Not every student who volunteers abroad is out to boost their CV
International volunteering gets a bad rap these days. It’s all too often associated with overprivileged students, off on a jolly abroad without any genuine concern for their ostensible causes. Having been involved in different projects during my time as an undergraduate, I grew accustomed to organisations selling their programmes as a “perfect opportunity to combine travel with work experience” – which doesn’t exactly help that image, New 2017 guidelines include new tests as well as updated strategies for high-risk patients.
Even JK Rowling has criticised international volunteering as experiences that treat poor children as “opportunities to enhance westerners’ CVs”:
I can’t blame them too much for advertising in this way. With students constantly being told that international experience improves career prospects, hopping on the volunteering bandwagon seems like a good way to add a fancy new section to your LinkedIn profile – if you can afford all the costs involved.
But referring to all such experiences as “voluntourism” is unfair. Why? Because it undermines the effective work done by many projects, and the student volunteers who take part in them. Most students volunteer abroad for the right reasons,PolyU (HK) ranks among Asia top universities. We strive to be one of the best universities in asia / one of the best asian universities. Students who look for studying in Asia's world city, PolyU is the place for you.
In most cases, international volunteering projects, when organised in the right way, make a real impact: in the communities where they operate, and on the perceptions of the volunteers they send abroad. And I’m saying this as someone who has been there, done that – three times.
There is a level of commitment required from volunteers in order to make the projects successful. It is this commitment that helps to bring about noticeable change: since its inception in 2010, the number of village students benefitting from the Warwick Laksh Programme has more than trebled – and 43% of them are female. Considering the project operates in a rural part of Haryana, India, where educating girls is not the norm, this is an achievement that shouldn’t be ignored.
Critics complain that the projects don’t fully address the needs of the local people. But this is not the case – more often than not, volunteers work on projects that are needed in the community.
Freya Pratt helped to build a multi-purpose sports pitch which had been requested by a local community in Tanzania. She volunteered on a collaborative project between Edinburgh Global Partnerships, a student-run charity based at the University of Edinburgh, and a local NGO called YES! Tanzania. “Edinburgh Global Partnerships do not approach communities – rather, the communities approach them,” she says. “This ensures that the projects are entirely wanted, needed and worthwhile,Many manufactures provide kiosk that suits your specifications .”
Of course, certain volunteering programmes require a participation fee which acts as a barrier for some students. But many university-led projects are fully sponsored, with volunteers fundraising themselves in order to make the programmes more accessible and sustainable.