sit in our vans eating sandwiches for lunch every day as we waited for the kids to come to the day camp we were operating. On our final day, a local church made us a traditional meal. We eagerly filled our plates and, an hour later, waved goodbye. I went home feeling good about the time I spent running the camp for kids.
However, I later asked myself what culture, if any, did I learn from that one shared meal? And more importantly, what did the locals think of our large white coolers of food while their means were more modest? My team and I felt discouraged when kids would stop coming throughout the week, but now I ask myself whether they even needed our camp? Volunteers may be positively impacted by experiencing a developing world, but by contrast, are they really making the long-term impacts they hope for?
Ethics are needed in volunteerism partly because volunteers’ actions create a perception of Americans. Americans often communicate their desired activities and learnings with no consultation of what locals think is needed. I have witnessed in Uganda an attitude toward Americans that is we bring money and things. This was likely developed over decades of colonialism and lack of hope that Ugandans are equipped to improve their own lives. Ethics in volunteerism are needed because without them, the disempowerment of the local community is perpetrated.
Second, volunteers are sometimes, unfortunately, white saviors.
Development, as defined by Everett Rogers (2002), is: “a widely participatory process of social change in a society…for the majority of people through their gaining greater control over their environment” (p. 9). Development increases people’s control over their environment, positively impacting health, economic mobility, education, and more. Mutual understanding is required for mutual participation in development. Locals should gain tools from volunteers they will use in their community to address problems they have identified. When the Americans get on the plane, the locals stay. This is how countries develop as a long-term, locally-led process with mutual participation.
An unfortunate but aptly named stereotype in volunteerism is “white savior” (to learn more, search #whitesavior on social media). A white savior is a well-resourced volunteer who does not “exchange” skills or ideas but rather swoops in with their own personal agenda — often significantly different from the host country’s needs — for an ineffectively short time period. They do not understand development hurdles beyond a very surface level.
The white savior’s higher socioeconomic status elevates them to an unearned position of believing any volunteerism in developing countries is “helpful.” This is a major ethical dilemma because it can be potentially detrimental to the host by disrupting the local economy, creating a sense of paternalism or dependency, or even just misallocating their resources relative to the host’s needs. For example, a shoe company (which shall remain nameless and has since improved practices) began delivering shoes to communities in South America. This company had learned children were getting diseases from walking barefoot. (In my experience, this is often to keep school shoes clean and something kids are used to.) Volunteers would distribute shoes to kids, resulting in pictures of Americans kneeling in the dirt fitting kids with shoes. When analyzing the actual impact of giving shoes, researchers were unable to show a positive impact. In fact, some argued the donations of shoes put local cobblers out of business. This was not the intended effect of the giving. But, having extra shoes to give away trumped a long-term development process.
In development, the disempowerment of locals leaves them in a position of dependency. Just because a developing country may lack goods does not mean material things are the answer. Could volunteer work be done in a way that puts a volunteer out of a “job” because a community is educated and equipped to do the development work themselves? That is the foundation of sustained change.
Third, it is possible to be an ethical volunteer engaging in development.
To provide an example of ethical volunteerism within the thoughts of this paper, it is helpful to look at the Peace Corps. Established in 1961 by John F. Kennedy, the Peace Corps expanded the US’s involvement abroad through American volunteers doing development projects alongside locals. Today, Peace Corps volunteers work in education, agriculture, youth development, health, and more. In the best cases, Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) live and work in a developing country for two years at a local organization with community members conversing in the local dialect, attending cultural events, and exchanging ideas.
Peace Corps requires volunteers to work in partnership with host country nationals. In this way, locals can acquire skills from American citizens. Ideally, when a PCV leaves their community, they leave behind a seed of change in the locals' hands. The role of small communities in developing countries should not be underestimated. These are the places leaders are born and where social change begins.
For example, as a health volunteer in South Africa, I would have worked at a local organization to promote HIV/AIDS awareness and education for vulnerable populations in the community. After training, I was required to spend the first three months in my villages learning about my community. I was tasked with various human-centered design activities to help me understand the community’s needs, resources, challenges, and strengths before attempting any program.
