From managing expectations to setting up child protection policies and supporting local NGOs, our expert panel recommend how to get the best out of volunteer programmes
Katie Turner, global research and advocacy advisor, volunteering for development, Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), London, UK
Learning should be reciprocal between volunteers and the communities they work in: Volunteers must develop a strong knowledge of the context within which they are placed. Some of this learning can be supported by the volunteer organisation through language training and briefing on the in-country context before the volunteer starts their placement. However, the onus also has to be on the volunteer to think about their placement in its broader context.
As development evolves, so should volunteering: If volunteering in development is truly driven by the needs and proposed solutions of communities then we should be constantly coming up with innovative and effective solutions to meet these needs. Along with the broader development agenda, volunteerism must continue to evolve and innovate in order to bring about sustainable change.
Katherine Tubb, founder, 2Way Development, London, UK
The length of the programme is a good indicator of who benefits: Highly skilled volunteers can have a positive impact on communities in about three months, but six months is seen as a good average placement length, where volunteers can actually add value to the work of an NGO. Any less and I would argue that the benefits are more on the side of the volunteer.
Resources:
Ethical tourism group, Tourism Concern, has been working on an international volunteering standards group code of best practice for some years. This is a useful resource for those setting up volunteering initiatives.
Hayford Siaw, executive director, Volunteer Partnerships for West Africa (VPWA), Accra, Ghana
Support volunteering in local NGOs: It is worrying to see foreign volunteer organisations mobilising people to go to Africa for placements with no structures in place to receive them. The best way to volunteer is to provide direct institutional support to grassroots NGOs that understand their community needs. They can be harder to find, as the biggest NGOs dominate on search engines such as Google, but websites such as the online volunteering portal are useful.
Simona Costanzo Sow, project manager, post-2015, United Nations volunteers programme, Bonn, Germany
Longer placements aren't necessarily better: Short term programmes can be very effective when they are part of a longer term local community effort, especially when engaging young people. The key is that the volunteers, hosts and sending organisations are clear about the objective of the programme. The volunteer should be there to share something with his or her peers in the country, not to teach anything. Bringing a different perspective and developing new solutions along with local youth can be very inspiring.
Ben Wilson, project assistant, Challenges Worldwide, Edinburgh, UK
Don't be patronising in your messaging: The way volunteer groups communicate their ideals through social media and events like Comic Relief can be patronising and harmful to communities in the south. Having met with school groups who have 'partnerships' with schools in developing countries, I've found that most of the children only know the global south through the dominant media expositions of it. The regulation of developing country imagery is essential to dispel misinformation.
Resources:
Some useful resources and best practice guides for volunteer sending organisations are available from development networks Comhlamh and Nidos.
Adam McGuigan, co-founder and artistic director, Barefeet, Lusaka, Zambia
Be targeted: Designing well thought out placements that match community needs with appropriate volunteer skills is not rocket science, but many agencies rush this process and get it wrong. Accounting for International Development (AfiD) is a good example of an organisation that provides targeted, effective and sustainable short-term volunteer programmes.
Nichole Georgeou, lecturer, international development studies, Australian Catholic University, Sydney, Australia
True partnerships are difficult to form: When western volunteers arrive into developing country contexts, they enter into existing hierarchies that they usually do not recognise or understand. These hierarchies have been shaped by histories of colonialism and development. In this context, true partnership is difficult to achieve as asymmetries of power are present in the relationship from the start.
Liz Wilson, director, Supporting Kids In Poverty (Skip), Trujillo, Peru
Child protection is crucial: Any organisation working with children must give consideration to child protection. I attended an NGO conference last year and was surprised to find that none of the grassroots organisations had a child protection policy. Many did not do background checks on their volunteers, and had no child protection procedure. To me these things are absolutely fundamental if you are going to work with children.
Resource:
Tearfund has published a basic step-by-step guide to writing a child protection policy for international NGOs.
Apeksha Sumaria, head of programmes, Accounting for International Development (AfID), London, UK
Manage expectations: It's very important to ensure that volunteer aspirations (about what they are able to achieve) are the same as partner expectations (about what volunteers are able to help them with). Then come the practicalities: ensuring that the volunteer is experienced enough to support the partner, that there is a partner and staff for the volunteer to work with and that the project objectives are clearly set out.