In this opinion piece, Daniela Papi writes about her personal experience as an international volunteer and how she came to realize the potential detrimental effects her volunteer work had on the communities with whom she worked. Papi established an NGO in Cambodia, focused on education, and began recruiting volunteers to help complete the work. “I slowly stopped believing in our ‘voluntourism’ offerings and began to see that young people didn't need more fabricated opportunities to ‘serve’ but rather opportunities to learn how to better contribute their time and money in the future.” In this article, Papi reflects on the phenomenon of international volunteering, particularly orphanage volunteering in Cambodia, which she says has become a “big business.”