Peace Corps imparts the moral imperative on volunteers to develop projects by developing an understanding of their community. Not enacting projects of volunteers own agenda. While PCVs do not always get it right, the training and concurrent evaluation of a volunteer’s service help maintain a focus on ethical work by volunteers. The Peace Corps training mindset establishes a sufficient standard for how volunteers should engage in work. But, many volunteers both in and outside of the Peace Corps do not meet this bar. This can and must be changed for the good of both the volunteers and the communities they serve. I will now share some possible guidelines for enacting ethical volunteer work.
Learn First
PCVs undergo training in various topics ranging from culture to learning to live at a local standard, facilitation skills, and a large amount of language tutoring in local dialects. Learning the local language is a pillar of the Peace Corps as PCVs have “learned more than 200 languages and dialects” (JFK Library, 2018). Obviously, the long-term nature of PCVs makes this easier and more viable. While recently visiting my future home and workplace, I greeted people and introduced myself in the local language. This surprised many people, opening the door to connection and conversation that will serve me in the coming 24 months. Not all US volunteers are privileged with Peace Corps language training, but I would guess basic greetings in developing countries are Googleable. Even for short-term volunteers, such as religious groups, it would be interesting to know how many missions trips prepare volunteers with basic greetings and introductions in the local language–a few easily memorized sentences.
Language is a door to diplomatic communication with local communities. Ethical volunteerism means investing in basic education of the country and culture volunteers will travel to. It, in my view, is a moral imperative. A volunteer inhabits someone’s world for a short period of time. It is not the responsibility of the locals to know what the Americans do and do not know about local culture. Having an attitude of learning before flying a thousand miles to help others sets the stage for the next best practice.
Understand Others
To understand, you must first listen. Ask questions. Be observant and slow to speak. If you can’t speak the local language, have a translator identified beforehand to ensure that there can be understanding at least on the most basic level. Ask local stakeholders what the identified problems are and what activities would help these problems. Find out the strengths of locals. Use what and who is present and willing in the developing countries for projects. Promoting global welfare is of the utmost importance. But not at the cost of small communities being absent from their own development process. Ethical volunteerism first understands others.
As a personal example, I worked with a team of Ugandans to implement health education programming in a clinic. To develop content for public health seminars, the clinic staff and a team of local volunteers gathered information on what people’s knowledge was on preventable diseases the clinic often treated. This was highly informative and helped us then target health education interventions to the local knowledge. For instance, a common belief discovered was urinary tract infections (UTIs) are transmitted through toilet seats, an improbable occurrence. Dispelling this myth would not have been included in education if my American health team and I were the ones developing content. In a foreign country, the foreign volunteer is never the expert. A volunteer from the “developed world” will never fully understand the developing world. But, keep listening.
Exchange Information
When debating the ethics of volunteerism, the question is not if development is good, “but whether these Westerners possess the necessary capacities and motivations to produce effective help” (Palacios, 2010, p. 863). Ethical volunteerism is cooperative action to share knowledge and skills.
Having American volunteers with tangible skills to teach local communities abroad is sustainable because when the volunteer leaves, locals can continue teaching, building, caring for, etc., as demonstrated by the volunteer. If a volunteer has been adhering to the previously suggested practices, there should be a mutual exchange. For instance, an expert American engineer might train a maintenance team in an East African country to maintain new water well being drilled. While the engineer may have expertise in the mechanics, the local knowledge of seasons and soil would help him develop a program that would survive far beyond his brief visit.
In this way, the moral compass for exchanging information is built on the first two suggested best practices: learn before you go and understand others. Both of these skills will then maximize the volunteer’s impact and effectively launch development projects.
The power of volunteerism comes through public diplomacy principles. If volunteers desire to act ethically, seeking to do good and to not harm over their own agenda, then they will learn before they go, work to understand the local context and exchange information with partners. Volunteerism inherently embodies aspects of public diplomacy, and when allowing this frame to provide a moral compass, volunteerism can push the tide of global development in massive ways.
Do not go, do, and leave. Go and listen. Go and learn. Go and work together.
As artist and activist Lilla Watson said, “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
