Ying and Eric, the couple running the school in Providencia, Costa Rica, strongly rely on volunteer teachers. The conditions are fair– at least a three month stay, accommodation and food for free. The only cost covered by volunteers is the travel ticket. There are lots of candidates to choose from, because volunteering is in fashion and looks good on CV. The economical crisis that left many people jobless additionally extended this market.
Such a high demand naturally generated numerous new offers that fully exploit it. Many volunteers that we meet pay thousands of dollars for the ability to help. Such programs often require a minimal stay of one week, where among possible tasks you can choose diving on coral reefs or stay all day in a hammock on the beach. Other programs are less obviously bogus. A beautiful example is a group of Australians that paid big money to spend several weeks in Providencia to “build a much needed school for local children”. Nobody told them that there are already two schools in the village, and that the nice building they constructed is used now by the family of the entrepreneur who lured the Australians.
A similar example I’ve just heard from a fellow traveler in Nicaragua. Some volunteers paid quite a bit to be able to help a poor family build a house. During the construction, the future house owner was sitting across the street in another house of his, and spending time mostly on his mobile phone (presumably arranging new groups of volunteers).
(If you know some other such examples – feel free to describe them in the comments below!)
Obviously and unfortunately, “volunteering” is in many cases downgraded to not more but a lucrative branch of the tourism industry.
Blog entry location:See entire map here!
I must admit that I’m too often surprised with creativity of people in cheating.
According to me the mankind falls into only two categories: autotrophic and heterotrophic. The division is characteristic also for plants and animals. Majority of the mankind is autotrophic. This part simply works everyday to natural death to be able to live. The second part of people, a little bit smaller, but also large, live due to the first group. People in the group are equivalents of parasites in the animal and plant world. There is big difference between social and economic positions of particular man within this heterotrophic group and resulting quality of life within the group is also big. One part of the “parasite” group, which is more intelligent, is very rich and rules of the autotrophic part. The second part of the heterotrophic community is very poor and lives only due to autotrophic part of the population. So the autotrophic community feeds the whole heterotrophic community, intelligent as well as non-self-supporting parts. Note: The model of mankind division, I presented is, of course, simplified, anyway useful for evaluation of the world and for appreciation of the own position in this world and then allow better decisions. The above theory is my original construction and I claim a right to it and I announce that repeating will be treated as plagiarism.
Znowu mam dostep do strony odblokowany (przez company)! Wasza strona www jest jakos poderzana , moze to przez Columbie?
narazie
Tata Marek