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Frequently, those who participate in volunteer programs do so with a sincere desire to collaborate, learn, and live an experience with a meaningful human purpose. Many people travel motivated by the interest in discovering other cultures and realities, sharing their time and abilities, and supporting community initiatives. However, these motivations, although genuine and well-intentioned, may be accompanied, consciously or unconsciously, by deeply rooted ideas, beliefs, and perceptions that influence the way they understand the communities they visit and the way they relate to them. Therefore, it is important to recognize and question these ideas before beginning a volunteer experience.
Terms such as “saving” or “rescuing” are often based on the assumption that people living in certain realities lack the ability to face their own challenges. Likewise, charity-based approaches or forms of assistance, when they replace the strengthening of local capacities, can create unequal relationships and limit the autonomy of individuals and communities.
It is also necessary to reflect on paternalism, understood as the tendency to make decisions for people and communities based on the assumption that they do not know what they truly need. Even charity and philanthropy, although they have played an important role at different moments in history, may prove insufficient when they fail to recognize people as rights-holders, with knowledge, abilities, and the possibility to make decisions, build, and strengthen their own community processes.
Rather than promoting relationships of dependency, volunteer work should contribute to strengthening autonomy, mutual respect, and collaboration. Communities do not need to be saved, rescued, or treated with pity; they need to be respected, listened to, and recognized as protagonists of their own development processes.
At INEPAS, we believe that volunteering should be an experience of encounter between people, where exchange, respect, and responsibility are more important than the idea of “saving,” “assisting,” or “rescuing.” For this reason, we have developed a Manifesto on volunteering and solidarity, a document that expresses the principles and values that guide our work with children, youth, and the communities with which we collaborate.
We invite you to read this Manifesto and reflect with us on the true meaning of solidarity, social commitment, and responsible volunteering.
María Antonieta Ixcoteyac Velásquez
Coordinadora General
INEPAS