义工旅行：有意还是有害？你支持哪一种观点呢？
近年越来越流行到发展中国家做短期义工。能够牺牲自己的精神、时间和金钱，为有需要的人作一点贡献，是非常值得鼓励的事情。但是我们有否想过，自己一厢情愿的付出，当地人是否真的受益，还是受害？一个普通的大学生或者写字楼文员，真的有能力帮当地人建一间稳固的房子吗？
在发展中国家，能够付出劳力的人多的是，你的苦工是否真的有价值，还是剥夺了当地人的就业机会？
孤儿真的每个礼拜需要不同的外国人与他们玩游戏画图画吗？还是这些风车转似来来去去的人，为孤儿们的心理带来更多的不稳定和失落？更何况有资料显示，有些孤儿院是利用儿童欺骗游客？
当然，这些负面的影响不代表我们以后不应该再参与义工旅游，以上的问题，在不同的情况会有不同的答案，但这些问题是有必要思考一下的。既然我们愿意花时间和心血去参加甚至举办这些义工活动，何不再花一点时间多做一点功课，考虑自己的义工活动对当地人真是有益还是有害，然后再作取舍？
你以下观点不代表我个人观点，仅参考：
Illustration: Simon Bosch
More Australians are adding a dash of volunteer work to their overseasholidays in poor countries. Between the trekking and the rafting, they arebuilding houses in remote villages and working in orphanages.
They want to give back; they are appalled by global inequality; they seekpersonal fulfilment through encounters with the destitute and disadvantaged.Whatever the motive, the impulse to help is commendable. But the impact on thelocals is not always beneficial.
At this time of year, students are planning - or embarking on - gap-yearadventures that may combine mountain climbing with manual labour; andmiddle-aged professionals and new retirees are pondering how to have fun butspread goodness.
Before setting off, here is a question worth consideration: what consequencesflow when an 18-year-old from Sydney's privileged suburbs goes to a village tobuild a house with a bunch of similar volunteers? Given their last encounterwith bricks was with their Lego set, it is possible the youngsters won't build asturdy house. More likely, the locals could teach them about unskilled manuallabour.
Quite possibly, the young people are taking jobs from the locals. Theyoungsters benefit from the feel-good factor, their confidence and self-reliancegrow. But manual labour is what is in abundance in the developing world. Whogains most here?
Being good is not as easy as it looks when the uninformed stumble naivelyinto the complex world of international development. Experienced aid anddevelopment professionals are urging Australians to do their homework beforethey become "voluntourists". Decent impulses need to be channelled in usefulways.
The multimillion-dollar gap-year industry, for example, has come under recentscrutiny for its programs. Private operators charge hefty fees to provide theyoung with travel and volunteering experiences, but an ill-thought-out programcan be bad for communities and for relations between rich and poorcountries.
A report last year from the British research body Demos said the gap-yearindustry could be seen as a new form of colonialism, a new way of the Westexercising power in the Third World.
One in five people who took one of the gap-year packages said they believedtheir presence in the place they visited made no positive difference to thelives of those around them, with one respondent in the study saying, "I feltthat the local community could have done the work we were doing; there were lotsof unemployed people there …"
But a good program, the Demos report said, ensured the young people hadrelevant skills to offer and gave them opportunities to continue their work oncethey returned home.
Another popular way to volunteer abroad is to work in orphanages for a shortstint.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Australians have visited orphanages inCambodia and Bali, bringing gifts, money and their skills. So common is thispractice that it now has its own name, "orphanage tourism". But are the childrenhelped or harmed by the stream of tourists who move in and out of theirlives?
Friends-International,a Cambodia-based development organisation, has called on tourists to stop thepractice.
"Orphanages must be a safe place for children, not a tourist destination," itsays. It claims the number of orphanages has proliferated in order to milktourists of money; in Cambodia they are a booming business.
An official study showed just a quarter of the children in the orphanages hadlost both of their parents. The most unscrupulous operators sent children totourist haunts to do song and dance routines in order to lure rich Westerners tothe institutions. A recent BBC radio documentary showed some of the orphanagesin Bali were effectively rackets, exploiting the children and touristsalike.
Child development experts, such as the South African professor Linda Richter,co-author of the paper AIDS Orphan Tourism, have pointed out thepsychological damage on very young children of a string of broken attachmentswith short-term caregivers passing through their orphanage
A volunteer may believe her or his contribution to be valuable but, in thewider scheme, it may be harmful.
We don't allow a parade of volunteers in Australian child-care centres. Apartfrom safety concerns, we know children need to form secure attachments toregular carers.
Volunteers are needed abroad but mainly those with specific, often technicalor high-level skills.Once nurses were needed, now midwife trainers are needed,for example.
Reputable organisations such as AustralianVolunteers International respond to formal requests for skilledvolunteers from organisations in developing countries. Applicants are putthrough a rigorous and competitive process of selection.
TEAR Australia, aChristian development and aid agency, has harnessed the enthusiasm ofAustralians who are demanding the overseas aid experience. It has done this bysetting up educational tours of development projects to bring Australians intocontact with local communities. This is less about Australians "doing" the workand more about "learning" what the locals are doing.
Some people can't empathise unless they have first-hand experience and, oncetouched, they become lifelong ambassadors for a fairer global economic order;they become significant donors, letter writers and lobbyists.
But, if the first-hand experience is a pit stop between climbing mountainsand riding elephants, you have to wonder who is benefiting from theexperience.
The volunteer might find it "awesome" at the time and be chuffed by thelocals' "gratitude".
But they may learn no lasting lessons about rights and justice and even,unwittingly, do more harm than good.
For help in finding reputable opportunities for overseasvolunteering, see the federal government site: ausaidvolunteers.gov.au
Follow the National Times on Twitter: @NationalTimesAU
什么事情都不是简单的非黑即白
确实存在种种问题，这是双向的
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