Monthly UN Volunteers Meeting

65 people staring at me, waiting for me to speak. Some of them in Vietnam to volunteer their services, others here to work in human resource development within local NGO's, but all were at this meeting to share their experiences and network.

How had I been chosen to host this UNV meeting? Volunteers for Peace Vietnam, the organization which hosts me and provides me with a roof and bed somehow felt it appropriate to ask me to Chair the monthly United Nations Volunteers meeting held at the UN building in Hanoi. Floored, I readily accepted.

However, the night before the meeting, I felt a little less enthusiastic.

I had suggested that I write a short speech on volunteerism, sort of to break the ice during the meeting. At one of the previous meetings, I had been quite insulted by one man's insistence upon drawing a line between 'backpack volunteers' and 'Professionally trained' volunteers. He basically said that the former were not worthy of the term 'volunteer,' and that those who were paid by a host organization should be unacknowledged as 'more important'. Though I myself am sponsored and fit into his 'higher' level of volunteer, I had been insulted at his narrow-sighted opinion. This was about a month and a half ago... and when I was presented with the opportunity to Chair the meeting, I quickly jumped on the chance to counter his comment (because I knew he'd be there) with a 15 minute speech on why he was wrong.

I wrote the speech in 25 minutes, after having consulted with a few other volunteers at VPV. The next morning, I rehearsed it furiously, making sure that I could deliver this speech with precision and passion.

Suddenly, as if time decided to skip the whole morning, I found myself sitting at the head of a table full of people from all over the world. Many traveling and volunteering their work for a week or two in different countries, others were full time interns or project staff at the UN, and then there were those like me, in Vietnam to work and gain valuable experience while being sponsored by a host organization.

After I asked everyone in the room to give a brief introduction of themselves, Cuong, VPV's vice-president, gave a very short introduction to VPV and what we do. His planned 10 minutes quickly turned into a shaky 3, and I was handed the mic much sooner than expected.

I introduced myself, shuffled my papers around, and explained that I had written a short speech about volunteerism, and promised that I wouldn't bore them.

I think this was a mistake... even though I delivered the speech without any hang ups (and even received a surprising round of applause afterwards) promising anything to the audience will only generate blank looks that carry higher expectations. I think that if I were to do it again, I would keep them in the dark over the details of my speech, and to allow them to decide for themselves whether or not I am putting them to sleep.

Again, I don't know how I ended up at the front of that table that day, nor do I know how I pulled off a speech that I had written at 10:30 the night before, but somehow things went smoothly... and the meeting was actually quite enjoyable! I felt good about it, I made my point in revenge for the comment that set me off (and yes, the man was there, and no, he did not respond), good discussion was fueled, and a lot of networking took place.

And I discovered something that day, I like to be in positions of authority... is that bad?



Here is a copy of my speech (rough notes that I used throughout):

Speech Notes

Seeing as Volunteers for Peace Vietnam is chairing this meeting today, I would like to take this opportunity to talk about –what other than- volunteerism!

I would like to focus on two aspects of volunteerism:

One being,

- The seemingly inherent division between “professional” volunteers, and “backpack” volunteers.

And second,

- I’d like to shed light on what I think to be the fundamental aspect which unites these two despite their differences, as well as the guiding source which inspires our choice to volunteer.

But before I begin, I would like to start with a problem I once encountered.

That being the idea of a truly selfless, non-selfish act.

The word “volunteer” is described as follows by the Webster Dictionary:

“A volunteer is a person who performs or offers to perform a service out of his or her own free will, often without payment”

The ideal volunteer is one who performs his or her service knowing full-well that they would not benefit in any way from their efforts. However, I have often wondered: is this truly possible?

Can a human being knowingly dedicate a part (or even all of) his or her life to others, without receiving anything in return?

You might be thinking, the gratification that one receives from the smiles and grateful gestures he or she is the true reward… but that is exactly my point. The satisfaction of knowing you made someone happy is a form of ‘return’ on ones invested time, therefore there exists a form of expected reward.

Is a completely selfless act possible?

I will not answer this question just yet. Rather, I would like to come back to it at the end.

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Living at VPV with many volunteers from around the world has given me the benefit of seeing many different aspects and perspectives behind the volunteer movement in Hanoi.

I myself am on a professional internship, volunteering my services while gaining much in the form of professional experience in the field of International Development.

Others at VPV are quite different, as our dorm like living arrangements not only resembles an ‘international ghetto’ of sorts, but is also home to many different volunteers who do different kinds of work.

