Another Engineers Without Borders JF heading to Ghana this summer, Steph, posed an interesting question:
Do people's reactions vary if you say you are doing development work vs volunteer work in Ghana?
What do you think?
Here are some of my intial thoughts, and I would love to hear what yours are.
Volunteer work implies that you are going to help people in need. For the most part, we are all familiar with "volunteer work" as this term is used widely in Canadian society and we can immediately identify activities that constitute volunteer work (i.e. volunteering at a hospital, old age home, helping ESL kids learn to read, volunteering at a food bank, etc.).
Development work, on the other hand, is less clear and harder to define. How many people have experienced development work firsthand?
This summer, I will be doing development work. I will be working with local organizations (non-governmental or governmental) with the aim of having a positive impact on the country's development.
But what is development?! "Development work" is still unclear.
Development, to me, means bridging the gap between the developed and developing world. Not in terms of material possessions and economic status, and this doesn't mean making "them" more like "us", it's a two way exchange. Just as I hope to improve people's lives in Ghana, I hope to develop Canada immensely from this experience. I think development means increasing peoples opportunities and choices in life. To me, it means learning how to create a world in which we find a balance and can live sustainably, happily and peacefully. Ambitious?...Of course, but what else are we going to strive for!
Just to complicate things...I will be doing development work, but I also will be a volunteer. I will not be paid, and will have the priviledge of being able to be focused on improving the organization, and not be worried about losing my job by questioning what is currently being done.
Your thoughts please!
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4 comments:
I like your description of development work, and that you are ambitious! I agree that using a word with less connotations than 'volunteer' gets rid of the instant image of one person strictly helping another. Although many volunteer positions are mutually beneficial, JF placements in particular are supposed to deliver as much impact in Canada as in Ghana. Do you think the education, and outreach EWB does in Canada should be referred to as development work too?
Alex :)
that is a great idea alex!! simple terminology goes a long way, its all about impacting and changing peoples attitudes. i think it is essential for us in the 'developed' world realize that we still have substaintal development to undergo. development, and development work should be a term that is more common in our culture and one that people can define and have experienced.
one way to view development is the next step to volunteering. its doing something alutrisitc but caring deeply about the impact of that action on your local society and on the world!
as has been said before the term 'developed' and 'developing' countries are misleading to what people understand of development, so we all need to work on our vocabulary and the inherent assumptions that go along way with the words we use. alternatives to describing countries in terms of their perceived level of development (which is defined by people who think they have finished developing here in the western world) you could try north and south or many other less loaded words. google it and post suggestions!
thanks for that great comment and question alex!
Kim
Valuable resource of volunteer news summaries: http://ng2000.com/ng2000bb/YaBB.pl?num=1221634947
Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?
Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!
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