According to the United Nations, volunteerism is an essential vehicle for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals that the international community has set for 2030. Volunteering improves development, here as elsewhere, because it feeds the societal need to improve the human condition. In recent years, a type of volunteering has surfaced to fulfill both the desire to “volunteer” and partake in “tourism” for development purposes. This type of volunteerism is called voluntourism. Not surprisingly, it has enticed many well-intentioned Westerners to travel and volunteer in the Global South. Voluntourism has become either a tourist activity in itself or is callously pitched […]
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