Working for a single hour, the lawyer could be earning the money to pay for five cooks, and would be much more effective according to the market’s wants than by volunteering to cook for an hour.
I’m thinking about this in relation to the skillset that is often desired for volunteer positions. If I merely volunteer to build a house and I have no special skills related to build a house, then it is probably better for me to work for money and then donate that money so that someone else (of equal or greater skill to me in house-building) can build the house.
But in the case of a school and working with children, there often are specific “skills” that the volunteer might have which are very difficult to get in the local labour market. These might be “skills” like speaking English at a native-level, or being friendly and playful and fun with kids. If I work for money and donate money, it is likely that nobody in the local labour market can fulfill that role. (this is, of course, a very simplistic hypothetical, and we should only take it seriously to the extent that it accurately reflects reality) My experience working in schools outside of the USA is limited, but from what I’ve been able to observe underfunded educational institutions who make use of foreigners often do so specifically for roles in which the skills (such as English-language ability), or ability to introduce different cultural concepts) are specialized, and rare in the local labour market.
Very much agree. I want to emphasise again that the fact that a skill is lacking in a region (native-level English proficiency, love and attention towards the children) doesn’t mean that the net impact will be positive; I mentioned the sense of abandonment once volunteers leave and the possibility of overreliance on foreign aid, and surely there are several other hidden side effects. But it hints that there is real value that can be added by non-locals, and that the challenge then is to maximise it and minimise the counterforces.
There’s something else I haven’t discussed in this post. It can be that, once you are in the location 24x7 for 3 weeks, and your job is to teach in the mornings and you have the afternoons free, it can make sense to build houses or put up windows in your free time. Especially because the vast majority of times the reason why football pitches aren’t created or the facilities aren’t improved is because the people managing the funds aren’t interested in it or don’t take a wider view despite the clear benefits of the action. In my case for example, the school director preferred us to give them the money directly (which they were planning to use to buy phones or laptops for the teachers) rather than us adding the windows (which could prevent the kids from catching frequent colds).
Volunteers in this case clearly appear net-positive: they invest time or money to provide value in ways the natives with power for decision and action wouldn’t be able to recognise. So that’s good. Even better perhaps would be if the volunteers identified a need (e.g. to add windows in classrooms), paid a local professional to do so competently, and the volunteers instead used their time to provide their non-replaceable skills by playing with the kids, giving classes or lectures, applying this outside view to spot opportunities for intervention…
I’m thinking about this in relation to the skillset that is often desired for volunteer positions. If I merely volunteer to build a house and I have no special skills related to build a house, then it is probably better for me to work for money and then donate that money so that someone else (of equal or greater skill to me in house-building) can build the house.
But in the case of a school and working with children, there often are specific “skills” that the volunteer might have which are very difficult to get in the local labour market. These might be “skills” like speaking English at a native-level, or being friendly and playful and fun with kids. If I work for money and donate money, it is likely that nobody in the local labour market can fulfill that role. (this is, of course, a very simplistic hypothetical, and we should only take it seriously to the extent that it accurately reflects reality) My experience working in schools outside of the USA is limited, but from what I’ve been able to observe underfunded educational institutions who make use of foreigners often do so specifically for roles in which the skills (such as English-language ability), or ability to introduce different cultural concepts) are specialized, and rare in the local labour market.
Very much agree. I want to emphasise again that the fact that a skill is lacking in a region (native-level English proficiency, love and attention towards the children) doesn’t mean that the net impact will be positive; I mentioned the sense of abandonment once volunteers leave and the possibility of overreliance on foreign aid, and surely there are several other hidden side effects. But it hints that there is real value that can be added by non-locals, and that the challenge then is to maximise it and minimise the counterforces.
There’s something else I haven’t discussed in this post. It can be that, once you are in the location 24x7 for 3 weeks, and your job is to teach in the mornings and you have the afternoons free, it can make sense to build houses or put up windows in your free time. Especially because the vast majority of times the reason why football pitches aren’t created or the facilities aren’t improved is because the people managing the funds aren’t interested in it or don’t take a wider view despite the clear benefits of the action. In my case for example, the school director preferred us to give them the money directly (which they were planning to use to buy phones or laptops for the teachers) rather than us adding the windows (which could prevent the kids from catching frequent colds).
Volunteers in this case clearly appear net-positive: they invest time or money to provide value in ways the natives with power for decision and action wouldn’t be able to recognise. So that’s good. Even better perhaps would be if the volunteers identified a need (e.g. to add windows in classrooms), paid a local professional to do so competently, and the volunteers instead used their time to provide their non-replaceable skills by playing with the kids, giving classes or lectures, applying this outside view to spot opportunities for intervention…