In Praise of Sweatshops

A sweatshop.  Cool.  Kinda.

What is Mama Pamba going to look like when it is finished?  Will it resemble a sweat shop?

Sweatshops are cool.  I like sweatshops.

Well, kinda.  Let me explain.

How do you leverage an extremely poor country out of poverty?  How do break them out of the poverty trap?

The short answer is that you empower women.  Time and time again we see wonderful things happening when women are empowered.  Key performance indicators such as HIV prevention, GDP increases, and even political stability are tightly coupled with women's rights.

So how do you empower women?  One way is to give them some sort of disposable income.  Something that they can make choices with.  If you do not have enough money to feed yourself and your family, then you'll be forever stuck in the poverty trap.

Some people will drink away their disposable income and spend their lives perpetually drunk. Some will gamble it away.  Some will start a business and fail.  And some will start a successful business which will feed their families and create even more jobs that will feed more disposable income to people and the cycle starts again.

One way for women to get a disposable income is to work in a sweatshop. They are not paid "western wages": that is not feasible, practical, or even desirable.  But they are paid a wage with which they can make choices.

The sweatshop should - of course - respect basic human rights.  The workers (most often females) should be allowed to:

• Work reasonable hours
• Have regular breaks
• Go to toilet whenever they want
• Be free from sexual harassment and violence from their bosses
• Be allowed to form workers' unions
• Afforded a share of the profits (radical I know...)

Many of the sweatshops around the world do not - alas - have these rights in place.

If all these rights were in place, then maybe the word "sweatshop" and all its negative connotations would no longer be appropriate.

We need a new name for places that :

• Gainfully employ women
• Returns profit back to the workers
• Prioritises human rights

How about instead we call them "places of empowerment"?

Better yet let's call one of them "Mama Pamba" and start making a meaningful difference.

TV Article on Ivanhoe Mining's Struggle to Set Up on Tablas

You would think some bad press would actually take their share price down...






I'm still cynical about this.  It's good that people are standing up for themselves and the governor is opposing it.  But when the check books start coming out, people's moral base tends to erode.

We here at Meaningful Volunteer are going to continue to make a noise and do what we can.

Sign the No Mining on Tablas Petition

Tablas Island

A lot of people have been asking me what they can do about the upcoming mining operations on the island of Tablas in the Philippines.  The mining will almost certainly be an environmental disaster.

One easy thing you can do right now is sign this petition.

Tricky situations for volunteers with no easy answers

Meaningful Volunteer is about to roll out a system where we present future volunteers with a series of difficult situations that they might come across during their placement.

There are no easy answers to these questions.  They are all based on situations that actual volunteers have been in.

The questions are designed to get the volunteer thinking about the situations before they arrive. There are no wrong answers.

The questions are shown below.  What would you do?

• An elderly man comes up to you. He is obviously sick. He claims to have AIDS and will die without your help.
  
  What do you do? 

• A local in the village is starting to show a romantic interest in you. They are about your age and seem quite serious.
  
  What do you do? 

• A local man has four wives (not uncommon in Uganda) and upwards of twenty children. He says he cannot afford to send his children to school and wants you to help him.
  
  What do you do?

• A young girl in an English class is having difficulty forming words and is often absent in class. Further investigation shows that she has a serious infection in both ears and her tongue appears to be stuck to the bottom of her mouth.
  
  What do you do? 

• It is the end-of-year exams time in your placement area.  Teachers are split up and assigned to different schools to prevent cheating.  Some teachers are not required to supervise and just remain at their own school.
  
  You learn that one of the teachers is texting the answers to her colleagues.  The colleague is intercepting students as they take bathroom breaks.  They call them aside and quickly scribble the answers on the student's arm.  They are not being at all secretive about it.
  
  What do you do? 

How Not to Build a School(s)

Computers in use in Buyaya

Have a look at this piece over at Voluntourism Gal.

It is the tale of three schools.  One that was being used and operating fine, a newer one that was built that made the first redundant, and a third that was half finished.  And all three schools are built on the same half acre property!

Part of the problem with building the second and third school was that they never talked to the community about what was actually needed.

The school that Meaningful Volunteer is building in Uganda is needed.  Meaningful Volunteer communicated with practically every villager, and conducted an extensive census of Buyaya - the target parish.   We learnt the following:

• Practically no child under the age of nine can recognize a single letter
  
  
• Practically no child under the age of twelve can read a triplet word (dog, cat, hat, man...)

