以下文章標題是：「志工旅遊是否已經成為另一種殖民主義了？」

文章寫得很棒，但是我現在太忙了，工作壓力大到需要每天跟自己做精神喊話和靜心，因此，沒有時間翻譯文章內容。

內容重點是：不深入長期瞭解在地文化和歷史脈絡的人，志工服務可能造成當地的傷害和災難。

同樣的論證，可以套用在這次的太陽花學運，也可以套用在「想為台東做一些事情」的「外地人」（尤其是眾多「愛上台東」的「台北人」，包括本人在下我）身上。

我的個人觀察/心得/結論/自我提醒包括以下數點：

1.不懂就要承認不懂。
2.需要懂的時候，就要做研究。
3.研究做了，如果還是不懂，就要承認自己還是不懂。

4.所有的言行都多多少少具有長久深遠的影響，其結果往往不是我們有限的眼光能夠預知的。

5.志工服務與政府福利都可能造成被服務者的被動與依賴，以及潛藏的位階低下的自我認知，造成「反賦權」的不幸結果。

6.福不一定是福，禍不一定是禍。

7.安定可能造成懶惰與無知，動盪可能帶來反省和覺醒。

8.我雖然是個情緒很強烈的人，但是非常的不喜歡情緒性的謾罵、對立、分裂、抹黑。這樣的行為，只會帶來更多的負面循環，往黑暗處沈淪、陷溺。

9.每個人的養成不同、位置不同、利害關係不同，於是立場不同、論點不同。無論是誰做了什麼事情，我都希望自己不要忘記：換成是我，如果我有同樣的養成、同樣的位置、同樣的利害關係，在同樣的情境下，我非常可能會做出同樣的事情。

10.為了避免(9)的發生，我必需非常謹慎的，不踏入「溫水煮青蛙」逐漸質變的第一步。或者說，即便踏入了，在其間的任何一步，只要覺察到了自己的質變，便要迅速抽身。

11.激進的行動可以改變社會，穩定的個人生命軌道可以安定社會。

12. 在任何狀態下，都要努力學習，反省自己，然後，回到自己生命的核心，繼續做自己應該做的事情---無論是激進的，或是溫和的，或是穩定的，做自己。

以上，自勉。

Is 'voluntourism' the new colonialism?

Monday 24 March 2014 4:31PM

Volunteer tourism, or 'voluntourism', is one of the fastest growing areas of the tourism industry. However new evidence suggests that it may be doing more harm than good in developing countries, as Kerry Stewart reports.

Poorly arranged gap year volunteering trips are at risk of becoming a new form of colonialism, according to a new report by UK think tank Demos.

The UK has a long history of sending young people overseas to volunteer. Operation Drake and Raleigh International, two adventure based organisations took the idea of gap year tourism to the world. Now, it's almost expected that Australian Gen Ys will take time off from their studies to spend some time working with children or helping to a school in the developing world.

It's done for the experience of the volunteer. It's all about the volunteer, with the pretence of helping someone, and I don't buy it.

ROGER O'HALLORAN, DIRECTOR OF PALMS INTERNATIONAL

Volunteer tourism, or voluntourism as it's called, is one of the fastest growing areas of the travel industry and while travellers' motivations may be admirable, there's an unsavoury underbelly that might not be so obvious to every volunteer.

'Sending especially young people abroad is important for peace in the future, for global understanding for cultural awareness,' says Daniela Papi, the co-founder of PEPY Tours, an education travel company in Cambodia.

Papi thinks the positive aspects of volunteer travel are hindered when a group of travellers believes it's their responsibility to fix the lives and communities of another. She says that young travellers have good intentions, but what's missing is a humility and thoughtfulness that acknowledges that they don't know anything about the culture and language of their host country, and what's been tried there before or who's leading the changes.

'It's done for the experience of the volunteer', says Roger O'Halloran, the executive director of PALMS, an NGO that was born out of the Catholic social movement of lay missionaries. 'It's all about the volunteer, with the pretence of helping someone, and I don't buy it.'

The organisation sends its volunteers overseas for two years at a time. O'Halloran worries about companies that send people away for short periods of time (often a couple of weeks or even days) to build, say, a mud hut. Many of the young volunteers would be going without building skills, which poses the question of whether someone in that local community could do a better job.

Jackson Fitzpatrick, a 19-year-old university student, grew up in a wealthy suburb on Sydney's north shore and attended a private Anglican boys school. Fitzpatrick says he realised he was 'living in a bubble' and decided to expand his experience of life and share some of his gifts by volunteering in Australian indigenous communities.

He says his motivation for volunteering wasn't his Christian heritage, but rather a desire to understand indigenous spirituality. In the five months he spent in three Northern Territory communities he was immersed in their culture, learning about men's and women's business, sorry business, initiation and kinship laws. He said the experience changed his life, and he plans to live and work in the Top End after he completes his studies.

Roger O'Halloran says that PALMS is wary of people who want to volunteer out of a sense of Christian charity because an inappropriate power relationship can be formed between volunteer and host in which the giver has all the power over the receiver. He says the way poverty is represented in the media contributes to this separation between people.

According to O'Halloran, many volunteers think 'that's all they are, just poor people, and I can help them by giving of my excess and that makes me a good person'.

'[But] they are fellow human beings who have skills and capacities and resourcefulness probably far beyond anyone living in a Western society.'

Daniela Papi has worked with hundreds of volunteers over the years she's spent in Cambodia with PEPY Tours. She says there is a lot of discussion about the need for skills when volunteering, but she would prefer to have a person with the right attitude than someone with the right skills.

She describes the right attitude as a willingness to listen, learn, ask questions and be willing to challenge some of the assumptions you have when you get off the plane. It's also important to have a sincere desire to improve the world and in doing that to improve yourself.

'I think that the key part to this is improving ourselves. Personal development and global development are entirely linked.'

Presented by David Rutledge,Margaret Coffey, Gary Brysonand Kerry Stewart