CU
R RENT
The challenge of
VOLUNTOURISM How to help, rather than hinder, on your next overseas trip. BY MARK DELANEY
I
t’s so dirty and smelly here! They just need proper flushing toilets!” I was sitting at our home in a north Indian slum, hosting a foreign volunteer. It was exasperating that this young man thought he knew how to fix the many problems in the slum after having been here for a few hours! If he’d listened and learnt for a few weeks before offering “solutions”, he would have realised that the main problem for our neighbours in the slum was actually the lack of stable employment, much more than the lack of flushing toilets. Along with my wife Cathy, and our two sons, I’ve lived in India for 17 years—most of it in various
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slums. We’ve often failed, but sometimes succeeded, in helping life become a little better for our neighbours, who are struggling at the margins of society. My long-term work in India actually came about because of a short-term trip during my university break back in the late ‘80s. One particular incident during that trip was life-changing. With my limited Hindi, I was speaking to a man outside his house—a plastic and wood shack. He explained that his wife had just given birth to their child, only a few days earlier, right there in their home, with no medical help whatsoever. I was struck by this man’s life being so difficult, simply
