{"id":57163,"date":"2015-08-24T09:10:42","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T07:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/?p=57163"},"modified":"2018-02-09T18:33:55","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T17:33:55","slug":"rethinking-volunteer-travel-and-ways-you-can-help-out-in-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/rethinking-volunteer-travel-and-ways-you-can-help-out-in-barcelona\/","title":{"rendered":"Volunteer travel and how you can help in Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"

Volunteer<\/strong><\/a> travel to developing countries is big business. Every year scores of high school graduates, bursting with well-intended enthusiasm to do some good while having an adventure<\/strong>, head off to countries, normally very distant and vastly different to their own. Whether it\u2019s building schools in Africa<\/strong> or volunteering in Cambodian orphanages<\/strong>, while we can praise the well-meaning motivations and intentions of volunteer travel, it can be difficult to praise the long-term consequences it is having on the societies\"volunteer2\" it is aiming to help. In fact, as Daniela Papi<\/strong> points out in this very informative and enlightening TED Talk<\/strong>, the results can be more damaging that good.\u00a0Volunteer travel may actually be, to a large extent, perpetuating rather than tackling the social<\/strong> and environmental problems<\/strong> we want to help eradicate. But that is not, as Daniela makes clear, to say that volunteer travel should be eradicated. Rather, we as global citizens need to alter our concept of what volunteer<\/a> travel is and what it means. The problem, she says, lies in a lack of understanding of the extremely complex problems in the global communities we are trying to serve.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to learn before we can help.\u201d<\/p>\n