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Hoping to Help: The Promises and Pitfalls of Global Health Volunteering
Overseas volunteering has exploded in numbers and interest in the last couple of decades. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people travel from wealthier to poorer countries to participate in short-term volunteer programs focused on health services. Churches, universities, nonprofit service organizations, profit-making "voluntourism" companies, hospitals, and large corporations all sponsor brief missions. Hoping to Help is the first book to offer a comprehensive assessment of global health volunteering, based on research into how it currently operates, its benefits and drawbacks, and how it might be organized to contribute most effectively. Given the enormous human and economic investment in these activities, it is essential to know more about them and to understand the advantages and disadvantages for host communities. Most people assume that poor communities benefit from the goodwill and skills of the volunteers. Volunteer trips are widely advertised as a means to "give back" and "make a difference." In contrast, some claim that health volunteering is a new form of colonialism, designed to benefit the volunteers more than the host communities. Others focus on unethical practices and potential harm to the presumed "beneficiaries." Judith N. Lasker evaluates these opposing positions and relies on extensive research―interviews with host country staff members, sponsor organization leaders, and volunteers, a national survey of sponsors, and participant observation―to identify best and worst practices. She adds to the debate a focus on the benefits to the sponsoring organizations, benefits that can contribute to practices that are inconsistent with what host country staff identify as most likely to be useful for them and even with what may enhance the experience for volunteers. Hoping to Help illuminates the activities and goals of sponsoring organizations and compares dominant practices to the preferences of host country staff and to nine principles for most effective volunteer trips.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published February 19, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 24, 2024
Interesting book, I read it for class but would probably recommend it to a friend. A little dry but that’s nonfiction for you.
February 17, 2017
Following the huge earthquake in Haiti I was interested in volunteering to go there as an aid worker for up to a month. I'm not a nurse but was willing to do anything required. However I learnt that I would have to provide some thousands of euro to the NGO taking volunteers. This was explained by saying that it would cover flights, accommodation, food and travel insurance. But I didn't have money to give, especially if I would not be earning for that period. I'm self-employed. To me it seemed that I could give my money or my time but not both. Then a cholera outbreak (brought by Nepalese troops it turned out) meant that no aid workers were allowed to go, so I contributed a story to a charity anthology instead.
Aid volunteering, especially in the area of healthcare which is the subject of this book, is a growth industry. Judith Lasker tells us that over a million people went abroad from America during 2007. Having read 'Disaster Capitalism' by Anthony Loewenstein I read her book following the money as much as anything. Sure enough, Judith who researched Haiti, Ghana, Ecuador and Niger, found that first-world governments have been soured towards handing aid to possibly corrupt nations and dictators, preferring to sponsor NGOs (non government organisations) or hand contracts to private companies. But if the countries dealt with the corruption they would be able to afford a health service, so essentially the outside aid was prolonging the corruption. Some long-established NGOs are seen as slow-moving and cumbrous, so individuals or small groups self-organise. While she managed to get a charity staffer to tell her that volunteer youth workers were not expected to do a good job - the purpose of their trip was to pay the charity and to be tapped for money again and again.
With little training, students and office workers on vacation will have a varied experience, Judith found, as they may not speak the local language or understand customs, while facilities will be basic; even water restrictions and cockroaches can spoil the trip for some. Young people would be only asked to do basic work in most cases, but these poor countries are not short of manual labour so they were taking a local person's job. Students often wanted to put aid work on their CV, but colleges, says Judith, had wised up to the fact that mostly rich kids could afford to go. Nurse trainees were concerned that if they were not licensed to carry out procedures in America, how come they were expected to do them abroad?
A charity set up to focus on eye care or fistula repair, say, might do no other work, arrive, see only those who were in the area and depart. A much better way of operating was when they scheduled a trip to work with a mobile clinic and villagers were let know in advance that they would be coming. Volunteers who came prepared to do anything asked of them were valuable but those who were fussy and kept distracting the permanent workers were a nuisance. The best contribution Judith found was when a small team, a surgeon and wife, went out every year to carry out spinal operations and train the local doctors.
Some groups were run by missionaries and one lady told a conference that the work was about Jesus first, aid second. I'm sure that's very helpful to people with parasites or polio - sorry. A doctor actually learned from the local witchdoctor that the insistence on a prayer session before the clinic opened was driving people away. Including the witchdoctor, who had been hoping for treatment. The doctor quietly dropped the prayers and got on with the medical aid.
