Abstract
In the era of international volunteerism, mounting evidence suggests that the presence of unskilled and culturally unaware volunteers in the Global South fosters “voluntourism”, and endangers the very populations and institutions that volunteers want to help. Northwestern does not enforce a pre-trip curriculum for student organizations that coordinate private service trips, leaving the students to independently prepare themselves for their trip. This spring, eight students including myself intended to volunteer in Haiti through a Haitian-based non-profit, coordinated by a Northwestern student organization. Taking this opportunity, I implemented an eight-week pre-departure global health/ethics curriculum, and assessed the students to determine if a supplemental curriculum was effective in establishing competency in global health, ethical service, and Haitian history/culture. Students were evaluated through qualitative methods and quantitative evaluations. This study found that the curriculum was sufficient in establishing cultural sensitivity, historical awareness, and basic global health/ethics competency. Students also developed a critical lens of service in the Global South, and heightened awareness of how their privilege would affect their engagement in Haiti. Students preferred a supplemental curriculum to a for-credit class, and cited their schedules as barriers to taking global health classes or choosing university-sponsored international programs. Participants admitted that without the curriculum, they would not have individually sought out this information. The results of this study suggest that a country-specific supplemental curriculum is effective in creating a cohort of culturally and ethically sensitive student volunteers, and should be a minimum requirement for undergraduate service efforts in the Global South.