ESSEX, England — In my hands I’m holding a neatly handwritten letter from a poor Tanzanian teenager named Dixon Athanael who wanted to go to university.
Addressed to my friend Josh who had been volunteering with the VSO in the Bukabo region of Tanzania for three months, Dixon’s letter is carefully written over three pages, detailing his past and his early school career when 150 boys sat in one classroom and the head teacher had no office. Dixon goes on to talk about his dreams of becoming a pilot and his place at the university which he could not take up due to a lack of funds.
“I failed to join the college due to how poor my family is. A large amount of money is needed – 3 million Tanzanian shillings per year (approximately $1800)– so this is the true barrier to my talents,” he writes.
The letter ends with a poem full of praise for the English VSO volunteers, welcoming them to Tanzania and finally a plea to fund his education.
My friend Josh simply couldn’t afford to pay for Dixon’s education and seemed deeply affected by the letter and his inability to help the young man.
“I can’t afford to fund his education – I’m not rich, but how do you tell someone that when you’re clearly much richer than they are,” he says.
We were having a conversation about the impact of volunteering which is why Josh showed me this letter. He felt angry that he couldn’t do more and was implying that the inability to help Dixon outweighed the good he did volunteering.
Josh is right to find this experience difficult to deal with but wrong to cite it as a reason to undermine the value of volunteering. In The Impact of Volunteering, Part I, the ups and down’s of Josh’s volunteering experience were discussed and, despite some set backs, he was able to achieve some successes. And while I know some families who do sponsor the education of children in developing countries, not many can afford this expense. However, many chose to volunteer what they do have, namely their time and energy, to contribute to the bigger picture.
The facts about volunteering reveal the profoundly good effects it has on developing countries:
Johns Hopkins University conducted a study which revealed that the economic contribution of volunteers in 36 countries was worth $400 billion annually.
In 2008, the largest proportion of the 1.6 million people who volunteered internationally came from the U.S.
More than three million lives are saved every year through USAID immunization programs.
Especially after natural disasters like the Haitian earthquake in 2010, volunteers are often the first people on the ground distributing supplies and food and providing emergency medical care.
In the last 25 years literacy rates are up 33 percent across the world and primary school enrollment has tripled in that period.
My own experiences reassure me of the positive force of volunteering.
In 2011, I volunteered for a month in Kathmandu, teaching English to Tibetan women and children. While I was only marginally able to improve their grasp of English, it was a skill which would be useful for interacting with foreign tourists, perhaps leading to a few more sales in the shops that the women worked in. In any case, the women enjoyed the lessons in the beautiful school house that was a peaceful sanctuary in the overcrowded slums of Kathmandu. Here they were also allowed to practice their religion openly as well as meet new friends and socialize.
Volunteering has opened my eyes to the struggles of citizens of developing countries and I know one day soon I will do more. The fact that I’m writing now and gathering donations for The Borgen Project is evidence of the lasting impression that volunteering has made on me. I joined The Borgen Project, volunteering my time as a way of continuing my contribution to the world’s poor.
The Borgen Project itself is run by an army of volunteers who take no payment from the organization and work from donated office space in Seattle, Washington. In the past, the founder, Clint Borgen worked as a waiter to support himself and had never taken a dollar in wage from The Borgen Project (until January 2, 2014) despite the success of this international organisation which grew from nothing.
I strongly believe that volunteering can make a difference, however big, and that the process of volunteering educated the volunteers, many of whom will continue to give to those in need throughout their lives. While we might not all be wealthy enough to sponsor the education of a child like Dixon, we can give our time by volunteering or donating to support the work volunteers do, like those at The Borgen Project, who use their resources, manpower and expertise to lobby the world’s richest country to do more for the world’s poorest people.
– Charles Bell
Sources: JHU, Huffington Post, World Volunteer Web
Photo: Test Masters