I’ve been thinking about saviorism and its significance in this course and the work we will be doing in our volunteer organizations. In our work we will no doubt meet “saviors,” people who are fetishizing altruism. Often, the underlying current of the savior complex is the presumption that one is saving people from themselves. It is a statement of power, of privilege, and in service work many people validate their privilege through emotional experience. When one “helps” others, when one claims to provide empowerment, one effectively disempowers. More to the point, when people fail to acknowledge the inherent power dynamics in service work, those who benefit from NGO work are no longer framed as being able to help themselves. Framing may be the most important aspect of this discussion. Community activism is a good thing. These organizations are providing needed service to an unsupported and marginalized population. But just because people are doing good work does not mean that they have not succumbed to a savior complex. The world does not exist to simply satisfy the sentiment of people in positions of power. The problems of the world cannot be solved simply with enthusiasm. But in saviorism the homeless population becomes a subject, an emotional outlet, an object that exercises guilt and a states social position. When people frame themselves as a “savior” they enter into a process of objectification. The problem of homelessness exists because of a system, a system to which we are all to an extent complicit in, and because saviorism is framed a benevolent and well intentioned we don’t critically challenge the ways in which the function of saviorism in perpetuating systems of oppression.