(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Making an Impact in the World with Humanitarian Travel [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-01-06 More and more Americans are using humanitarian travel as a way of supporting causes they believe in and trying to make a positive contribution to the world. A month since International Volunteer Day, and a week into 2024, many Americans are preparing to travel abroad to volunteer. At a time when it seems like everything is going wrong in the country, the United States remains the world leader in terms of the hours Americans donate of their time. Globally a billion people volunteer each year and about 10 million people volunteer abroad. Volunteering has always been a quintessentially American thing, but it is also a profoundly human thing to do. And, post-Covid, people are more motivated than ever to leave a positive impact on the world. This affects how young people assess job opportunities, people’s spending patterns, their politics, and so much more. In addition, many people report feeling overwhelmed by an age that seems to be dogged by so many crises, from climate change, to the state of democracy. Happiness in America is at record lows, and “bad” is just about how most people would describe the state of the world. It can all feel rather exhausting. Rather than despairing, many Americans are turning to humanitarian travel to fight for their values, and they are becoming happier by doing so. Humanitarian travel involves volunteering to travel and use your skills, and time, to help people abroad. The goal is refreshingly simple: to make their lives better. The humanitarian volunteer seeks out some cause that aligns with their values, and, rather than responding only to short-term crises, they make a long-term commitment to build capacity, and increase access to various services and advance a better society among communities in need. The best areas to work in, in terms of impact, are regarding access to health care, education, children’s welfare, physiological development; and basic human needs. The New York Times recently featured a piece about Americans who helped file a case on behalf of the Yazidi people, who have suffered enormous human rights abuses. You can be a medical volunteer, support an NGO, or work in community development. Source: CBI The idea is not to turn the world into America. Unqualified volunteers and the colonial structure of many volunteer organizations can do more harm than good. Pippa Biddle, a volunteer, asks volunteers to think through their impact. In a viral blog post posted years ago, she recounted her own struggles with speaking Spanish to children with HIV in the Dominican Republic and how people in Tanzania would have to spend the night redoing the construction work she and her classmates had done poorly. She has since written a book to help volunteers make their efforts more meaningful and impactful. The aid has to be respectful of culture and place, match your skill set, and be in response to calls for help by those communities. Working in partnership with those communities to respond to profound problems, humanitarian volunteers get to do something that has a meaningful impact on other people’s lives. As liberals, it’s important to align our actions with our values, and look for issues in the developing world where we believe we can make a positive impact. When you have found the right cause for you, the next thing is to organize. Humanitarian volunteers either organize themselves into a group, whether it’s a family, or bunch of friends, or they may travel as lone volunteers, and work with an agency with a presence in that country. That agency will find ways for you to volunteer, based on your skill set and the amount of time you are able to dedicate to the project. Humanitarian volunteers may also choose to work with networks of humanitarian volunteers. These networks have already partnered with local, community-driven organizations that are leading long-term change. The United Nations Volunteer program, for example, helps people from across the world find opportunities “to volunteer across the three pillars of the United Nations: development, peace and security, and human rights.” The majority of UN Volunteers serve in Africa. Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, the Pacific, the Arab States region, Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). As the chart below shows, communities in need are enjoying a rise in the number of volunteers. Typically, the most expensive part of the humanitarian travel process involves flights. This is because travel may involve going to places that do not have dedicated flights, or where flights are inconsistent and liable to change times, as well as other challenges that increase the cost of travel or the difficulties of finding flights. Travel experts in humanitarian volunteering are able to ensure that humanitarian volunteers can carry extra bags for their long-term stay abroad, guarantee refunds and changeability, and provide 24/7 customer service, at affordable rates. This is not a job that can be left to an ordinary travel agency given the unique challenges of humanitarian travel. We live in a cynical age, where we are constantly reminded about how selfish human beings may be. If we are kinder to ourselves, we can harness this selfishness to do good in the world. If you don’t feel like helping others, there’s a scientific reason why you should. This wise selfishness can provide happiness to ourselves, while also bettering the lives of other people. All of us experience moments of happiness in our lives, but too often , that happiness is fleeting. By cultivating kindness, we also cultivate our own happiness, and there is strong scientific evidence for this. There is abundant evidence that altruistic behavior makes people happier. What is altruism? Simply, it’s wanting other people to be happy. Stephen G. Post, a researcher at the University of Berkeley, summarized the research on the link between altruism and happiness, saying, “Altruistic (other-regarding) emotions and behaviors are associated with greater well-being, health, and longevity.” Being altruistic makes you and the recipient of your altruism, happy, and being happy makes people more altruistic. In fact, perhaps the most startling result of the science of happiness is that being kind to others makes us happier than spending on ourselves! Let’s look at two experiments. In the first ; British researchers gave 86 study participants a survey measuring their life satisfaction. These participants were randomly assigned across three groups. In the first, the participants were asked to perform at least one act of kindness every day. In the second, they were asked to try something new each day. The third group were given no instructions. This experiment lasted for 10 days. When the participants were asked to retake the life satisfaction survey, those who had been asked to perform acts of kindness and those who were asked to try new things, had roughly equal improvements in their happiness. The third group saw no improvement. The study showed that happiness does come from being kind, and that trying new ways of being kind, may also improve their happiness. Elizabeth Dunn, one of the foremost researchers on happiness, has found that the improvements on happiness last for much longer. However, although it is true that kindness makes us happier, it matters how we help others. Early in her career, she published a paper, "Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness" , where she found spending on others made people happier than spending on themselves. In later research, she found that giving to worthy causes where you can envision what will happen to the money you give, can be a tremendous boost to happiness. Not only that, but giving to poorer countries had a bigger impact than giving at home in the US, because the money just did a whole lot more. Perhaps the most effective way to promote happiness is not just by being able to envision what will happen as a result of your kindness, or helping the needy abroad, it is by having profound contacts with the people you are trying to help. In a TED Talk she gave, she said that, “Creating these kinds of meaningful connections between individuals provides an opportunity to deal with challenges that feel overwhelming.” The reason is simple: research shows that the closer the connections with other people, the better we feel about giving. Investing and connecting with other people are the most effective ways to become happier. In an age of crises, the need for volunteering has never been greater. Governments are simply not equipped to tackle all these crises. Communities have to step up. And the truth is, stepping up is mutually beneficial. The science is clear that doing good benefits other people, and that investing and connecting is the most powerful way of attaining happiness. Support movements to advance humanitarian travel and make the world a better place. 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