And it didn't take a census to know that computer literacy was next to nothing.

This is why the school in Buyaya is focusing on English and computer literacy.

Is aid destroying or saving Africa?

Is aid good or bad? 

Is sending trillions of dollars into sub-Saharan Africa a waste of time?  Should we pull out and let Africa and other developing nations fend for themselves?

Jeffrey Sachs - author of the End of Poverty and director of the Earth Institute thinks it is not a waste of time.  Sachs campaigns tirelessly for the poor and and calls for nations to fulfil their Millennium Promises and contribute 0.7% of the GDP to the poor.  i.e. for every one hundred dollars that the a country earns, 70 cents is given to aid.

As Sachs says

The costs of action are a tiny fraction of the costs of inaction. And yet we must carry out these tasks in a context of global inertia, proclivities to war and prejudice, and understandable skepticism around the world that this time can be different from the past. 

Check out the first chapter of Sachs' book here and an interview with him here.

Peter Singer - an Australian philosopher and author of The Life You Can Save - agrees with Sachs and makes the following argument:

1. If you saw someone in immediate danger, you would unquestionably be obliged to rescue that person even at some personal cost. For instance, you would save a drowning person even if you had to ruin your expensive clothes in the swim. 

2. Even if you don't realize it, there are desperately poor people in Africa and elsewhere who are in mortal danger comparable to drowning, and they could be rescued if you offered a little aid.

According to Singer, not saving a drowning child because it would ruin your expensive suit is as morally repugnant as not saving a child's life in Africa because it is too expensive.

Sachs and Singer are not without their critics though.  Many have pointed out that even in Singer's parallel between a drowning child and a starving child holds, it still raises the bigger question of exactly who to give your hard earned dollars to.

To Oxfam? Save the Children? The UN?  How do we know these organizations are legit and that our money is being used efficiently?

Dambisa Moyo - an Zambian economist - has radically different ideas.  She wants all government aid cut from Africa in five years.  She is critical of Singer's approach as it is very much focused on the donor, rather than the recipient.  In Singer's model, the donor's guilt ends as soon as they put their check in the mail.

This is not good enough for Moyo.  She argues that this detached giving does more harm that good and leads to a charity state with only illusionary gains made.  Moyo's views are further expanded in this piece.

Check this out for a comparison of Moyo's book ("Dead Aid") and Singer's book ("The Life You Can Save").

And then there is William Easterly, author of The White Man's Burden - which is a scathing attack on Jeffrey Sachs' approach.  Click here for Easterly's review of the End of Poverty. He is also has serious problems with Singer's approach.

Easterly favours the Africans looking after Africans approach.  He feels that as aid is withdrawn, market forces will kick in and all will be well.

But do market forces apply to someone without disposable income with which to make a decision with? If you're in a poverty trap where you don't have enough money to feed yourself, then how can you expect to "vote with your dollars"?

Sachs and Singer vs. Moyo and Easterly.

Who has it right? What do you thiunk?

Why Giving is a Bad Idea

Giving is Hard

I recently found the below article. It is a very interesting read and highlights the complicated art of giving.

It is written by Daniela Papi of www.pepytours.com

Malcolm

---

In the rural Cambodian district where we work at PEPY, most people were drinking directly from the local pumps.  We had the water tested and found high levels of bacteria so we identified what we believe to be the best and most affordable filter and decided to try to get these used in the community.  We saw that there was a man in a town 10km away who had begun selling these in his shop and we were able to purchase them and have them delivered to our target area to be sold for the same price at $11.50.

We invited someone from the organization where the filters are made to come explain how they work, how they are made, and how best to take care of them. The teachers were given charts with this information and were taught how to then present this information to anyone who was purchasing a filter.

The filter program worked well and the teachers were able to get over 150 water filters into local homes. The price for the filter is not insignificant, but the community had seen the results of having clean water as we had been using the filters in the local schools and had drastically increased attendance at school as absences due to sickness went down. We were excited about the benefits these new filters would have on the overall community health.

Then a foreign funded group came though, looking to “help the poor people” of the area. They began selling the same filters at $3 each, far below what they had paid for them.

