40 Years of Service: Global Volunteers’ Guiding Principle – We Serve Only Where We Are Invited

Global Volunteers relies on ten guiding principles. These principles have proven essential to the success of our partnerships with communities around the world. We share them with all our volunteers as they prepare for their service program because they will help them better serve the community with which they will be working and help them maximize their personal benefit from the experience. In this series, we will delve into each guiding principle, beginning with the first; we serve only where we are invited.

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Millions of dollars are spent annually by well-intentioned governments and nongovernmental organizations to enhance human and economic development. However, for external assistance and resources to be genuinely effective, local people must invite the outside help, otherwise it will have limited positive effect. Local people are the source of development. Individuals, families, neighborhoods, and community organizations must initiate and conduct their own development efforts. The role of the outsider in the development process is vital, albeit precarious. Outsiders are most valuable in facilitating, advising, encouraging, catalyzing and working shoulder-to-shoulder with local people in their efforts to build their future. Externally imposed and top-down approaches simply do not work. Programs that are centrally controlled, or even centrally planned, do not inspire development. Effective development is initiated at the local level and requires the full participation of local people.

There is substantial evidence that, although appropriate development technology donated by outside organizations may ease the burdens of the impoverished or those struggling with new democracies, it will not be effective in assisting people in the development process unless they “own” it. This is a nearly universal, but all too often misunderstood, principal. Kusum Nair, in her account of village life in India entitled Blossoms in the Dust, illustrates this point. She quotes a government official responsible for rural farming projects who described this phenomenon: “We carry manures and improved seeds in a trailer and offer to deliver them right at the doorstep to induce these (farmers) to use them. We offer them loans to buy the seeds and manures. We go to their fields and offer to let in the water for them. We ask them to try it out first in two acres only, if they are not convinced. They could quadruple their yields if they would only take our advice and at least experiment. Still they are not forthcoming.”

“We carry manures and improved seeds in a trailer and offer to deliver them right at the doorstep to induce these (farmers) to use them. We offer them loans to buy the seeds and manures. We go to their fields and offer to let in the water for them. We ask them to try it out first in two acres only, if they are not convinced. They could quadruple their yields if they would only take our advice and at least experiment. Still they are not forthcoming.”

~ Kusum Nair

Free people will decide for themselves what they will and will not do. Neither agricultural technology nor democracy can be imposed. A development strategy, which is based upon outside government agencies, religious organizations, or non-profits doing the job for or attempting to impose solutions on local people, is doomed to failure. Global Volunteers understands that it is only when local people decide to act that positive change will occur. It is only when local people decide to implement development plans, that those plans have any currency. And it is only when local people take a leadership role in the creation of those plans, that they have any chance of success.

Global Volunteers defines development as a process whereby people achieve their full human potential and fullness of life. Local communities are primarily responsible for this process and self reliance is the ultimate objective. Results are best achieved through the ethical use of local resources available to all. People outside the community are most valuable in working side-by-side with local people to achieve locally-defined goals.

A community awakened to the possibility of achieving their collective hopes and dreams is a powerful force, a force that holds the promise of new life and self-reliance.

Our volunteer coordinators are available by email, phone, and chat to describe our volunteer programs abroad and in the USA. We’ll help you decide on projects that best suit your interests and skills.

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40 YEARS OF VOLUNTEER SERVICE WORLDWIDE!