2024 NYJC Prelim P2 Insert

This document consists of 4 printed pages. NANYANG JUNIOR COLLEGE JC2 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION 2024 GENERAL PAPER 8881/02 PAPER 2: INSERT Monday 26 August 2024 1 hour 30 minutes READ THIS INSTRUCTION FIRST This insert contains the passages for Paper 2.

2 1 2 3 4 5 6 Passage 1: An author writes about the paradox of voluntourism. Every year, a staggering 10 million international travellers, typically from North America and Europe, travel abroad to volunteer in impoverished communities. Students, youth groups, and other well-intended participants construct buildings, assist at orphanages, and pursue other short-term development projects in an effort to give back. Yet, to what extent do these volunteers actually benefit host communities, economically and socially? As a $2 billion industry, voluntourism is one of the fastest growing trends in travel. Volunteer agencies advertise these short-term mission trips as an opportunity for participants to broaden their worldview and put their altruistic desires into action. While these trips may provide participants with life-changing experiences (that their Instagram and Facebook followers resoundingly applaud), the opposite is often observed in the communities impacted. Rather, voluntourism is imperialistic in nature. It economically disenfranchises local communities, creates relationships dependent on aid reliance, inefficiently manages resources and reinforces harmful stereotypes. The imperialistic nature of voluntourism is apparent in the disempowerment of the communities they aim to help. While volunteers often have good intentions to improve the lives of the locals, the voluntourism industry sustains practices that hinder local economies. When local enterprises hire local workers to complete development projects, they pay for labour, resulting in local employment. However, when agencies recruit volunteers who are willing to pay to complete these same projects, it deprives local workers of job opportunities, and local enterprises are also denied business opportunities. A pressing matter triggered by voluntourism on the medical front is the illusory sense of protection and consistency in such services. Newsweek columnist Maya Wesby describes a situation in Ghana where locals were at the mercy of the volunteers’ availability to dispense medication and medical advice. This free care caused many to opt out of medical insurance, mortally wounding local healthcare and insurance providers, and condemning the locals to a woeful dependence on foreigners. If there were to be any interruption to volunteer arrivals (say, a pandemic), locals would truly be left in the lurch. As these trips are designed for the short-term, participants do not recognise the harm they are imposing on communities over time. Add