What did you learn about the potentially helpful and potentially harmful nature of community service? What do you think separates the two? How can you apply this to your break?
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I learned many things about the potentially harmful and potentially beneficial effects of community service in class on Thursday. The article “The Problem With Little White Girls, Boys and Voluntourism” really opened my eyes to the harmful effects, many of which I had never even considered beforehand. In reality, sometimes we aren't as big of a help as we think. Volunteering isn't necessarily for everyone. If there is some volunteer work that we have the skills to do, that's great. But if we try to do volunteer work that we don't have the skills for, we're better off letting someone else with the skills handle it. The important thing is to be honest about what we are capable of.
ReplyDeleteWhen we do community service, we can give off the impression that we are the savior of those whom we have come to help. There are some negative effects on those we serve especially if we have that bad attitude. If we treat them like they're less than us because of the situation they're in, we're marginalizing them and not giving them the respect they deserve. But if we treat them as equals, our work won't leave them feeling like a charity case. It we be uplifting and encouraging, rather than demoralizing. The important thing is to have a good attitude and to treat those being served as equals.
I believe many people volunteer with the vague motive of “doing good,” but they often do not consider whether they possess the skills necessary to carry out the jobs they volunteer for. In these cases, people end up doing second-rate work that must be undone and redone.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I also agree that service work can be patronizing. In the worst-case scenarios, volunteers impose themselves in places where their help is not needed. Additionally, a volunteer’s desire to “help” is not always motivated by a concern for other people, but rather a need to feel like a “good person.” Thus, volunteering can be done for selfish reasons.
Finally, when people travel abroad to volunteer, there is sometimes a language and cultural barrier so enormous that helping is impossible. Communication gaps lead to misunderstandings, alienation, and tension.
However, volunteering can also be very helpful. According to Kala Stroup’s presentation, 65 million Americans volunteer every year. Additionally, non-profit hospitals, churches, humane societies, and cultural programs rely on volunteers to maintain their existence.
I believe the difference between helpful and harmful volunteering is the ability of people to understand their own limits. People should evaluate what they are able to do, and they should choose service opportunities that are well suited to their own skills. Before I go on my own service trip, I should learn about what I will be doing, and I should also be aware of the new culture I am entering.
From this meeting I learned that it’s important to keep in mind that just because your purpose is to help those you’re working with, does not necessarily mean that the specific thing you are doing is what is best for them. Because of the nature of volunteering, there’s a possibility of doing incredible good but also of being a detriment. Volunteers are mostly motivated to do the work that they do by altruism. It’s not that they particularly know what they’re doing; it just means that they have a positive attitude about it. While that positive attitude is beneficial to many because it is so uplifting, the attitude itself won’t change the situation these people find themselves in. In order to do that, we as volunteers need to be trained in what we plan on doing to help. We also need to do our best to ensure that what we’re doing to “help” is actually doing something good for those in need, and not just treating a symptom of a larger problem. An understanding of their situation is what separates the helpful volunteer from the detrimental one.
ReplyDeleteThis knowledge can be applied to our alternative winter break because of the specific needs that each individual at Misericordia will need. Everyone there will have a different disability that they’re working to live with, and none of us have been trained in how to professionally help these people live their lives in the most meaningful way. Awareness of this ignorance can help us know that we’re at Misericordia to provide a positive attitude and to listen to those who know what they’re talking about; because we certainly haven’t been formally trained in this kind of career.
Before attending class on Thursday, I had never thought of community service being understood as negative. I think that my view towards community service comes from a privileged viewpoint that often overlooks details that could be offensive to others who are oppressed. I found this to be an informative and interesting outlook because I thought that it correlated with issues that were discussed when I attended KUnity last month. I find this concept thought provoking because those who are the people giving the service often overlook the true purpose of their service. I learned that community service should not always be considered a gift or someone donating their time. I interpreted the lesson as saying that service should not be a duty but something that you want to do and are not doing it as a “service” to others. I think that community service is helpful because it does develop the individuals who are completing the service as they are also helping with organizations’ development. But that is only as long as they want to be doing the service that they are completing. On the contrary, community service can be harmful when it is perceived as an obligation rather than a choice. I think what separates the two is completely the person who is performing the service and what they acquire out of the experience. I think that I can apply to this to my break because my break has the potential to become overwhelming with the literal “nature” of being in the Everglades. As long as I remember that I not only want to help develop my skills with removing invasive species, the tangible reason that I am making the trip to the Everglades is to help with conservation efforts, not to better myself or do my “duty”.
