Views from the global south: exploring how student volunteers from the global north can achieve sustainable impact in global health

This article focuses on academic volunteer placements in the Global South. The discussion is drawn upon the experiences of a Kenyan NGO with a Canadian student volunteer in the summer of 2012, organized via a formalized partnership with a Canadian university.  The discussion reveals key features of successful academic volunteer abroad placements: equal partnership in the design phase between organizations in the Global North and Global South; the absence of rigid structures or preplanned tasks during the student’s placement; participatory observation and critical engagement of the student volunteer; and a willingness of the partners to measure impact by the resultant process instead of tangible outcomes.