As we have all learned throughout our lives as well as throughout this class, community service is likely something that we have all interacted with at some point and it is not always what it seems to be. When looking at community service on the surface, it seems to be a good prospect in order to help those in need but who truly benefits from service?
According to Andrew Hernádez (2020), community service, as it is thought of in the West, works to further oppress those who need the most help. The first reason that this happens is because of the “white savior complex” which is the phenomenon that white people feel the need to ‘fix’ the parts of other cultures that they either do not understand or do not agree with. The second reason for this is that service can often reproduce harmful racist stereotypes. These racist stereotypes suggest that someone from outside the community would be better suited to ‘fix’ the communities issues. A third reason why for this is that many people benefit from charity or community service despite not needing the money or resources at all. Finally, community service as we know it fails to address real issues like poverty and food insecurity (Hernádez, 2020).
After learning this, one can start to think that community service often benefits the person who is volunteering to do service more than the person in need of the service, this is precisely what Kim Tran (2016) argues. She says that people of see volunteering as a personal gain opposed to an act of social justice which is extremely harmful. Secondly, Tran argues that often times volunteers do more harm to communities they are supposed to helping than good. She sites an example where the UN infected the country of Haiti with cholera, resulting in the deaths of 8,400 people. She also argues that volunteerism often ignores blame. For example, if you were to volunteer at an orphanage in Haiti you would likely not consider that your country’s policies are the reason that the children you are ‘helping’ are in an orphanage in the first place. Finally, Tran argues that volunteerism demeans efforts of decolonization and liberation because it choses to ignore the most pressing issues in a given community (Tran, 2016).
While the arguments of both Hernádez and Tran may seem extreme, they are represented on almost any website about community service. Take Habitat for Humanity (2020) for example, on their website they list 5 benefits of community service. These benefits are, connecting with your community, career benefits and connections, raising social awareness, establishing friendships, and improving your skills. Looking at all these reasons we can see that, again, community service as understood in the West seems to benefit the volunteer more than the one in need (Habitat for Humanity, 2020). In order to understand how to provide good community service, we must understand the issues with community service. Understanding these issues helps us to be aware and therefore provide better service as a whole.
JD
References
Habitat for Humanity. (2020, February 20). Here’s why community service is important – top 5 benefits. Habitat for Humanity. Retrieved April 7, 2022, from https://www.habitatbroward.org/why-community-service-is-important/
Hernández, A. (2020, August 14). 4 ways humanitarian work abroad reinforces the oppression it should be fighting. Everyday Feminism. Retrieved April 7, 2022, from https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/10/humanitarianism-oppression/
Tran, K. (2016, November 8). 4 reasons why voluntourism won’t fix the world – and what to do instead. Everyday Feminism. Retrieved April 7, 2022, from https://everydayfeminism.com/2016/11/voluntourism-wont-fix-the-world/
Community Service: Destructive or Empowering? 