Whether or not community service is empowering or destructive often comes down to intent and motivation. When volunteering, why an individual chooses to do such a thing plays a rather important role in shaping their actions, but more importantly, their impact. One of the more common motivations behind service is helping others to help ones self, what this means is an individual may provide aid or assistance to someone in need, but does it purely for the good feelings/image related to such actions. Another harmful motivator behind service is white saviorship, a term coined in response to a movement called Kony 2012. I had never heard of Kony2012 prior to reading about it in a piece written by Aronson, however the fact that it is said to play a role in the creation of such an important term clearly indicated it to be something I should know about. Kony 2012 was a movement created by the organization Invisible Children that claimed it sought to aid children in escaping from the child armies of a man named Kony, who was the leader of an army of rebels during some of the many years of civil conflict in Uganda. They tugged at the heart strings of their viewers, while blatantly oversimplifying a situation that really had no truly innocent parties. The intent of this organization was questionable from the start, sure they seemed motivated to protect innocent children, but was it just because those children needed help? Or was it because donating to such a cause made you look good, buying their merchandise created an image of a supposedly generous and kind person. However, similarly, the impact of this movement was also highly questionable. As detailed in a YouTube video published at the time by a high school sophomore, there were many visible issues with the plan invisible children presented for providing aid, they intended to broadcast radio transmissions and distribute flyers alerting possibly endangered children to the option of escape, however as Justin Verley will readily explain, there was no way to protect this messages from interception from the very people they sought to help kids escape from. So clearly, Kony 2012 demonstrates some of the more destructive sides of community service.
In contrast however, there do indeed exist several organizations with not only good intentions, but also positive impacts. Take for example Partners for World Health and Cultivating Community, each with clear motivations and visible impacts. Partners for World Health seeks to reduce the amount of medical waste generated by repurposing sanitary products that hospitals could no longer use, and redistributing them to locations that need them. They also travel to the locations with the supplies to train staff on site so they can continue to use the provided resources to improve their level of care. Cultivating community wants to increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables while also simultaneously providing and cultural, and agricultural based service opportunity for local students.
Ultimately, community service is not innately empowering or destructive, it depends entirely on the intent, implementation, and impact. There are many active and historical examples of destructive organizations, but there are also many empowering ones. The true act of service, is taking the careful time to understand where different organizations may be when it comes to intent, implementation, and impact, and to consider that before contributing any time or resources.
Aronson, B. A. (2017). The White Savior Industrial Complex: A Cultural Studies Analysis of a teacher educator, savior film, and future teachers. Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis, 6(3). https://doi.org/10.31274/jctp-180810-83
Hernandez, A. (n.d.). Humanitarian Work Reinforces Oppression.
What ‘Kony 2012’ didn’t tell you. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1z5Q3Dyw1U.
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Community Service: Destructive or Empowering? 