In one day, without knowing it, they actually greatly HARMED the potential for health increases in the area. They thought they were “doing good” by giving things away, or subsidizing them, but instead, without knowing much about the area, they:

• damaged the market potential for both our teacher’s filter sales program and the nearby shop owner
  
  
• built mistrust as the community now thought the filters really should have been much cheaper or that they should hold off on buying them as someone might come give them one
  
  
• did not do the training/education necessary to actually help people understand how/why they work - so people are not taking care of them, thereby undermining the power of the very filters they distributed
  
  
• created a situation where the richer (all relative of course) people no longer want that product. It is now viewed as “cheap” - subsidized to the poor people, so it must not be good, in their minds. Those who can afford it have now been saving up for the nearly $20 filters being marketed by Korean groups which are much more high tech looking but actually do not remove bacteria from the water, but with a higher price tag, no education coming with the product, and community trust damaged, some are using their very limited budgets to buy a product which is often essentially one month’s worth of income and not effective.

In this case, “giving things away” took away the very thing they were trying to provide: a chance to have clean
water

Technology Issues in the Developing World

My dearly departed laptop.
I had to work with it for about
a month in this condition

Who thinks it is a good idea to get computers into developing countries?

Hand's up if you agree.  Good, good...

It's hard to disagree with, isn't it?

Getting technology into developing areas is hard though.

Buyaya is a problem for us because there is no electricity in the village.  We plan to solve this with our solar-powered school.

The bigger problem however is highlighted in our Romblon program.  The computers in Romblon have problems as computers often do.  Windows spits the dummy and the computer goes belly up.

What are the people in Romblon to do at that point?

They can't fix it because they lack the technical nous.  They can't pay to get it fixed as it is too expensive.  They are left with a very heavy paper weight.

So what's the solution?  I think whenever you roll out a technology based project you need to think maintenance, maintenance, and maintenance.

The easiest way to do that is via a program like Ghost.  Once you have set up the computers in a good state, the Ghost software will allow you to roll the computer back to that state whenever you want.  Very useful and doesn't require much technical nous at all.

Visiting the Ivanhoe Mining Offices

Power to the Peaceful

Ivanhoe Mining are the people who want to destroy Tablas island by mining its copper, gold and silver.

Their offices are just a short drive from where I live here in Canada.  So, I thought I'd head off and see exactly where they are and get a sneaky photo of myself outside their offices while I was at it.

Megin Alvarez - my partner in crime, thought we should have knocked on the door and then ran away.

Their offices are right next to where the cruise liners come in.  We figure we'll do a protest just as a cruise liner comes in.

Stay tuned for more.

Safety vs. Aid

Bullet Ridden Wall in Kitgum

Safety vs. Aid.  It's a hard balance.

The Global Fund recently scaled backs its efforts in the Ivory Coast as political violence escalates.

What would you do in that situation?  Would you continue to distribute malaria nets and vaccines if your life was in significant danger?

If you'd asked me about five years ago, I would have said yes.

About five years ago I headed off to the war-torn Kitgum in the north of Uganda.  Despite a ceasefire being called by the warring factions, Kitgum was still in the state of war.  It was (and is) a dangerous place and it was foolish to go.

(A positive that came out of the experience was the establishment of Grassroots Uganda, which has sent tens-of-thousands of dollars to the most needy in the North.)

Would I go now?  Would I head off to a war-torn region to help the less fortunate?

Probably not.

I am great believe in sacrificing your life for a cause.  The trick is to do it one day a time...

This may or may not become an issue in Romblon as mining companies move in.  Mining companies are always accompanied by the military in the Philippines...

No Mining on Tablas Island!

Tablas Island

Tablas Island - home of Meaningful Volunteer; home of clean, pristine and drinkable water; home of endless beaches; home of many people I love, is on the verge of being exploited by Ivanhoe Mining of Canada.

Check out this video for some background.

I feel sick when I watch that video.  I recognize the places.  Heck, I think I even recognize some of the faces.

Official documents are coming forth.  Barangays (villages) are making stands.  Check out these minutes from Barangay Sangguniang.

According to 101.3 FM, people have 10 days to file claims or else forfeit their rights to the mining company.  Let that phrase sink in "forfeit your rights to the mining company"

What's the bet that Ivanhoe Mining got more than 10 days to file their claims?

Ivanhoe Mining's record is not good.

• The Monywa Copper Mine in Burma displaced at least 200 families, led the exploitation of many workers - often at no pay (read slavery), dumping waste product in the Chindwin River.  Heck some villages started boiling the water to extract the copper sediment and sell it back to the government!
  