There isn't space to do justice to this fascinating and honestly written book, which contains well analysed feedback from aid workers both permanent and voluntary, and from Judith's own experience - on a trip to Haiti, two of the aid workers were solely there to prepare PR materials for the NGO. Read it and be inspired or cautioned, or both. This book will interest anyone in the medical field, or a aid donor, a charity worker, or a person thinking of going abroad as an individual.
Aid volunteering, especially in the area of healthcare which is the subject of this book, is a growth industry. Judith Lasker tells us that over a million people went abroad from America during 2007. Having read 'Disaster Capitalism' by Anthony Loewenstein I read her book following the money as much as anything. Sure enough, Judith who researched Haiti, Ghana, Ecuador and Niger, found that first-world governments have been soured towards handing aid to possibly corrupt nations and dictators, preferring to sponsor NGOs (non government organisations) or hand contracts to private companies. But if the countries dealt with the corruption they would be able to afford a health service, so essentially the outside aid was prolonging the corruption. Some long-established NGOs are seen as slow-moving and cumbrous, so individuals or small groups self-organise. While she managed to get a charity staffer to tell her that volunteer youth workers were not expected to do a good job - the purpose of their trip was to pay the charity and to be tapped for money again and again.
With little training, students and office workers on vacation will have a varied experience, Judith found, as they may not speak the local language or understand customs, while facilities will be basic; even water restrictions and cockroaches can spoil the trip for some. Young people would be only asked to do basic work in most cases, but these poor countries are not short of manual labour so they were taking a local person's job. Students often wanted to put aid work on their CV, but colleges, says Judith, had wised up to the fact that mostly rich kids could afford to go. Nurse trainees were concerned that if they were not licensed to carry out procedures in America, how come they were expected to do them abroad?
A charity set up to focus on eye care or fistula repair, say, might do no other work, arrive, see only those who were in the area and depart. A much better way of operating was when they scheduled a trip to work with a mobile clinic and villagers were let know in advance that they would be coming. Volunteers who came prepared to do anything asked of them were valuable but those who were fussy and kept distracting the permanent workers were a nuisance. The best contribution Judith found was when a small team, a surgeon and wife, went out every year to carry out spinal operations and train the local doctors.
Some groups were run by missionaries and one lady told a conference that the work was about Jesus first, aid second. I'm sure that's very helpful to people with parasites or polio - sorry. A doctor actually learned from the local witchdoctor that the insistence on a prayer session before the clinic opened was driving people away. Including the witchdoctor, who had been hoping for treatment. The doctor quietly dropped the prayers and got on with the medical aid.
There isn't space to do justice to this fascinating and honestly written book, which contains well analysed feedback from aid workers both permanent and voluntary, and from Judith's own experience - on a trip to Haiti, two of the aid workers were solely there to prepare PR materials for the NGO. Read it and be inspired or cautioned, or both. This book will interest anyone in the medical field, or a aid donor, a charity worker, or a person thinking of going abroad as an individual.
July 30, 2017
This was an interesting book exposing problems of short term medical trips by volunteers traveling to poor countries, such as Haiti and Ecuador. The book focuses on medical trips, not ones where Rotarians for example are helping with water wells and building facilities and the like. The term for these trips is "voluntourism" which indicates part volunteer and part tourist. This is a huge and growing market in the U.S. The author, a sociologist professor, surveyed 177 short term programs including faith based, educational institutions, and non-faith NGOs.
The conclusion reached from the surveys and several trips taken by the author and her team, is that short term volunteerism seems to be ineffective. Ms. Lasker includes chapters on the sponsoring organizations, the volunteers, the host communities, and spells out principles for maximizing the benefits of these volunteer health trips. It appears from her research that most volunteers on these trips are there more for the volunteer's personal growth, and it's not clear how much help was really given to the host countries. Metrics are not complete or even available, and follow-up is sketchy at best. Billions are spent annually on these "medical mission" trips, half going to the airlines and plenty of dollars going to the sponsoring organizations.
She further argues that host countries need to be more involved with the groups and volunteers need to do more advance preparation and learn about the countries and their cultures before they embark. There are some helpful tips in the Appendix on how to make the most of these trips. I was considering going on a short Rotary trip to Guyana but after reading this book, I'm not so sure it makes sense.
