The Evolution Of A Volunteer Decision



Spinning alpaca yarn at Centro de Textiles Traditionales de Cusco

The decision to spend 6-8 months volunteering in South America was easy; deciding where and how to do it was more difficult.

Lots of volunteering organizations
My requirements for volunteering included being able to use my intermediate-level Spanish, to use my retail business consulting skills (if possible), to be part of the community that I help (if only for 6 months), and to have a sustainable impact.

Once I’d decided to volunteer in Peru, I searched the web and found various volunteer organizations and researched what they provided, what type of work was available and what costs were involved. I was happy to find that there were lots of organizations working in Peru but I was disappointed to learn that most of them required a fee of between $500-1,000 per week. I found dozens of these “voluntour” organizations, but felt that spending money to work for free didn’t feel right.

Muhammed Yunus and Microfinance
About the time that I started adding up the costs of “working for free,” I read Dr. Muhammad Yunus’ book “Banker to the Poor,” an inspiring memoir about how he created microfinance. I read about Dr. Yunus’ first experiment with $27 lent to a group of Bangladeshi women, a miniscule loan that started an industry.

As I read about Dr. Yunus’ ideas I thought about the money I might be spending at “voluntour” agencies and started to think about what that money could do if lent directly to those in need. In fact, even if they never paid the money back, I’d be no worse off than if I gave the money to a “voluntour” company. I envisioned buying a bunch of food carts for street vendors and setting them up with an initial supply of inventory.

The Idea of Sustainability
The more I thought about this, however, the more I thought about the potential obstacles – locating worthy candidates, getting ripped off, creating community jealousies and getting stonewalled by local bureaucrats -- to name a few. I was worried about sustainability and I wasn’t sure that giving away a bunch of push carts and food and then leaving after 6 months would be consistent with that. It seemed like I needed six months just to get the lay of the land and to avoid getting ripped off.

As I pondered this, I learned about the Centro de Textiles Traditionales de Cusco, an NGO weaving cooperative run by an indigenous woman that helps nine communities in the Cusco area. They needed help with budgeting, grant requests and some financial analysis and I had made my connection with them without the benefit of a paid intermediary. (I was introduced through a Spanish Language school in Cusco). I met with the Director and I liked the idea that I’d be making an impact and that impact would continue to be felt after I left. During our meeting, she hired me and gave me a project to work on immediately.

From pondering a myriad of paid volunteer organizations to contemplating my own microfinance shop to supporting an established NGO weaving cooperative, my road to volunteering was not a straight line but one that worked out well for me.