Questions anyone who does a service trip should ask

(originally published December 2017)

I started a list (of loaded questions I struggle answering) of questions anyone who participates in “service,” either internationally or domestically, should ask and continue to ask, as well as some articles and videos I thought were important. Some of these could apply to any “charity” work. What would you add to this list?

1. What history and institutional structures, belief systems, religions, policies, and laws, foreign and domestic have led to the conditions here? Did this community once have better conditions? How has the US perpetuated the conditions here? How has the US helped conditions here?

What is the history of this service trip and the organization that has organized it? Where does it fit in with the previous questions?

2. Is there any harm in what we do?

3. Are we promoting ideas that college is the only way to success? (through painting logos of the organization, or our college) What would the impact be on children or residents who are looking at these logos on a daily basis? What ideas would they internalize? Could there be harm in that? What could they internalize from the logos on our clothes?

4. Do we show the same amount of care back home? Are we paying attention to and listening to the difficult experiences of our fellow students, especially those of the same ethnicity as the community we are going to?