ReplyDeleteCommunity service is a great thing to become involved in throughout your life. There will be many opportunities in your life in which you will have the opportunity to volunteer your time to help a situation you can contribute to, and you should help in any way possible. However, you have to be sure that you can contribute your time in an efficient way. There is a fine line in being helpful when volunteering and being harmful when volunteering. What separates the two is the mindset you have when you enter a situation in which you will be giving your time and energy. You cannot enter a volunteer situation with the mindset that you will be helping a particular situation. You have to keep an open mind and have a thought process that in some way this situation is going to help you. If you focus on you being the primary help, then you close your mind to the possibility of any lesson being learned, and you leave the situation no more cultured or aware than when you entered.
ReplyDeleteAs an example, my winter break last year was to Inside Out Youth in Colorado Springs, CO. We were sent there to help renovate their new space due to their old space being damaged in a fire. We were merely sent to do manual labor, however, we also had the chance to interact with the youth that called this organization home. We had many opportunities to learn of the struggles these youth were facing in their lives by sitting down and listening to their stories. If we would have went there with only the mindset of remodeling a space, we would have ended up missing out on an opportunity for us to learn about an issue that is overly relevant in society today.
It’s a bit more difficult to apply this concept to our break this year to the Everglades, seems how we will not have any interaction with people in our volunteer efforts, rather than just the environment. It is, however, still important to go into the break with an open mind. As an Ecology major I’m hoping the park rangers we will be working with will educate us on how to make small changes in our lives and efforts in order to have the biggest positive impact on the environment possible, so I still hope that this break will be a learning experience in some way.
I think that some people had extremely negative reactions to the quotes we reflected upon; however, I really appreciated them because they offered a change of perspective and that is exactly what I am trying to get out of this. I had never really considered the possibility of volunteering being harmful to the “receiving party” and it was startling to realize how significant that possibility is. Another thing that this lesson opened my eyes to, just as last week did, was the significance in being culturally competent. Knowledge is power and the more culturally knowledgeable and the more knowledge I have about the tasks I am doing to serve, the better the experience will be for everyone. I will work to be as prepared as possible for this winter break, as well as for any other volunteering opportunity. I think that the white superior complex is an important concept to keep in mind. I believe that it is harmful to come into a serving environment with the idea that you are superior to others and you are there to help them, and “carry” them to reach an ending goal. What ought to be happening is that both parties feel as if they are reaching the end goal as a team by working together. I will go into my cite with the mentality that I am trying to learn and gain new knowledge from this experience as opposed to I am here to help you.
ReplyDeleteThis lecture made me aware of a situation I didn't realize existed - the harmful nature of community service. This isn't even when you are doing it for the wrong reasons (e.g. resume padding) it's when you have good intentions and motives, with the wrong attitude going into it. It’s when we start to put ourselves above others due to privilege or socioeconomic status when it turns harmful. Like the author of the article discussed, when we as Americans travel to underdeveloped countries to do volunteer work we can put off the vibe that we are there helping because we have something to offer that they couldn’t find anywhere else, and this is definitely not true. For instance, when she was talking about how workers had to come in and relay the bricks for the wall. That community could have just done that to start with but they welcomed in people that thought they could add something to it by volunteering but had no real knowledge of the situation. This is where the separation between harmful and helpful volunteering comes into play. We need to make sure we understand what our limitations are and understand that the people we are helping aren’t beneath us because they are different. If we go into a situation with an open mind, a firm understanding of the work we are doing, why we are doing it, and who we are doing it for, we can make sure we have a positive impact on the situation. For our alternative break, we need to go in with an open mind and be willing to work hard. We are going to be doing basic labor, which may sound simple but for the people that must do it every day to improve the lives of the animals, it may not be. We have to avoid phrases about being exhausted or tired or wanting to go home and give it everything we can. They are doing a wonderful thing by letting us come to their facility and we need to first and foremost be grateful of that.
