Volunteering has many positive attributes. It is encouraged and supported by lot of organizations and for a good reason. Done well, volunteering can be incredibly impactful both on those who are served and those who serve. However, the repercussions of volunteer work done poorly can have devastating effects. Volunteers receive criticism as a result. Their critics say volunteer serve for the wrong reasons, that volunteer don’t do good quality work, and that their efforts don’t have a lasting impact. Volunteers can, with critical thought, can overcome these criticisms and better serve the communities they volunteer in.
It’s easy to think that the reasons volunteers serve really don’t matter. If there is work to be done all you really need is people willing to do it. Despite work needing to be done, the reasons we serve really do matter because they effect the ways we serve and the decisions we make when we serve. It’s very easy to assume that everyone who volunteers does so for the right reasons, they want to help makes people’s lives better, that they have hearts of gold, or whatever you think is the right reason. Not every volunteer is like this. Just like any other community, volunteers are made up of a large and diverse group who were drawn to volunteer by just as many and diverse reasons. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the reasons are important. People volunteer to help others, to strengthen their communities, and to feel good about themselves. When our motivation to serve is more “self serving” that is reflected in our work. People who want to help others tend to seek out who needs the most help. The decision of who needs or who deserves help is a difficult and complex question. It’s not a bad question exactly but the way way we answer it can involve a lot of bias. One example of is in animal and wildlife conservation and it’s called “the Disney effect.” This causes money and promotional campaigns to focus on saving only the cute and fluffy animals. This diverts attention and money away from animals like sharks and many strange other looking marine animals or even annoying but still influential species like bees. We can see this in charity towards humans as well. Who do we think is most deserving of our service? Who do we blame for poverty? We are more willing to help the people who we think work hard and are worthy of our efforts. We want to help people who will show the most improvement in quality of life with the least amount of effort on our part. Unfortunately, this often excludes the people who need help the most. A person who wants to strengthen their own community may not want to help someone who is not a part of that community. This is another distinction that is both difficult and complicated to make. Is your community the town that you live in, people who live like you, people who look like you, people who speak that same language as you? Where does your community really start and end? The way that we serve matters too. When you think of someone who is in need, do you think of them as desperate? Do you think they will be lucky to get and take whatever they can get? This is a widespread and perpetuated idea that “Beggars can’t be choosers.” Does that mean we should give them garbage and expect them to be happy? If policies about quality of work, safety or training required are more lax than you think they should be, how does this play a role in your work? If as a volunteer, you were trying to fix someone’s house would you put in the same effort and consideration as you would for your house? Probably not. But it’s not your house, and you’re not getting paid, so how much effort is appropriate? In this situation I’ve worked with people who are contractors struggle with this issue. We worked in West Virginia with contractors that lived and work in New Jersey. West Virginia has very lax construction code laws in comparison to New Jersey. This makes structures, in some cases, likelier to be compromised sooner. We want these houses to be strong and safe for the families that live in them for as long as possible, so do we build based on stricter code? Following stricter code, however, is more difficult and in a majority of cases more expensive. This would mean fewer houses could be fixed overall as each project would require more materials. If you unsure what I’m talking about think of spindles on a railing. New Jersey law might require them to be no more than 3 inches apart while West Virginia allows them to be up to 6 inches apart. A smaller distance between spindles requires more spindles and more wood. But, more spindles allow the railing to support more weight placing less strain on each spindle making the railing less compromised if only one of them is broken. Another example to think about is the taking medical or nursing student who have not yet completed their training to foreign countries to gain experience in procedures that would be illegal in the US. Just because people live in less privileged areas does make them guinea pigs for medical and nursing students to practice on. Finally, does our service have positive, sustainable, and lasting impact? The best kind of volunteers will work themselves out of a job. They will create a world where their work is no longer needed. A metaphor for this idea is CPR. When someone is choking the first and most important thing to do is to send some to get a defibrillator and call 911. You do this before you begin to assess vital sign or begin CPR. Why is this important? Because CPR on it’s own doesn’t save lives. CPR keeps airflow into lungs and blood circulating. But unless someone with better, long term solution is on their way, CPR is completely pointless. You can’t give someone CPR forever. A short-term solution without lasting impact on a community is almost worse than not serving at all. One consequence is that when people see a community being helped by volunteers they may assume that the problems is solved and a solution has been reached but that almost always isn’t the case. We want to be sure that a community stepping up to help people in need should not be the end of the discussion about these people’s issues or needs. One example of this is food insecurity in America. Churches and other organizations open food banks and have food drives to help ease the strain of hunger on their communities. This is a good and generous thing, but does this solve, for the long run, anyone’s problems? Unfortunately, the answer is no. To really tackle these kinds of large scale problems we need to assess their root causes. Regardless of what you think causes this, low minimum wage, unemployment, or high cost of food, it’s changes in these areas that will solve the problem not food banks. Long-term problems do still need short term solutions but short term solutions cannot replace long-term solution and should not end discussions about long-term solutions. Just because volunteering isn’t perfect, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. It just means that you should approach it critically and with care just as you do other aspects of your life like your job or your education. By keeping these criticisms in mind we can be involved in service that is aware of motivation, does good work, and has a lasting impact.
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AuthorMy name is Paige Dinneny. I am a sophomore at Virginia Tech and a first year member of SERVE. Archives
December 2016
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