We have a new site www.g-lish.org where you can read all articles from This is Ghana in a much more organised fashion. Read Cautionary Tales: What to look out for in a volunteer program there.
We hope our tough-won experience guides you so that you can avoid the emotional and financial stress we saw many others endure—or endured ourselves.
The most contemptible practices relate to the handling of money and volunteers. To set things straight, if you’re paying a fee, you are a source of income. This is business. Some programs treat you as a walking cash and favour provider, to be used however they like. Other programs treat you as a human being with something meaningful to offer. Working out which is which is the challenge we’re here to help you with.
…But the worst practice of all is this. Male NGO workers have been known to use their position to take advantage of foreign female volunteers in the most deplorable manner. For example, a group of ten female volunteers may arrive from the UK to work on a specific project for, say, one month. The NGO manager sets up the project so that there is someone in each of these groups to be his “girl friend”.
Some volunteers may volunteer as part of their university studies and receive credit towards their studies for their work. We know of one manager who used his position to threaten students with a poor assessment if they didn’t do as he requested, which included thinly veiled requests for sexual favours—and these were occasionally granted, willingly and not so willingly.
That’s the ugly side of volunteering. Each of the examples is taken from our first-hand experience.
Fortunately, neither of us were harassed sexually, but we know of several people who were. For future volunteers' sakes, if you have any concerns about a programme you’re considering email us and, if we do know of it as one of the ones to avoid, we’ll let you know.
So do your homework. Follow the suggestions in the next section: warning signs and solutions.
This is just a sample of 1000 words in Cautionary Tales that will help you avoid these troubles. Sign up by email if you’d like the whole story when we release the downloadable PDF. It's simple to sign up in the top right hand corner or subscribe to the blog's feed by RSS. Let us know if you have any problems 0r, indeed, if you would like to share your own experiences or problems volunteering.