Volunteers’ exchange of food and lodging is usually an verbal agreement. Personal safety is difficult to guarantee. Volunteers may change to part-time jobs.
Volunteer travel: "routines" hidden behind feelings
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Volunteer travel in exchange for board and lodging through short-term, light work is becoming popular among young people.
However, volunteer travel may also conceal "routines" behind the feelings, and we should do a good job of "avoiding pits" to protect our own rights and interests.
The "October" holiday is approaching, and the recruitment information for volunteer travel has opened up another wave of "grass planting" in the circle of friends of many young people, especially college students.
Volunteer travel in exchange for board and lodging through short-term, light work is becoming popular among young people.
This summer, the second graduate student pomelo spent a volunteer trip in Tibet.
During her 50 days in Tibet, she saved about 3,000 yuan in board and lodging expenses by volunteering in a youth hostel.
The short video she released recording this volunteer trip has also increased her Douyin account by more than 30,000 followers. Until now, netizens still leave messages for consultation every day.
In a favorite travel destination, it is the original intention of many people to choose volunteer travel to experience local life in a way that saves money and meet like-minded friends.
However, industry insiders remind that before volunteers travel, they should also do a good job of "avoiding pits" and provide "insurance" for their personal safety and related rights and interests.
Oral agreement to volunteer for travel and accommodation
On June 23, pomelo departed from Beijing and arrived in Lhasa, Tibet in two days.
Originally only planned to travel for 10 days, but the youth hostel where he lived was recruiting volunteers, and Yuzi decided to stay and "unlock" the volunteer travel.
She and the hostel are in charge of making an agreement to exchange food and lodging for volunteer work, mainly doing check-in and check-out, sorting sheets, cleaning and other tasks.
At that time, the hostel had a total of 4 volunteer workers, each of whom worked two day shifts (from 9:00 to 16:00) and two night shifts (from 16:00 to 23:00) a week.
By mid-July, the number of guests gradually increased and their work became more busy.
The reporter searched and found that many online platforms currently have volunteer travel recruitment information. In addition to homestays and inns, operators of bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants, farms, etc. are also recruiting volunteers. Some platforms also provide "job search and recruitment". "The two-way choice.
The duration of volunteer travel is usually 7 days, 15 days, and 30 days. Shangri-La, Lijiang, Weizhou Island, Xiamen and other places are popular destinations.
Ye Ye, the owner of an inn in the ancient city of Shangri-La, Yunnan, revealed that she has recruited no less than 15 volunteers in eight years, most of them are college students. They volunteered mainly to save money and experience local life in depth. Some people resigned or lost their jobs. In a period of confusion, I want to break out of the fixed circle and rethink the future by volunteering.
In Ye Zi's view, volunteers have provided more sufficient labor for homestays and reduced operating costs to a certain extent.
Some volunteers will also share their travel experiences on social platforms, which is also good for the promotion of homestays.
In addition to the exchange of food and lodging for volunteers, international and domestic volunteer travel projects that provide voluntary services such as wildlife protection, education support, environmental protection, and elderly care while traveling, are also "fanning" young people.
There is a "routine" behind the feelings, and volunteers may become part-time workers
"Encounter interesting souls in unfamiliar places, and meet a better self"...Most of the recruitment information for volunteer travel will use "sentimental" copywriting to hit the hearts of young people.
However, because volunteer travel is still in its infancy in China, there are incomplete areas in both the organization and the operating mechanism. Behind the vision of "poetry and distance," the "routine" of "volunteer changing into part-time job" may be hidden.
"I started working from bed at 8 in the morning, and ended at 10 in the evening, and I couldn't stand up after a day." Zhang Qiang, born in the 1990s, complained to reporters about his experience of "stepping on the pit" of volunteer travel.
He once worked as a volunteer in a homestay in Dongji Island, Zhejiang Province, "feeling that he has become a free labor force."
The reporter found out that the "slots" for volunteers to change food and lodging mostly focused on the length of work, inconsistency with the agreement, poor food and lodging conditions, and the inability to guarantee personal safety.
In addition, some platforms also regard the recruitment of volunteers as a secret means of attracting followers-you need to forward WeChat public account articles or collect likes from your circle of friends to obtain the qualifications for volunteers.
Some travel agencies have also sensed the business opportunities in volunteer travel.
For example, some travel agencies regard the certification of volunteer service time and the issuance of volunteer certificates as selling points of tourism products.
The staff of the travel agency told reporters that some college students signed up for volunteer travel in order to enrich their resumes and to "extra points" when applying for overseas schools.
The reporter saw that it costs 1,580 yuan to experience the "Volunteer One-day Tour" of a panda breeder at the giant panda base.
Raise the threshold of volunteer recruitment and agree on the rights and obligations of both parties
Most homestay operators and volunteers have made oral agreements, and have not signed an agreement that stipulates the rights and obligations of both parties.
So, how should we better regulate volunteer travel so that the personal safety and related rights and interests of volunteers can be protected?
An industry insider who has participated in a survey on an online volunteer travel platform pointed out that due to the lack of supervision and the limited number of platform employees, it is difficult to conduct on-site inspections of the homestay. Therefore, it is inevitable that the description of the homestay is inaccurate.
He suggested that the supervision of related platforms should be strengthened and the entry threshold for homestays that recruit volunteers should be increased.
Hong Guibin, a senior partner of Huiye Law Firm, analyzed that the relationship between volunteers and homestays is extremely unstable and personally dependent. It is a volunteer behavior and does not constitute an employment or labor relationship. It is similar to a private helper relationship.
Once the personal safety of volunteers is harmed, in order to reflect the principle of fairness and reasonableness, it is generally considered to allow the operator to provide appropriate compensation within the scope of benefit.
According to the relevant regulations in the Civil Code, homestay operators should also undertake corresponding security obligations.
However, he also pointed out that the more important thing is to improve the volunteer registration system, and use industry forces to restrict operators' use of volunteers, especially to prevent operators from recruiting volunteers to practice enterprise employment.
"Volunteers in the exchange of food and lodging for volunteers are strictly a kind of'gig economy'." Wei Xiang, a professor at the Institute of Finance and Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that volunteer travel needs to solve how to define this form of employment and include it Standardize the field of employment.
He suggested that platforms that publish volunteer recruitment information should sign agreements with operators and volunteers on rights and obligations, insurance purchases and other content as a third party, and at the same time protect the personal safety of volunteers through a filing system and other methods.
Industry insiders remind that when participating in a volunteer trip, you must first choose a formal third-party platform to verify the authenticity of the recruitment information; before departure, negotiate with the operator on the rights and obligations of the work content, duration, boarding and lodging conditions, purchasing insurance, etc. Be consistent and sign relevant agreements; volunteers themselves should also have a right attitude and be psychologically prepared. Volunteer travel is not just a trip, it requires a certain amount of labor.
Reporter Wang Weiyan