Traveling with a Purpose: Thoughts of a Pinoy Volun-turista

Mark Emmanuel Velasco

I’m not exactly a traveller. I’m the type of person who enjoys quiet conversations with friends over cups of coffee, or lazy Sunday afternoons huddled in bed with a mystery novel in one hand. However, I do enjoy taking long road trips and experiencing the unfamiliar.

As a first-year medical student who spends most of the time indoors or in the classroom, I was dying for a breath of fresh air, new experience, new people, new faces, new places. I experienced more than that in my travel to Sorsogon where I met up with Lingap Para sa Kalusugan ng Sambayanan, Inc (LIKAS), a local NGO.

Tatay Lito and his family shared their home with me. They are locals of Brgy. Sevilla in Donsol and beneficiaries of the organic agriculture-based farming project of LIKAS. I shared Tatay Lito’s day by getting up at 4 o’clock every morning; feeding the geese, cattle, pigs, and chicken; and watering his patch of land of numerous vegetable for his household. Life is pretty idyllic, with afternoons spent munching on ripe guavas plucked from their own backyard and countless hours just talking and sharing about the day’s events.

But behind this seemingly carefree lifestyle lurks the untold realities of isolated and forgotten municipalities – rampant poverty; poor access to basic needs such as water, electricity, and food; inadequate health and access to medical care;  and government negligence. As a writer and project evaluator, I interviewed many locals about their lives, and could not help but feel powerless over their predicaments. What could I, a young boy still in school, do with just pen and paper in hand?

Nevertheless, I left Brgy. Sevilla with me a fresher perspective about development and a story to share to everyone.

No matter how short, living with Tatay Lito’s family and sharing their stories and hopes was one of the most humbling experiences I have had. When you wake up with the people, eat their food, walk with them, and become a part of their lives, it makes you think. It is one thing to read about how 1/3 of the population experiences extreme poverty, but it’s another to actually put faces to these numbers, statistics, figures. Their struggles suddenly become very real problems, as real as people like you and me, as real as a battle they fight every day.

It made me realize that in my future role as a healthcare professional, I need to always look back to my countrymen who, despite their daily challenges, are rife with dedication and potential to make a change for themselves. They just need a little boost. In this sense, too, we learn that we do not impose our own definition of ‘progress’ or ‘development’ on the people whose lives are very different from ours. It is in this form of respect do we truly gain understanding of their current situation, then we can design interventions that are truly responsive to the locality’s needs. In addition, the community has to recognize these needs themselves, so we are but oil to their machineries. True development, I believe, is accomplished through the collective efforts of a community, by the community, for the community.

The idea of international voluntourism though, has gained much criticism. With comments on how expensive it can be and how inefficient it is, one can easily be discouraged to engage in it.

Local voluntourism has not been much hyped, and its fruits can be abundant. The beauty of our country cannot be fully experienced in a lifetime, and it is always a gift to be able to discover a new place or to give out a helping hand to someone who needs it. Now imagine combining both.

How empowering and enabling that can be, to witness life and living first-hand, to explore new cultures, and to realize how we are all so alike and still so different! I know I sound pretty abstract now, but when the travel and volunteering bugs bite you, you are forever changed. For the better. I can’t think of a better way to expand oneself.

I’m a proud Filipino voluntourist in my own country, and I hope everyone could experience the immeasurable joy of being so. For us who live in the metro, it is easy to get drowned in the hustle and bustle of the city life, the stress, the noise, and the traffic. We thirst escape. Travelling has been a more attractive means for this escape, a fulfillment for our yearning to immerse our senses in new people, new landscapes, and new perspectives. Often, in our quest to lose ourselves, we unexpectedly find ourselves. And it is in this invention and reinvention of the self that we come to terms with our lives, circumstances, and being.

Mark graduated with a degree in psychology and is now pursuing his dream of becoming a doctor studying medicine at the UP Manila-PGH. He wishes to become a public health expert and child health advocate in the future. In his free time, he is a voluntourist and writes passionately about his travels.