[arohann]

Articles and blog posts like this disappoint and annoy me. They lack logic and intellectual depth.

I sincerely hope young Americans/westerners don't get discouraged by reading such nonsense.

The problem described here is a combination of naivety and misallocation of skills and resources. It has nothing to do with being white and yet this lady can't seem to get away from that.

I'm South Asian and I would have faced the exact same problems this lady faced had I volunteered in the places and organizations she did. However being older and perhaps wiser, I wouldn't have made the error of volunteering to do things I have no skill in. Thats the only mistake she made and the problems she mentioned are easily fixed with a little common sense. Yet somehow she can't see that

I wonder where this silliness comes from - could it be the result of the modern American education system ?

Before closing I should mention I would likely never have been born had it not been for a bunch of young European women who saved my orphaned grandmother from certain starvation and neglect when she was a toddler. They gave her a home, an excellent education and looked afer her till she was a young woman. Their actions helped my grandmother get the skills she later used to pull her family out of poverty (resulting from the Partition of India) into the upper middle class.

Thank heavens for those dedicated, young, white voluntourists.

[ctdonath]

Thank heavens for those dedicated, young, white voluntarists.

The point is they were not "voluntourists", they really did sacrifice to help your grandmother - as opposed to showing up, getting in the way while doing a few trivial things for a week or so, playing much of the time, and otherwise squandering money which would have been better just sent to the orphanage outright.