"Joy, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity in Egypt" Copyright © Creative Learning, All Rights Reserved

3Q's

A Commitment to Voluntourism in the Muslim World from America's Unofficial Ambassadors

The Arab Spring has captured the attention of billions around the world. It has put the Arab and Muslim Worlds, respectively, in the media spotlight on unprecedented levels. For Americans who have been drawn to explore the Muslim culture through this process and who are likewise interested in volunteering in the Muslim World, America's Unofficial Ambassadors (AUA) serves as a vehicle for making this possible. As AUA is planning to send a group of voluntourists to Jordan in 2012, I caught up with their Director, Benjamin Orbach, and author of Live from Jordan: Letters Home from My Journey through the Middle East, for this issue of The VolunTourist Newsletter to answer our 3Qs.

1) What was the inspiration behind America's Unofficial Ambassadors?

"In 2002, less than a year after the 9/11 attacks and as the United States was beginning to gear up for war with Iraq, I was a Middle East Studies graduate student living in Amman and studying Arabic. I spent a year traveling around the Arab World and speaking with anyone who would speak back. I wanted to improve my Arabic, but it was really my own personal effort to better understand America’s relationship with the Muslim World, particularly the Arab World. As I became intimately familiar with the everyday lives of Jordanians, Palestinians, Egyptians, Syrians and others, one of the most important insights I came to understand was the effect that ordinary people can have on international relations.

While there was nothing that I could do about over-arching policy questions of war and peace, I saw that there was an impact to be had on the everyday, quality of life level. By building people-to-people partnerships that supported my peers in these different countries to advance on their own paths to dignity and a future of greater opportunities, I could serve as an unofficial ambassador. I could recast the image of America, albeit at the grassroots level, at a time of increasing anti-American sentiment and rampant disapproval of US foreign policies. Whether it was tutoring students in English or teaching a young woman to use a computer and the Internet, I learned first-hand how creating substantive partnerships in areas of human development could not just empower people but de-mystify “the other.”

Over the next few years, as I worked at the State Department on creating partnerships in areas of human development and then in the Palestinian Territories as a development professional, I continued to think about this lesson and the power that an individual volunteer or aid worker can have on another individual or even a specific community. Through my own experience and the experience of others – whether they were seasoned development workers or short-term volunteers – the impact of service became clear to me and I realized that we needed to mobilize more American citizens to become unofficial ambassadors. We started work on the AUA initiative in the fall of 2009 and launched in March of this year with the publication of the AUA Directory of Recommended Organizations, the premiere resource for researching a short-term volunteer opportunity in development in the Muslim World. The AUA Directory is available for free at www.unofficialambassadors.org.

2) Why did you consider voluntourism in your overall goals & objectives for AUA?

"Alison, AUA Mosaic Scholarship recipient, volunteering in Bangladesh" Copyright © Creative Learning, All Rights Reserved

"The idea behind America’s Unofficial Ambassadors is that anyone and everyone can make a difference. There isn’t an exclusive club of elites or “international men (and women) of mystery” that are our America’s standard bearers as global citizens. My hope is that 10 years from now, graduating high school students all over the country, from places like Flagstaff, Cheyenne, and Burlington, will consider volunteering in development in the Muslim World as part of their college experience or post-college experience – whether that is teaching English in an orphanage in Jakarta, Indonesia or building a home with a family in Dakar, Senegal. Similarly, as our seniors plan for retirement, I hope that those plans will include volunteering on a short-term basis somewhere in the Muslim World. The key to having such a large number of people volunteering and being part of this movement, though, is to understand that we participate as supporters, not as leaders. We need to place our efforts behind the strength of programs and initiatives that support locally-led programs that are working toward outcomes we believe in – like increasing women’s literacy or providing greater access to health services. We can’t expect that as outsiders we will come into a foreign environment and provide a solution that works for everyone. Instead, as short-term volunteers, we need to take our cues from local leaders and citizens who have ideas about what they want and just need some external assistance, resources or expertise to get there.

With AUA, and within that context, the concept of voluntourism is valuable. We have cast our net of service within the parameters of “short-term,” from a week to a year. To encourage and support so many new volunteers, we have to alter our national consensus on volunteer service. The Peace Corps is a wonderful program, but only a limited number of Americans are able to serve for two and a half years. If we explain to Americans that they can make a valuable contribution by serving for a period of time that would equal the average two week vacation, it is a way for us to bring a lot more manpower, energy, and goodwill to the effort of building people-to-people partnerships in development between America and the Muslim World.

3) What do you have planned for 2012 in terms of your voluntourism efforts?

"Karla, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity in Tajikistan" Copyright © Creative Learning, All Rights Reserved

"As we build AUA and extend our outreach all over the United States and the world for that matter, we have several exciting programs and opportunities planned for 2012. First, by the end of 2012, our goal is to encourage at least 1000 Americans to commit to serve in the Muslim World. To that end, we’ve launched the AUA Network, a community of future and returned volunteers who are a part of reaching this goal and building a greater network and momentum for the concept of the AUA initiative. As part of the AUA Network, we are offering monthly webinars with leading experts in international development, relations between America and the Muslim World, and cross-cultural engagement. These webinars will help to build community, and they will also help to prepare future volunteers to serve effectively. Our next webinar will be October 27, with Luby Ismail, the President of Connecting Cultures. As another part of the AUA Network, we’ll be having a series of AUA community events where returned volunteers speak about their experiences to their schools, faith groups, and other organizations within their communities. The idea here is to help build tolerance and peace at home by sharing the stories of what volunteer service can accomplish. We’ll be posting our 2012 schedule on our website at the start of each month.

We are equally excited about the programmatic initiatives we are planning for 2012. Headlining our efforts are three major AUA programs. First, the AUA Mosaic Scholarship program is a competitive opportunity that offers scholarship support to Americans who seek to represent the diversity of America as they serve as unofficial ambassadors with one of the AUA Directory listed organizations. Second, our School-2-School program is another competitive project (that is currently open) that pairs an American school with an elementary school in Egypt and/or Jordan. In addition to a virtual cultural exchange, the American school raises funds to purchase educational supplies for the school in Egypt and/or Jordan and then sends an educator to the partner school to volunteer for a 10 days to a month next summer. Lastly, we are thrilled to be launching the Building Peace through Building Homes program that partners with Habitat for Humanity. The AUA initiative will send three teams of peace builders to Jordan, Tajikistan, and Indonesia in 2012 to build homes with families in each of those countries. These are trips of 10 days to two weeks, and we are currently recruiting for our Jordan trip in January of 2012. For more information on any of these programs and the AUA Network, please visit our website at www.unofficialambassadors.org.

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