good intentions aren’t always good. 2 November 2010
Posted by emlsewhere in Uncategorized.trackback
I heard this report on NPR this afternoon:
In South Africa’s Orphanages, Is Doing Good Really Bad?
This report describes a lot of things I’ve personally witnessed, and I think it brings up some really interesting, important questions. Particularly in the case of short-term volunteer stints, can good intentions cause more harm than good? I think the answer is definitely.
Click to read and let me know what you think!
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There is a famous saying that my dad would recite to me whenever I f-ed up trying to do the right thing.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions”
Hello! I stumbled across you’re blog through another blog actually while looking up information about VSLAs and that poster had quoted one of your posts. Anyway, that is a very interesting report. I’ve thought about that recently myself, about the abandonment. Going there to help is something I would really like to do but I can see where these ever-changing waves of volunteers entering their lives, making them happy, then being replaced with other volunteers could have psychological impacts, especially at such a young age, that could in the long run outweigh the benefits. Personally, I have no experience with that but does the help they provide while they are there get provided without all these volunteers coming in to help or is the issue more that the volunteer positions should be regulated to long-term positions?