Some of us are her professionally to work with local organizations,

others are students, here during a gap year between semesters, teaching English, French or both for children or adults

some are fresh graduates from high school looking to fulfill necessary social services

demanded by their government,

and then there are well established professionals looking to spend a few months learning a new culture and working either with disabled orphans or something to that effect

It had once been brought to my attention that a careful division should be made between these volunteers. What I understood was that the younger “backpack” variety, here for a matter of weeks or months, should not officially be referred to as ‘real volunteers’.

In a sense, I had agreed with the basic argument that was being made. Indeed, there are differences between the two.

- On one hand, you have people who are coming to Vietnam to travel, interact with the locals, and leave back to their respective lives.

- And on the other, you have professionals who have worked hard to get to where they are, and who are not necessarily volunteers per se. This is due to their annual stipend which formalizes them not as paid employees but as generous contributors to a higher cause.

That cause being the development of a modern infrastructure within Vietnamese organizations, to advocate for human rights, or other social issues.

However, I couldn’t help but find this argument unsatisfying, and I felt that it missed the point of what it means to be volunteer.

I would like to give two examples from two different types of volunteers to explain my point. Both are long term volunteers who live at VPV and work outside at their respective jobs.

1. The first was an experience described to me by a professional intern who is sponsored by the Canadian government to work at The Light Foundation, a local NGO.

- She is in the process of writing a grant proposal for a project which means to empower female Vietnamese Sex Workers to stand up for their own human rights.

Almost immediately, she runs into two problems:

The first:

Sex Work is illegal in Vietnam, therefore convincing the Government or police to respect their rights isn’t very easy to do. Such a project may not seem plausible to a would-be sponsor, seeing as the goal of the project is a tad ambitious and perhaps unrealistic.

Secondly:

The term human rights can be quite ambiguous, especially in a country where social movements are quite difficult to start and effect actual change.

These are technical problems experienced by a professional volunteer. They are very difficult to deal with for someone who is used to a more forgiving infrastructure.

She has experienced frustration at having to work around a technically stifling bureaucracy, and has been hard-pressed to come up with a solution.

2. My second example comes from a volunteer who works at an orphanage for disabled children.

- This volunteer has complained of having seen instances of abuse by the staff unto the children themselves.

One of her examples stuck with me quite strongly:

- She witnessed a child being let out of a small, black closet after having been locked in for misbehaving.

Here we have a different kind of problem. This has nothing to do with logistics or an under developed infrastructure… this problem affected the very base of her moral instincts.

What she saw she knew was wrong, but how was she to proceed?

I would like to clarify that these instances are not unique to developing countries or to Vietnam. They are very likely to happen in our own countries, and I don’t want to seem like I’m blaming these problems on under-development specifically.

It is obvious that these different volunteers faced two very different problems in two different areas of work. However, who is to say that one is more difficult than the other?

Is the professional who faces the bureaucratic red tape of a developing nation truly distinguishable in her efforts over those of the orphanage worker who has to deal with acts that make her sick to her stomach from her inability to effect change?

To me, the answer is quite clear.

To distinguish the professional from the non-professional is an erroneousness mistake:

it is purely a superficial way of creating a distinction between similarly challenging jobs.

The truth is that the depth of the problems faced by the volunteer who is working at the orphanage is the same as the professional working at the NGO.

---

This brings me to my own problem which I began with.

Is there such a thing as a truly selfless act?

What makes us worthy of the title ‘volunteer’ in the first place?

The answer came to me from a person who is very important to me:

She said that:

The fact of the matter is that this is a question which also misses the point. The goal of volunteerism does not revolve entirely around the attainment of a final goal, but it is part of a whole which includes the very real ideal which inspired it.

All of us in this room are driven by an ideal, be it to improve the English of 50 screaming children in a classroom, or to improve the human resources at an organization.

We know that the Ideal can never fully be reached, however we strive to touch and perhaps get a glimpse of it,

and the consequences as well as the honest intentions of those efforts become self-evident in their final result.

This is what unifies us as volunteers, it is what has brought us to this very room here today! It is also the philosophy of VPV, which is why, despite their flaws, I am happy to represent them here today and everyday.

I feel strongly that we all have good, albeit different, intentions. And if we do not manage to lose sight of the ideals that drive us, we will reap invaluable benefits no matter what sort of volunteer work we are doing, or what their practical results.

Thank You