Disaster Response Volunteer, or Morbid Tourist?

Posted: May 18th, 2010 | Author: Shawn | Filed under: blah blah blah | 4 Comments »

There’s a sentiment amongst some folks that volunteers in disaster struck countries are simply morbid tourists. As though the destruction and suffering is little more than a sensationalized backdrop to a Kodak moment. I’m currently a disaster response volunteer, and I’ve seen hundreds of volunteers come and go in the past few months. Consequently, I’ve got a first hand perspective on the type of people that show up as volunteers after a large disaster.

It’s going to be tough to validate any definitions of legitimate volunteer and morbid tourist. However, I would say the legitimate volunteer is the person that becomes a part of the community they’re helping. They also seem to make significant personal sacrifice in order to volunteer. Perhaps in the form of leaving a job, using every minute of their annual vacation time, spending a large percentage of their income to volunteer, or staying for a longer than usual time. The morbid tourist could probably be defined as those who volunteer for a short period of time, make little to no personal sacrifice, and most importantly are never really engaged with the local community.

There’s also a much less tangible aspect to volunteers that is the true defining factor between these two classifications. Their genuine motivation. Which, as you can guess, is sometimes quite different from their announced motivation. Volunteers seem to fall into two groups, which also mirror the legitimate and tourist labels. These two groups are the selfless and the self righteous. I’ve seen volunteers that were motivated by their own self righteous need to confirm their superiority. They need to validate how successful and great they are by having disaster victims shower them with gratitude. Then on the other hand there are the selfless volunteers that are not interested in appreciation or recognition. They’re simply interested in doing the right thing for the sake of doing it.

A large focus of the morbid tourist finger pointing is specific to the unskilled volunteer. People with clearly applicable skills, such as doctors, engineers, etc are seemingly excused from the morbid tourism moniker. However, in my practical experience, it appears that the opposite is more often true. I’ve seen plenty of examples where a skilled person will arrive at a disaster and spend their brief few days neck deep in photo opportunities and detached judgments. As though in a bubble, they stay separate from the people they are there to help. They leave as quickly as they arrived and then pronounce their experience to be genuinely life affirming, humbling and stunning. Whereas the unskilled volunteers I’ve encountered are more often than not desperate to help in any way they can. They eagerly throw themselves into any helpful task and are quick to engage the community that they’re helping.

Naturally, with every black and white comparison there is plenty of grey to go around. There isn’t a legitimately selfless volunteer out there who doesn’t slip into those moments of tourism or indulgence. On the other hand, there’s certainly times that the tourist gets caught up in the community and ends up genuinely moved to help. All this said, I’m glad to be able to say that the morbid tourist is certainly the rare exception. The overwhelming majority of volunteers that I’ve encountered has been genuinely interested in just lending a helping hand.

The moral of all this? I guess it’s to be aware of yourself while you’re in that beautiful pre-trip phase where you’re all caught up in the idealism of volunteering. Why are you actually going? Would the disaster victims honestly be better off with your airfare, or with your presence? Honestly.

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// shawn