ReplyDeleteIsabella Paniagua-Novak
Community service is an inherently good action, and a necessity in our society. With so many various social issues affecting people today, the potential of volunteering to significantly impact someone’s life is vast. It is also the responsibility of people in privileged positions to use that privilege and give back, to help those who have been less fortunate. Much like advocacy, sometimes the most help comes from those outside of an affected group.
ReplyDeleteThere is certainly a wrong way to do this, however. Being in a position of privilege doesn’t make you any better than others, and that’s something that many people don’t recognize. The author. Pippa Biddle, of “The Problem with Little White Girls, Boys, and Voluntourism” experienced this concept when she went abroad to build a library, only to realize her group’s efforts weren’t quite as helpful as she had hoped. Biddle writes, “Basically, we failed at the sole purpose of our being there.” Rather than swooping in to a poorer area to build a library, she reflects that it would have been more helpful and efficient to simply donate the money they spent to come volunteer in order to pay more skilled people of that area to build it themselves. It’s important not to think that just because you come from a privileged and wealthy area, you are more skilled or able to have some great effect on less-privileged people.
The important realization here is to be realistic. Volunteering is great, but volunteers need to be realistic with the level of significance they serve to the people they are helping. Volunteering means sacrificing your time and energy to help where others need it, and that’s where assuming needs and imposing values can be dangerous.
On Alternative Breaks, students can apply these concepts by learning to appreciate how they are helping their nonprofit, and where volunteers are needed most at times. Visiting a classroom for a week and spending time with children probably isn’t going to significantly change their entire lives. On the flip side, volunteers cleaning and/or filing papers for a week might mean the world to that teacher. The point is that you can’t know what will be valued by others, and you can’t assume. This is where the service-learning concept comes into play, as volunteers should learn as much as they can in order to be better advocates in the future.
It never occurred to me that – of all things – volunteerism can have a dualistic nature: helpful versus harmful. The reading material threw light on the reality of volunteerism, putting aside the endless positive stereotypes that are tied to the common definition of the neutral act. The writer of the article, an enthusiastic volunteer herself, expressed how she was not capable of actually fulfilling her initial motive of improving the well-beings of those in need, regardless of her good intentions. She urged volunteers to know what they can do and what they cannot do, so that their good intentions will not go to waste and also that they do not become one more burden for the needy to suffer. The potentially harmful nature of community service includes inefficient communication between the helpers and the people who are receiving help. This could lead to serious miscommunication and thus, disharmony between the two parties. Secondly, a community service is considered harmful if the volunteers are not capable of accomplishing the tasks that the needy needs done. For example, should a group of educated – but physically incompetent - volunteers be asked to build shelters for flood victims, they will not be able to complete the task in the shortest time with the greatest efficiency. Not to mention that they, being inexperienced in the field of construction, may hurt themselves and end up taking up hospital beds which may already be limited in the area for the flood victims.
ReplyDeleteOn a bright side, there are reasons as to why volunteerism is so glorified to the extent that the fact that it could be harmful seems like blasphemy to the common good-hearted volunteers. We like to think that most community services are potentially helpful to mean that volunteers can actually make a change – for the better – in the community.
I think the article is a good reminder for me – and other volunteers – to reevaluate what we want to do, what we can do, and how we can do it well without burdening or offending the other party. Specifically for my break group’s case, we have to think through whether we are capable of communicating carefully and sensibly so not to offend the mentally ill and whether we have the patience and energy to interact with hyperactive children at the center, among other possible challenges. Also, it is important to always be ready to learn new things and to respect local norms and culture.
