Good white poses with poor black for a few 'likes' on networks

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You are eating at home in Spain with your family when, suddenly, a person you have never seen invades the living room with a smile from ear to ear and a mobile phone in hand, shooting photos of your little daughter while exclaiming: “How cute! , I would take her home and give her everything!”.

Then, without giving you time to respond, she stands in the middle, surrounded by your children and their friends, takes the girl in her arms and poses with her taking a selfie.

Then she uploads it to her social networks with the following phrase: “I just met them and they have already fallen in love.

They are always smiling."

What would you think?

Or that they told you: “I can't wait to go to Norway and take pictures of myself surrounded by children.

They are so cute, so white, with such straight hair that I can't stop touching...”.

I am referring to the increasingly widespread

Voluntourism

and

cooperaracism

Rolling up your sleeves for two hours is not cooperation.

Painting a wall for an hour, cooking for half an hour, digging a ditch for 20 minutes... these are common tasks in a type of trip that is sold as cooperation.

But none of that is.

And these actions do not help;

even harm.

They can all be carried out by the local population whom you are underestimating and taking away work.

Rolling up your sleeves for two hours is not cooperation.

Nor painting a wall for an hour, cooking for half an hour, digging a ditch for 20 minutes...

It may seem very exotic to spend a day without light, without water, without telephone coverage, urinating in a latrine and eating rice with your hands.

It's easy to idealize poverty knowing that next week, in complete safety, you're going to catch your plane back to comfort.

But they don't need it because "they are happy like this", "they are happy with nothing".

Now then, that they risk their lives crossing deserts and seas... That's already another story too complex for two weeks.

In one or two months it doesn't help.

Voluntourism

it

imitates cooperation, but the practice ends up being harmful.

Voluntourism can be

if what you are looking for is to take photos with poor blacks to gain a few

.

Or ignorance, if someone believes that the world can be changed in four or five weeks, without training or experience.

Or arrogance, if he sees himself as a savior.

Or racism, if you consider yourself superior.

They are children of colonialism.

Voluntourism

reinforces the stereotypes and prejudices elaborated by the daughter of colonialism and racist gaze, perpetuating the superiority of a race with the well-known white savior syndrome

The profile of those who practice

is, for the most part, that of a young student with little or no experience who is going to “help with whatever is needed”.

But you don't have to help with anything, you have to help with what you know.

Voluntourism reinforces the stereotypes and prejudices elaborated by the daughter of colonialism and racist, perpetuating white superiority under the well-known white savior syndrome.

The culture of immediacy

The profile of the person who does

also corresponds to the urgency and immediacy that invade us.

We are in a hurry, a lot to do: challenges, events, videos of different themes.

I'm interested in helping and saving the world, but now and in two days, the third I have to move on to the next trending topic.

In two days it can really change your life, but hardly anyone else's.

Four summers ago, from Ethiopia, I published a series of tips that I would have appreciated before "going for cooperation".

Because solidarity misunderstood can harm more than do good.

Three years later, he was still seeing short-term volunteers pass by month after month.

The cooperators change;

those who don't are the local people, who remain trapped in time.

This spring he published, with irony, how to carry out health cooperation in Africa and how to tell about it when he returned.

And now, in the middle of summer, the networks are filled with young

.

The message does not arrive.

Racism is winning.

Cooperating is a privilege

“I want to go help and they have told me no” is one of the phrases that I usually come across.

Good intention is necessary, but it is not enough.

Being an aid worker is a profession, it requires training and experience, having specific knowledge in professional fields.

It is also necessary to have prior knowledge of the country that is going to welcome us, of its cultural, social and economic context.

There are master's, postgraduate, courses and different entities that can advise.

Cooperating is a privilege.

When I arrived in Ethiopia for the first time, as I landed at the Addis Ababa airport, I was shocked: the first thing I saw was a well-paved highway full of cars, 20- and 30-story buildings.

Well-dressed people, some in suits and talking on a state-of-the-art mobile phone.

And you know what I thought then?

"Ah, this doesn't look like Africa."

It did not correspond to the preconceived and stereotyped image that I had in mind.

Arriving at the hospital, I introduced myself saying, “Hello!

I am a doctor, I come from cooperation to help in whatever is needed.

I can visit children, adults, pregnant women, attend births, I can help clean, cook... You name it!”

I imagine that my cover letter is not surprising, with the desire to help, without accrediting training;

it is already known that in Africa goodwill is enough.

But now imagine that instead of arriving in Ethiopia, I arrive in Norway and introduce myself to the director of the hospital with the same words.

From the outset, it would not even cross my mind to present myself at a Nordic hospital without the approved title, but we think that in Ethiopia it is not necessary.

In addition, I would not present myself in the European hospital as a "cooperator", but as a doctor.

So, I ask myself, why, if I go to a country like Ethiopia, am I a cooperator?

Do you mean that I am labeling and qualifying the country as inferior?

As a Spaniard, in Ethiopia they call me “cooperante” or “expatriate”.

On the other hand, we call an Ethiopian in Spain an “immigrant”.

This is racist and colonial language.

During these years living in Ethiopia, I found myself in a country that I had never heard of: newly opened hospitals with cutting-edge technology, excellent doctors and professionals who graduated every year from the most emblematic and prestigious Ethiopian universities...

I invite you to look at Ethiopia not only as a vulnerable country and recipient of aid, but also as a country from which to learn and share experiences.

Poverty is not in Africa, but in my gaze towards it.

I also understood that stereotypes separate and divide us.

We live in a world full of borders like a fence or a sea, but the most dangerous border is ourselves, our prejudices.

We must work without paternalism, with humility, with respect, professionalism and excellence.

Guide to working in a developing country

Iñaki Alegría

is a pediatrician specialized in international health and cooperation.

He is also coordinator of child health programs in the rural region of Gambo, Oromia, Ethiopia. 

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