Today, one of my friends brought up a really interesting topic for her presentation; Voluntourism. I thought her presentation was amazing because it brought up a lot of points that I have thought of but which I had never really dwelled upon. Personally, it was very relatable to me because of my exchange experience via AIESEC. Her whole presentation was basically slapping AIESEC in the face ten times over. Lol. Needless to say, I was very excited throughout her whole presentation. Nodding my head and pumping my fists up in agreement to each point she threw at us. But I know my friend could relate to it too because she was also one of the volunteers that went for an AIESEC exchange. She did not share about AIESEC during her presentation, although I expected her to. I think it was a good choice that she did not, but presenting voluntourism as a whole was a really interesting take on her part.

Voluntourism is basically made up of two words;

I have never heard of this word before but without a doubt, AIESEC is Voluntourism and I understand this whole concept completely. It involves people from all over the world to take part in a "community project" or "social work" for a summer break or something and then you go back to your life feeling like you've changed the world. Truth to be told, before I went for my exchange, I didn't expect that I'm going to change the world. I mean, come on, it's living six weeks abroad, how much change could I have done? Once I leave the place, the impact I left would have disappeared together with me. True enough, I didn't feel like I made any difference after my exchange experience, which made me feel even more skeptical about AIESEC than I already am. That's also why I changed my department to Talent Management instead of the sales team I was in. I didn't feel like I could keep persuading people to join something I did not believe in.

One of the selling points of AIESEC that I am always reminded by my seniors to use is, "Travel with A Purpose". I always thought that, wow, yeah, that really makes sense. If I were to just travel around sightseeing, I may not even enjoy it all that much. Volunteering somewhere would make it feel more meaningful, more stories to tell your friends. AHAHA. Okay but when I went for my exchange I didn't think about all this alright. I came back and read up more on voluntourism because I am interested in what it really is and what people has to say about it. They found that most voluntourists are women and young adults aged from 20 to 25 years old. It feels like these altruists are really doing something to give back to the community, and maybe this is really the only way they can, but perhaps doing it at your hometown would also bring as much, or even more significance to the community.

Voluntourism is also more popular amongst the Western society to travel to Asian countries to volunteer, some sort of Western imperialism that would make us Asians feel like, "Wow, there are these white people coming over to help us." Haha, let me testify for that. When I was at my exchange, all the Vietnamese students were so amazed by these ang mohs and did not give a shit about me because I looked local and Asian. Sigh, seriously.. I'm more interesting than them lah okay. Haha but anyway yeah, I think it does make them feel even more narcissistic about themselves. I think that's the perfect word to describe this whole voluntourism thing.

Especially in our Instagrammable culture, they just take pictures with these Asian kids to show that they are doing something, but in truth, they did not do much, they did not even carry out the workshops at my project. While it all looks like a bed of roses on their social media, nobody truly knows what they did at their project. Sigh okay, I need to stop bashing ang mohs, but seriously, it applies to everyone in general actually. Even I felt a sense of pride in going to Vietnam to volunteer, but I knew it was more of my own personal development than creating any sort of impact to my students.

I'd like to end this post with a paragraph I read somewhere about #InstagrammingAfrica.

On these trips, we hide behind the lens, consuming the world around us with our powerful gazes and the clicking of camera shutters. When I directed this photo opportunity and starred in it, I used my privilege to capture a photograph that made me feel as though I was engaging with the community. Only now do I realize that what I was actually doing was making myself the hero/star in a story about “suffering Africa.”

Think your travel trips through before going for volunteering abroad, and remember, creating an impact should always be about the people, not ourselves. =)