Volunteers – Are They Really Of Any Use At All?

Every year, a myriad of expats come to Southeast Asia to volunteer for NGOs or social enterprises. They settle down in a country far from home, where they come to accept geckos as housemates, they get used to sore stomachs, and they discover the real value of Skype. They bring valuable skills and knowledge with them. But they don’t stay.

Marianne Gadeberg has a one year media fellowship with DDD and is currently based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She is implementing online media initiatives and also works on improving DDD’s internal communications structure.

Every year, a myriad of expats come to Southeast Asia to volunteer for NGOs or social enterprises. They settle down in a country far from home, where they come to accept geckos as housemates, they get used to sore stomachs, and they discover the real value of Skype. They bring valuable skills and knowledge with them. But they don’t stay.

Many NGOs and social enterprises in Cambodia and Laos are continually seeking to improve the way they work and the efficiency with which they make an impact; DDD is one of them. These organizations need the skills and knowledge that a qualified volunteer can bring, but they also need sustainability and continuity.

After all, what good is a new HR hiring policy or a new training curriculum if they are only used as long as the volunteer who created them is around? As long as volunteers come and go, how can they really be of any use at all?

At DDD, we’ve found that the key to getting value out of volunteers is to have them build capacity in our local staff, rather than take initiatives over themselves. As one of our volunteers realized over lunch the other day: “It’s just like teaching. I need to teach my team to think critically about the decisions they have to make.” When you are here for a year, or sometimes less, the best you can hope for is to transfer as much knowledge and relay as many skills as you can to the local staff members, who will still be working away in Asia when you’re back in the land of corporate suits and Starbucks runs.

Beyond the specific skills they impart, volunteers contribute something equally valuable: the passion with which they engage in the work. They don’t come because it pays well or because it is prestigious. They come because they want to do work that makes them feel like they’re making a difference. If nothing else. I can speak for myself when I say that I hope to have changed a thing or two when my year of volunteering in Southeast Asia has passed.