Anytime a person gives their time and effort to a cause that they feel is worthwhile, the notion that their actions will be beneficial to both parties involved is an assumed one. There are many helpful things that can rise from the chance to participate in community service. Assisting groups of people in need of a particular service (food, shelter, medical treatment, etc.) ensures their wellbeing. In addition, an increased awareness of other lifestyles and backgrounds can be gained by volunteering. Community service is needed to provide assistance to those who can’t access it, but this doesn’t mean that volunteers should blindly accept tasks and opportunities that they are presented with.
ReplyDeleteThere is a potentially harmful nature of community service that I believe stems from ignorance (whether intentional or not). Serving the community means interacting with groups of people who think, feel, and identify in ways that differ from the demographic of those who are volunteering. Being able to help someone without making them feel uncomfortable is a task that all volunteers should take upon themselves to accomplish. This extra effort to become more informed is what I believe separates the helpful nature from the harmful nature of community service. In order to apply this to my break at the Music Therapy Center of Houston, I have and will continue to research the different mental and physical disabilities that are treated with music therapy, and how they will affect my interactions with the people I am trying to help.
I have been on several other mission trips in my life, and before this class I had never thought of the negative side of volunteering. It honestly discouraged me, and it made me feel like I had possibly done more harm than good. It was a side of volunteering that I had never considered before, but all of the negative points brought up about volunteering are completely valid. Just because we are of a privileged class and can afford to travel to all these less fortunate places, doesn’t mean we should. What give us the right to come in to a new place and try to force ourselves upon them because we are there to “help”? There is an extremely fine line between the positive nature of community service and the harmful side.
ReplyDeleteI think it is being aware of our abilities and knowing our place that separates the two. We need to understand that we are not these wonderful saviors, and that it is not our place to try and do things our way. The organizations that we will be volunteering with have been doing just fine on their own, and we are simply there to be a positive force and not a burden. These alternative breaks are not about us improving ourselves. We are there to help our organizations in any way they need.
Before Thursday’s class, I never really viewed volunteering as both beneficial and detrimental depending on the situation. I had always believed that when someone volunteers, they are always making a difference, but now I know that sometimes volunteers can get in the way and make processes a lot harder. Many people volunteer in order to “do good” or “change lives,” but they must consider whether their volunteering will actually be valuable or not to those in need. Volunteers can make a tremendous impact on people and situations, but only if they have the mindset and skills to be an advantage instead of an inconvenience.
ReplyDeleteMost volunteers go into situations where they don’t have enough or the correct skills in order to aid in the effort. In Pippa Biddle’s article, she discusses how the group went to help build a library, but every night the townspeople would have to take down all of the work that the volunteers had done that day and do it again themselves. The group of volunteers didn’t have the skills necessary to build a library in that town. It would have been easier on the townspeople if the volunteers had just raised money and donated the money towards the building of the library, so they wouldn’t end up disrupting the atmosphere and create more stress.
Volunteers need to be mindful of the skills that they have and when volunteering what they will need to do. One shouldn’t just volunteer in order to help if they truly won’t be able to help in the ways that are needed. Community service is helpful when volunteers are in an environment that they can relate to. Community service can become harmful when a language barrier or cultural barrier is put in front of the volunteers. No work can get done or be beneficial if one cannot cross the language and cultural barrier.
While on our Alternative Break, we can apply these concepts by going in open minded to the low-income schools in Colorado. We will participate when our activeness will be beneficial to the coach and the students. We don’t want to distract the students from what they are learning during their recess. As a group we don’t want to become a hindrance to the organization. We will go in not thinking that we are going to change these students’ lives, we will go in excited to offer our help wherever it is needed.
In class, and in research for the midterm, I learned that not all volunteering is helpful. The articles that we read opened my eyes to the need to be conscientious about where one is volunteering, and what one will be asked to do. It takes more than simple good intentions to be an effective volunteer!
