To Hell with Good Intentions: A Reflection on International Service

Community Service & Service-Learning Blog Post

To Hell with Good Intentions: A Reflection on International Service

By: Elizabeth Coder

In 1968, Monsignor Ivan Illich, an Austrian philosopher and Catholic priest, gave an address to the Conference on InterAmerican Student Projects (CIASP) to American volunteers serving in villages in rural Mexico. The speech, titled To Hell With Good Intentions, has become somewhat of a staple in the world of community service and service-learning. It is a thought-provoking piece that challenges the very idea of international service, directly questioning our intent to send well-meaning American college students to volunteer in far-off corners of the world, often in communities, cultures, and languages very different from their own. While this speech was given more than 50 years ago, even as the field of community service and service-learning has evolved, many of Illich’s points still ring true.

Before I get too far down the rabbit hole, I feel the need to tell you a bit about myself so you know where I’m coming from. I am a three-time AmeriCorps alumna, having served a year in a State & National Program  and two years in the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC). I’ve also facilitated university service-learning programs, both domestically and internationally, in various locations throughout the United States and abroad. These programs ranged from long-term, credit-bearing programs where students were living and serving in the same community for an entire semester to one day, one-off service projects in various corners of the globe. Through these experiences, I have developed a deep understanding of how education can both support and hinder this work. I’ve also seen firsthand the impact service can have on the students’ academic experience and in their development as humans who care about other humans so I’m not blanketly opposed to international service. I only ask that we proceed with caution, that we really think about our intentions and the impact those intentions have on the communities where our students are serving because, as Illich will tell you, the road to hell is paved with said intentions.

“…The third largest North American export is the U.S. idealist, who turns up in every theater of the world.” Community-based organizations and NGOs from across the globe can tell you countless stories about volunteer groups that traveled across an ocean to build a house, but none of them actually really knew how to build a house so right after they left, local people had to go back and fix everything. Or how they have different volunteer groups come each month and every single one of those groups will paint the exact same building.  So what does that mean? That we don’t have applicable construction skills? That we’re bad at painting? That we shouldn’t serve internationally? Maybe. Oftentimes, unintentionally or not, we do international service to make ourselves feel better. “Look at that house I built!” “Look at that school I painted!” We get to tell all of our friends and family back home about this great thing we did, but we leave without really understanding the systemic issues that lead these community-based organizations to exist in the first place. Many international community-based organizations and NGOs rely on volunteer groups’ program fees to support their mission throughout the year. Knowing that well-meaning college students will fundraise thousands of dollars in order to come volunteer for a week, but may be less likely to fundraise thousands of dollars and then drop a check in the mail, they think up ways for you to feel like you’re “helping” without making it harder on the people that are working with the organization day in and day out. In situations like this, painting can be a win win. In the interest of how we can be most helpful, here are some questions to consider…

• How can our resources and talents best be utilized to meet the community determined needs?
• What type of pre-service training do our students need?
• How are we talking with our students about the power dynamics of international service?

“I am here to challenge you to recognize your inability, your powerlessness and your incapacity to do the ‘good’ which you intend to do.” So wait, Illich is saying we can’t do any good in international service? Like any? Yes and no. If you’re there to get to know people and to gain a better understanding of their culture and their community, then yes. You can then take those lessons with you and work to change the narrative with your friends and family back home about “those people” in “that country,” but we need to be mindful of how we do that, too. (That’s a blog post for another time.) But, if you show up, metaphorical guns blazing, trying to “save” the world, Illich would implore you (as would I) to just write a check to a reputable community-based organization and stay home. It’s unrealistic and insulting to local leaders, community-based organizations, and people in general for you to think that you can “save” them by “fixing” a huge systemic social issue in just a week. People don’t need us to save them. What they need is for us to have a more accurate understanding of their culture and their circumstances and how other countries, including the United States, may have played a part in helping create those circumstances. In the interest of trying not to “save” anyone, here are a few more questions to consider…

• How we are educating our students and ourselves about the history, culture, and politics of the country and region we are visiting?
• What are the learning outcomes of the international service program?
• How will these learning outcomes be supported during your time abroad and beyond the end of the service program?

So if you are planning an international service program, I encourage you and your team to read Illich’s speech, to think about your intent in serving internationally versus your potential impact on the ground, and then to have that same conversation with your students. Because if Illich has taught us nothing, it’s where that intent can lead.