What I didn't like about the book was all the anti-wealthy white talk-it gets old. Making rich white people in the West feel guilty about volunteering and such, never gets to the root cause of why some countries are rich and free, while others like the host countries mentioned here remain so poor. Is it perhaps the type of government that makes the developed world so prosperous? Private property rights, rule of law, education, and liberty go a long way to raising all boats and sadly, these social justice warriors never ever address this. Most of the host countries have very wealthy (non-white) people running the government and keep the folks poor and downtrodden. Corruption is rampant in these places, and I suspect, so much of the aid bestowed upon these countries never gets to the people that need it most. Perhaps the author can take this issue up. We also have so many poor in our own country and at the very end the author does encourage folks to volunteer in their own communities. I'd rather see folks volunteering and being helpful, and giving of their time and talent, than not doing this work. More of this local work should be encouraged.
The conclusion reached from the surveys and several trips taken by the author and her team, is that short term volunteerism seems to be ineffective. Ms. Lasker includes chapters on the sponsoring organizations, the volunteers, the host communities, and spells out principles for maximizing the benefits of these volunteer health trips. It appears from her research that most volunteers on these trips are there more for the volunteer's personal growth, and it's not clear how much help was really given to the host countries. Metrics are not complete or even available, and follow-up is sketchy at best. Billions are spent annually on these "medical mission" trips, half going to the airlines and plenty of dollars going to the sponsoring organizations.
She further argues that host countries need to be more involved with the groups and volunteers need to do more advance preparation and learn about the countries and their cultures before they embark. There are some helpful tips in the Appendix on how to make the most of these trips. I was considering going on a short Rotary trip to Guyana but after reading this book, I'm not so sure it makes sense.
What I didn't like about the book was all the anti-wealthy white talk-it gets old. Making rich white people in the West feel guilty about volunteering and such, never gets to the root cause of why some countries are rich and free, while others like the host countries mentioned here remain so poor. Is it perhaps the type of government that makes the developed world so prosperous? Private property rights, rule of law, education, and liberty go a long way to raising all boats and sadly, these social justice warriors never ever address this. Most of the host countries have very wealthy (non-white) people running the government and keep the folks poor and downtrodden. Corruption is rampant in these places, and I suspect, so much of the aid bestowed upon these countries never gets to the people that need it most. Perhaps the author can take this issue up. We also have so many poor in our own country and at the very end the author does encourage folks to volunteer in their own communities. I'd rather see folks volunteering and being helpful, and giving of their time and talent, than not doing this work. More of this local work should be encouraged.
September 22, 2018
I’ll be honest, this was a painfully slow read for me. It felt like reading a really long research article and wanting to just read the abstract instead. That said, it is an excellent work on the pitfalls and potential negative consequences of humanitarian efforts and well-intended volunteerism. I wish I’d read this over a decade ago. I think the strongest chapters are the first chapter and second appendix. Important read for anyone planning to “help” abroad.
December 7, 2019
Interesting perspectives with multiple rationales
Interesting perspectives with multiple rationales. This read sheds light on many struggles with international mission and/or medical work. Definitely recommend reading before you consider participating in any sort of trip like this. It will educate you about the potential problems that you may see or cause. A must read for the global health volunteer or professional.
Interesting perspectives with multiple rationales. This read sheds light on many struggles with international mission and/or medical work. Definitely recommend reading before you consider participating in any sort of trip like this. It will educate you about the potential problems that you may see or cause. A must read for the global health volunteer or professional.
April 19, 2020
Another medical missionary reports that she prays with 80 percent of patients, and they see that it works. She claims that her prayers healed a schizophrenic. Her advice to the audience: "Take the opportunity to tell to people about Christ. Don't come home bragging about seeing five-hundred patients if you didn't use the opportunity to talk about the Gospel. Be a servant. It's all about Jesus first, medicine second. Don't be a jerk. You're there to serve people. That is what Jesus did."
September 23, 2021
Very good look into the volunteering world and what mission trips really mean for the world... by making sure we are centering the people we are serving, not the volunteers. I found a lot of the sentiments to be applicable to home based volunteering too. Really grateful to have read this for a class!! Also really opened my eyes to the impacts it has on the countries too. 4.5 star just cuz it felt somewhat repetitive at times but honestly a great work.
November 9, 2018
This book spoke exactly to all of my doubts , concerns, and internal struggles floating in my head for years regarding international volunteer trips. Its a great piece provoking reflection for all involved in international work. I would highly recommend!
April 15, 2018
If your mother gives you a book that she has cited many times while getting her PhD, its probably gonna be good. This was an exceptional book.
October 17, 2018
Great book for anyone interested in global health and international medical volunteering. Thoughtful and nuanced description of the benefits and harm that can come with these types of trips.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews