Dear Editor,

Mr. Nixon’s Mar. 2 piece about volunteering abroad stressed the importance of “sustainable development” which requires “commitment to a community” as well as the willingness “to listen to the needs of other people.” Effective public service absolutely rests on these core principles – which is why volunteering for a week in a developing country is NOT effective service. How can volunteers make an impact in a country like Guatemala with minimal knowledge of the economic and social factors that have created the problems they are trying to fix? And what happens after that week in Guatemala? Volunteers get to return to their normal lives (with something new to add to a resume), but the problems they made minimal impact on are still there. This is not to say that volunteering abroad is not useful to anyone; it often awakens a passion for service that can follow a student through life. But to suggest that a week of volunteering can somehow “change the world” reduces the problems of an entire country to something that can be understood and fixed in a matter of days. It is very important for students to “open their eyes” to the world beyond our campus, but this can just as easily be done with the myriad of volunteer opportunities in our community. A longer, more serious commitment to a child in a tutoring program or a young person in a mentor program is a much more effective and important way in which Stanford students can use their talents to help a larger community. Not only are they working in an environment they are familiar with, but students can form relationships that will have a more long-lasting impact on everyone involved. So, to those students that are reading this letter, I suggest this:  have fun on your spring break, and consider volunteering a couple of hours a week in Palo Alto or EPA during the school year.

-Eugenia Maluf ’11