I lived in short-term accommodation in Cape Town, South Africa for just over two years. The vast majority of my housemates were wealthy European girls "volunteering" or on an "internship" in "Africa", between 1-3 months at a time.
While none of them were bad people, in reality, it was a holiday for the majority of them. They were too young to have any real life skills or lessons to share or communicate. Those that did were simply not around for long enough to have any real impact. They all spent more time and money on sight-seeing, partying and South Africa's beaches than anything else.
This was an acceptable relationship for the organisations concerned because they were receiving money, but nobody had any illusions about whether there was meant to be a more productive relationship. The reality is, in these cases, it would have been more productive to just donate the money for the plane ticket, bars and sight-seeing directly to the organisation - but why would somebody do that when they can get a story to tell, and make themselves sound like mini-Mother Theresas? Let's face it, it's harder trying to get people to give you money if you give them nothing in return.
As I see it, the author of the article appears to be challenging people to ask themselves if they fit in the category you fall into (somebody with something to really offer), or the category I've described (somebody who naively thinks they can help; or somebody effectively going on holiday to an impoverished area in such a way that makes them feels less guilty about being rich while giving them a moral-superiority card to play when they're back home) - because there is a real social cost to this latter sort of self-serving volunteering.
Thinking about it, I see now that OP is focusing on the quality of the volunteer, while I am focusing on the quality of the organization. Perhaps OP and I are simply not even on the same page for commentary then, though we appear to be in the same book.
While none of them were bad people, in reality, it was a holiday for the majority of them. They were too young to have any real life skills or lessons to share or communicate. Those that did were simply not around for long enough to have any real impact. They all spent more time and money on sight-seeing, partying and South Africa's beaches than anything else.
This was an acceptable relationship for the organisations concerned because they were receiving money, but nobody had any illusions about whether there was meant to be a more productive relationship. The reality is, in these cases, it would have been more productive to just donate the money for the plane ticket, bars and sight-seeing directly to the organisation - but why would somebody do that when they can get a story to tell, and make themselves sound like mini-Mother Theresas? Let's face it, it's harder trying to get people to give you money if you give them nothing in return.
As I see it, the author of the article appears to be challenging people to ask themselves if they fit in the category you fall into (somebody with something to really offer), or the category I've described (somebody who naively thinks they can help; or somebody effectively going on holiday to an impoverished area in such a way that makes them feels less guilty about being rich while giving them a moral-superiority card to play when they're back home) - because there is a real social cost to this latter sort of self-serving volunteering.