I’ve always been a dreamer. I’ve always wanted to make a difference. I’ve always wanted to change the world around us.

In March 2010, I had the opportunity to travel across Tanzania with 25 students from my high school, where we embarked on a journey rebuilding old schoolhouses, hospitals, building a water main, and teaching classes along the way. At the time, I was a bright-eyed teen looking for avenues to make my mark. In retrospect, I realize how naïve I was to think that my contribution could turn things around and positively impact the communities we worked in.

Before we left, we had weekly training sessions learning some elementary Kiswahili, but the thing that stuck most was the role of sustainability and cultural competence. This trip wasn’t about packing building materials from Home Depot and taking them with us to say the day. Kendwa is a small village on the island of Zanzibar, and its culture and norms were very different in comparison to the other localities we had visited. In Kendwa, villagers had to walk 5 kilometers to access clean water. The solution was simple, build the people of Kendwa a well. I would later learn that by making clean water accessible, we were indirectly helping increase sanitation, disease control, and education since young girls would no longer have to wait in line to bring water back for their families.

Our tactic was not the same as other missions; traditionally, volunteers from a medley of organizations would come in with their fancy tools, fix a problem, pat themselves on the back, and go home never to turn around again. Through a needs assessment, we became cognizant not only to gain the buy in of the community but also have members actively participate. We broke off into teams where one went with a group of locals to buy the necessary equipment. This form of economic empowerment improves cash flow in the local economy. The other team worked with the villagers and a local engineer to map out the pipeline. The problem we overlooked was none of us had experience digging trenches or installing pipe, which humbled us quickly and empowered the locals to take action. Within two days, the pipe was in, and the pump was working. The locals are now self-sufficient and have the tools and the skill set fix problems as they arise.

While there are many critics of medical voluntourism and financial aid, there is no denying that the global community can work together to improve the development of the African Continent. Through the use of community mobilization (bottom-up), many nations in the Global South can potentially overcome years of economic mismanagement, ostracism of their social fabric, and debilitating debts from the international community. It’s like the adage, “give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Given that hindsight is 20/20, I now understand the benefits and barriers of medical voluntourism. I don’t agree that my work was just a ‘photo op’ rather, it was conducive to perpetuating a wheel at the grassroots level and empowering villagers to seek change. This helped us to go beyond boundaries and helped us build cross-cultural relationships still in effect today.