ReplyDeleteIt seems that community service is harmful when the volunteer is engaging in it for their own benefit, by volunteering in places where they have little to offer. This leads to volunteers engaging in projects for which they don’t have the skill set, such as was the case in the Huffington Post article we read for class. The issue is that the girls were unsuited for the work that was required of them in volunteering, and therefore were ineffective in helping. Thus, the separation is if one has skills that can help the community in which they’re volunteering—the volunteer’s skills and the organization’s needs need to match up. These not only include physical skills, like heavy lifting or construction, but also mental skills like language and communication. It’s a lot hard to be a good volunteer if one can’t communicate with the people s/he is trying to help. If one can do all of these things, and is a good fit, it is very likely that they will be an effective volunteer.
On our break, we will be going to a women and children’s homeless shelter. As a group, we will need to divide up tasks assigned to us based on which members of the group have the proper skill set and/or be prepared to learn new skills quickly and efficiently. This will help us avoid the problem of only having good intentions that we cannot act upon. At Home of the Sparrow, our attitudes will need be ones that check our privilege at the door, are empathetic, and willing to work hard. These things, along with having an open mind, will help us to be effective volunteers.
I read Illich's "To Hell With Good Intentions" right before class last Thursday in preparation for the midterm paper. As I was reading it, I thought about how harsh it was. It wasn't until discussing the quotes in class with other people that I realized the validity Illich's statements hold.
ReplyDeleteWhile we try to do good by helping others, we never consider how righteous we may seem, going to a different city or country and trying to tell them, “this is the right way to do it. It works for us, so it will work for you, too!” The reverse situation might involve a group of business workers from an underdeveloped country coming to America and making suggestions to big corporations on where they should invest their money. While their suggestions may be with good intentions, they may not truly know all of the little details about the business, which lead to the most successful decision. Likewise, when we volunteer with people who we consider less fortunate it is important to remember we are not there to "fix" anyone or anything. It is important to have an open mind to learning from them and accept that we do not know everything there is to know about this world.
Class #4 was very enjoyable to be able to talk to other people from other groups and hear the ways that they interpreted the quotes from Illich and how they will apply it to their own volunteer work.
Anyone who is freely dedicating their time, effort, and resources into volunteer work wants to believe that they are affecting an environment in a positive way. However as we have learned from class this past week that does not always hold true. It is incredibly important to question how meaningful and effective the presence of volunteer’s holds in a developing society. I believe that volunteer work can certainly be helpful it is backed up with the proper mindset. This meaning that just because you may have the means to go on a volunteer trip or participate in community service does not mean that you are necessarily fully equipped for that trip. As we read in “The Problem with Little White Girls, Boys and Voluntourism” the author Pippa Biddle explains that the volunteer trip she participated in ended up being more of a hindrance than advantageous to the village she helped in Tanzania. I think the takeaway point from this article is that volunteer work and community service can absolutely be helpful for skilled and educated individuals. However without these key components, volunteer work is not even close to as effective and successful as it could be.
ReplyDeleteIn many cases I believe that we as volunteers can develop the concept that our work is going to save this society from the issues it’s facing. By developing somewhat of a ‘savior complex’ we almost set ourselves up to negatively affect the community. By riding of this idea and being aware and open minded to whatever work an organization needs, we create a much more positive volunteer experience for both the community and ourselves.
Ultimately, I believe that having the proper background knowledge, and a realistic attitude can separate the line between what is harmful and what is helpful in community service. As I prepare to work with Habitat for Humanity over winter break I think it will be important to keep in mind that our group is there for the organization’s benefit. Whether that means cleaning storage space, painting, or building a house, we are there to partner with the organization in whatever they need done.
I hadn’t previously considered the harmful nature of community service. The articles we read were very eye opening and made me feel almost guilty about wanting to do community service. However, the more I analyzed it, the more I realized the distinction between harmful and helpful. To me the difference is being honest about what you can do and what people truly need. Sometimes we oversell ourselves and under appreciate other cultures. I think that this is when we are harmful. When we step in and try to change instead of just help, that’s when we are harmful. Also we have to be honest about what we can achieve. Many times we want to be helpful but we don’t have the knowledge to do what is being asked. And yet, we try to do the work anyway. By doing that, we do the work wrong and then others must come in redo the same work. Our ignorance is what causes our work to be harmful. If we are honest about our skills and are not ignorant about the culture and what the people need versus what we think they need, we can be helpful.
