Absolutely, as mentioned on my comment on the other post (quite a bit of voluntourism things going on here at the moment), there are negative sides but they can be avoided if thought of and considered. Saying that volunteering abroad is categorically bad is an overreaction in my opinion, hence why I wrote this post on the positive sides voluntourism can have: http://medium.com/p/66d9d93d53dd
Amy, I think what you are referring to makes sense, paying for a "placement", not the experience itself. But there are many organisations that charge you to work with them directly as a volunteer which is where I think I agree with Mark, one shouldn't be paying to provide one's labour for free. If it's the money they need that is what they should ask for.
The purpose of the payment is key here.
There are a few (and I mean just a few) valid points in this article, but there is far more generalization and assumption.
First of all, I don't understand the fixation on race, like it has any bearing on the matter. I'm from South Africa and know lots of people of all races who have gone abroad to volunteer.
Then there is the notion that it would be better to simply give money and not even go. Wrong. If you are paying $3000 to spend a week in an orphanage, did you really expect to be doing that much good? I think it is more important to use what resources we as volunteers can access (financial, material, human etc) and ensure they are put to the right use. If you don't know how to build a wall, fine, don't do it, but that doesn't mean stay in America. Supervise, ensure the money is being put to good use.
I've volunteered in India and have ended up going back to the same orphanage six times in the last two years, staying for periods of one week up to two months at a time. I am not a teacher or educator, I go there to play with the kids, speak English to them but more than anything, to give them a companion and let them know they're just as good as everyone else, and can achieve anything they want.
One needs to separate visiting an NGO for a week or two as a voluntourist and dedicating personal resources on a larger scale to working with an NGO, sometimes providing them with vital skills one doesn't have. The organisation I work for provides NGOs abroad with volunteers for 6-8 week periods, vital skills in marketing, languages or administration that those NGOs can't find locally. The NGOs don't even get money from them.
I think we must definitely be more cautious in when we decide where to go and what to do, but this article is putting out a blanket statement that volunteering is pretty much just a waste of time and energy and harming people which the majority of the time it isn't.
But yes, Helen, you are right, it is more than build a house, change the world.