Reflections on ethical volunteering

Ethical volunteering has become more and more popular. Many people ask themselves, “What can I do to make the world a better place, a place where we can all live in harmony with each other and nature?” Such people care about others but they also want to contribute or make an impact in the best possible way.

In volunteering, ethics plays a huge part in the impact one ultimately makes.
At Good Hope Volunteers, we offer three categories of volunteering and each category involves different ethical principles.

Working with children, the relevant guiding principles include respect, boundaries, informed consent, and confidentiality.
Working with wildlife involves considering both human-animal relationships and how humans should treat animals, based on a welfare perspective. However, it extends beyond how we care for and protect ourselves, other humans and other sentient beings. (Sentience refers to the capacity to feel, which includes us human beings and other forms of life, namely animals.)
Working in voluntourism, which is a combination of social and environmental volunteering, involves a balance between these two categories and, as a result, offers a lot of adventure and appreciation for the volunteer community or environment.

Volunteering is rooted in the principles of doing good. However, when you freely offer to do good, it is important to consider the impact you will have, to base your actions on ethics or good principles which consider the best practises or guidelines related to your act(s) of goodwill. To make a positive impact requires a collective or holistic approach, involving many considerations, and is not about the individual volunteer. In an act of doing good, we also realise that we are reliant on others. We, therefore, need to make use of broader, reputable sources and resources to add ethical values to our acts for them to make a difference.

In trying to do what is right and ethical, we should follow what is prescribed as best practices. These prescriptions have been reached through the collaboration of relevant stakeholder. As a result, there are many rules, laws and guidelines for ethical volunteering in

all different types of volunteering, giving guidance on how we should care for and protect the welfare of all living beings and, at times, non-living physical features of the environment.

At Good Hope Volunteers, we have an ethics policy.

We are affiliated with various local and international bodies who govern ethical volunteering. We have partnered with projects who uphold these shared values to maintain or restore dignity, human rights, animal welfare and child welfare. Working together, we uphold a holistic approach which provides the best possible impact to uplift communities and save and care for the environment and animals.

I would encourage each and every person considering volunteering to do so with the aim to make the best possible impact. Ask the right questions. Make informed decisions about how you can make the best possible impact. Make your contribution count by further aligning it with ethical choices and, in doing so, you will be making a huge difference.

Yours,

Edward Julius (Volunteer Manager)

The Good Hope Volunteers Team

To be part of our amazing volunteer community, please contact us.