ReplyDeleteOn our break, I think the key is to be honest with the people in charge about what we are comfortable with. For instance, if they are asking for our preferences in classrooms and mention a high need in the special education classroom, if we aren’t comfortable with working in a special education classroom then we need to be honest even though it might be the highest need area. Otherwise, we might do more damage than good. Also we need to be aware of the difference in culture and be respectful of that difference. Even though we are all in the Midwest, what is culturally acceptable could be very different in which case we need to be accepting. We may not agree but we are the outsiders and it is our job to make sure we aren’t trying to force our opinions on those we volunteer with.
The article on Ivan Illich’s speech was eye-opening and thought-provoking. I have never thought of volunteering as having both helpful and harmful nature. Of course, most people in society will think that volunteering is all “help” and “doing good,” but not harmful and the cause of more problems. Who would have thought that volunteering in a poor community, in a children’s home for example, may lead to a series of negative issues among the community.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the only thing which separates the two natures—potentially helpful and harmful nature of community service—is the mentality which individuals have when they participate in volunteer work. The “right” mentality, such as being aware that volunteers are just individuals who provide assistance to the community, can lead to a more effective volunteering contribution, instead of having the mentality of being the “hero” to “change the world” of the community we are involved in.
To avoid the challenges that Illich addressed when volunteering, we must carry ourselves well and be constantly aware of our actions at all times. At Epworth, I believe that we must be fully sensitive to the children’s needs and try to get to know them better before focusing on providing guidance and assistance to them. By having the “right” mentality, volunteers can definitely avoid being “potentially harmful” to the community and provide the best experience for the community which we will be encountering.
I have participated in a few mission trips, both in my own community and in other states and have always thought I was helping. I never really thought of the negative side of my volunteering. Could I have really done more harm than good? Most of the volunteering I did was in high school; I can see how that would make sense then. This shouldn’t discourage us though. As volunteers, we need to do a little homework and we need the right skills, tool and even knowledge to do what we want effectively.
ReplyDeleteDoing homework is really going to help to distinguish the difference of helping and harming. We need to find out about our site as well as some of the culture around it. Doing so will help us to find out what it’s like there and make situations more comfortable as we put ourselves there.
On my break, being honest with our sites will help to easy any discomfort we may have. Since we will be in a school, if you don’t feel comfortable in elementary classrooms, asking to be in high school classrooms could be helpful. Also, if you aren’t comfortable in classrooms with kids who have special needs, we can probably just ask. It would be better for us to not do something we are comfortable with.
Being honest is going to be the best asset we have as we start our endeavors.
Though the language and tone of the pieces we examined for this lesson were discouraging to some, I feel the authors intent was instead to position the subject of volunteerism in such a way as to compel the reader to objectively examine and evaluate his or her perspective of, intent regarding, and engagement in volunteer activity. Furthermore, such an exercise requires that the reader differentiate a positive impact from negative and an honest (and by default meaningful) experience from an artificial one. In their utilization of pragmatic (or even harsh) direction of this exercise, the authors directly link these concepts and I think the gap between an honest, meaningful experience and an artificial one is what differentiates helpful community service from that which is harmful.
ReplyDeleteIn the last lesson, we highlighted the value of respecting an individual's self-defined identity and priororitizing it above our perceptions, expectations, and assumptions. This is congruent with the exercise of 'starting where they [stakeholders] are, not where you are', an integral component in the practice of leadership. If we internally identify our personal reasons for engaging in service and hold those in lesser priority to the needs of the community (which we will determine if we take the time and effort to seek out the input of the community).
I can apply this to my break by researching the Open Hand organization prior to my trip and by initiating and consistently participating in open communication with the members of the organizations and their clients. Observing and asking questions is likely to produce more helpful and meaningful results than simply acting on assumptions.