Unskilled Volunteerism

Usually what happens to people when they go on short-term mission trips is they become inspired by the people they meet and the stories they hear and excited about the houses or schools they built and the work they contributed to making somebody’s life a little better. In some cases, the volunteers are so fired up about all that they see and do on the trip that they decide to come back for a longer period of time so they can really contribute in a bigger way. This was us last year.

By now we’ve been here for over a month, and what I’ve realized is that the kind of work that people do on one- or two-week trips, while nominally helpful and inspiring, is not sustainable in the long term, for a year.

If I wanted to, I could help with construction every day this year, but anyone who knows me well will attest to the fact that I’m not very physically coordinated nor do I do I thrive in situations of grueling physical exertion. Furthermore, the parish and the community would benefit much more if they hired a Guatemalan worker, who would do the work twice as well and twice as fast.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the reality of coming here for an extended period of time without a “trade” or a “skill” of some specific sort, such as doctors or engineers, is that there doesn’t seem to be much for me to do that the Guatemalan people can’t do themselves, short of redistributing wealth and donating money, which, in my case, is not possible since I have none.

The truth is, if you can’t cure people’s illnesses or help them engineer potable water systems, there’s a shortage of long-term, unskilled work to be done. When I look at my volunteer options here in San Lucas, here is what I could spend my time doing… 1.) I could teach English, 2.) I could help out at CFCA (Christian Foundation for Children and Aging, an organization that matches U.S. sponsors with needy children and elderly people throughout the developing world and has offices in San Lucas), or 3.) I could work with the health promoters.

I feel conflicted about teaching English here because I feel that it is not a very helpful skill for kids to have here. It is not improving their quality of life. If anything, the children here should be working on their Spanish, since it is, after all, their second language and will be the most useful to them as adults in Guatemala. Finally, I think that the reality of English language instruction in such an impoverished setting is that most of the students who learn English in school will never have the opportunity to use it.

I’ve looked into volunteering for CFCA, but it would basically be a desk job. The work would be mostly translation, translating letters that North Americans have written in English to the children or elderly person they have sponsored, and interpreting for meetings when sponsors visit Guatemala. While my free translation services would surely be helpful to this organization, it doesn’t get me excited the same way that the health promoter system does (anyone who took an NU SESP class with me will understand why).

The health promoter system is a grassroots, community based system that gives impoverished, rural communities access to health care. Each community around San Lucas has one or more health promoters, people who come from the communities themselves and are trained to identify and treat common illnesses, monitor community members with chronic illnesses, and serve as a link between each rural community and the parochial clinic.

Working with the health promoters seems like the most interesting and exciting opportunity for me, and I've talked to some of the health promoters about starting a family planning education project, which is a very exciting prospect for me. I need to do some reading and research on this idea, so I'll probably have a more concrete update for you all in the coming weeks...