Alastair’s Salvadoran Research Project

Sadly I can't get any funding for this research project from my University, so I'm going to be doing some fundraising events to try and cover my flights and living expenses!My main event will be a nasty challenge thing I've come up with on the isle of Skye which I'll be doing from the 8th-13th June. This will involve climbing 11 munros in 4 days and then running a half marathon on the 5th day! If you want to help me out then please let me know! Here's a bit more info about my project! In the summer of 2013, I took part in the UK government overseas development program ‘ICS’ (International Citizen Service). It incorporates seven different UK NGOs that specialize in international development volunteering. I volunteered with the NGO ‘Progressio’ and worked in the rural town of Santa Catarina Masahuat, El Salvador for ten weeks. I would like to return to the community and compose a critical evaluation of the genuine changes made by this program. By returning to Santa Catarina, 18 months after the program ended, I will be in a position where I saw and experienced the community before the work commenced, as the first half of the program was underway, and finally, a year and a half after its ‘completion’. Therefore I shall be able to analyse what impacts have been made. Youth volunteering in international development has become fiercely debated in recent years, with the often vast expenditures spent by the volunteers or on the volunteers, with little sustainable benefits to the intended community. With ‘voluntourism’ under increasing scrutiny I believe my dissertation will be very relevant, given that the UK Department for international development paid thousands of pounds for each volunteer, I hope that the findings of my dissertation will be of interest for the planning of future development initiatives. There is already a long list of contacts with whom I wish to interview in-depth. During the program I had the role of group translator which meant that I attended numerous meetings, I will therefore seek to interview once again those local officials, citizens and activists that we worked with- this would include the local mayor, the environmental minister, the social projects councillor, local farmers, teachers, and staff at various Salvadoran NGOs that work on environmental issues