  On the plus side though, the copper is being used by a Chinese weapons manufacturer...

• Then there is the Summitville Mine disaster in Colorado where cyanide solution leaked from the mine, poisoning the Alamosa River in 1991.

• And let's not forget the Omai mining disaster in 1995.

And now Ivanhoe mining is coming to Romblon.

What might happen in Romblon?  Well, take a look at what happened on Marinduque Island in the Philippines.  Fish stocks plummeted, the water was poisoned, people were poisoned



Out of sight, out of mined from Oxfam Australia on Vimeo.


If you're ever in Manila and get a chance to visit the human rights office there, make sure you take a look at the "Martyr Wall".  On the wall are pictures of some of the 900 activists who died under the reign of President Arroyo (and now President Aquino).

Many of those people were environmental activist who stood up to the mining companies and their practises.

I'm worried about this.  Very, very worried.

Top 10 Myths About Volunteering in Africa

Is excessive money
essential for volunteering?

Budget Traveller lists ten myths about volunteering in Africa.  I agree with most of the list, but not all of the list, so I thought I would respond here.

10. You have to be rich to volunteer. I can’t afford it.
Define "rich".  I live in Canada and the plane flights alone are around $US 1,600.  Plus there are the fees on top of that. So maybe not "rich", but at least having some sort of disposable income.

9. You have to volunteer for months at a time, and who has time?
The article says that you can volunteer for a week at a time.  Well, yeah you could volunteer, but meaningfully volunteer?  I don't think so.

Meaningful Volunteer has a one month minimum commitment just for this reason.

8. I won’t know anyone, so it’ll be scary.
Of course it is going to be scary. That is part of the fun!

When I first volunteered in Uganda, the Philippines and Ghana I literally knew no one in those countries.  Now I have made life long friends in all of those places.

7. I won’t have any food.
If you volunteer with an organization where you aren't provided with food, then you are in big trouble!

Meaningful Volunteer provides three meals a day.

6. I’ll get sick from the water.
Don't drink the water the locals drink!  There is plenty of bottled water available almost everywhere.


5. Volunteer organizations are just out to make money – why would I want to contribute to that?
Some are. We aren't.  We are passionate about our non-profit roots.


4. There will be scary animals.
The worst you'll come across are rats and mice.


3. It’s dangerous in other countries. I’ll be a target for crime.
There is some truth to this.  A foreigner is rich by Africa's standards.  You'll most likely be carrying a large amount of cash, a digital camera and so on. For a desperately poor African who needs money to feed his kids, that's a big temptation.  


We shouldn't kid ourselves about safety.  We should look at it realistically and act accordingly.  This is why Meaningful Volunteer goes to great lengths to keep our volunteers safe.


2. I’m too old to volunteer.
Bah.  If my mother can volunteer, then anyone can volunteer.


1. There are so many problems in developing countries. There is no way I can make a difference.
There are big problems in Africa.  No doubt about it.  But volunteers can and do make meaningful differences.  I've seen it too many times to doubt otherwise.

Teaching Literacy to Adults is a Waste of Time

Literacy classes for Adults

Teaching literacy to adults is a waste of time.  A more constructive use of our time would be to concentrate of the youth.

Right? Right?!

Well, not according to Tumushabe Boneconcila.  After attending a Functional Adult Literacy (FAL) class and acquiring some basic business skills, her restaurant business thrived!

Now she is in the position to send all nine of her children to school.

So, by concentrating on the literacy of one African women, nine children are now going to school.

This is why Meaningful Volunteer runs adult literacy classes in Uganda.

School for Andy

Andy Manley

Meaningful Volunteer is delighted to announce a partnership with the School For Andy movement.

Andy was a passionate person who was struck down in the prime of his life.

The solar-powered school that Meaningful Volunteer will build in Uganda will be built in Andy's honour. We have several events plan to raise funds.  Donations are being accepted here.

---

From the School for Andy site:

Andy Manley was a wonderful young man who was full of life and laughter.

As one of 9 children, Andy was very close to his parents, as well as his siblings. He lived predominately in the Madison, WI area where he was surrounded by friends and some of his siblings. Andy was able to make all those around him smile with his quick wit and tremendous sense of humor.

As an avid fan of sports, history, trivia and spending time with family and friends, Andy was always busy doing something he loved. Whether he was cheering on the Braves, Hawkeyes, Badgers or Falcons, Andy was a passionate follower of his favorite teams. His love for trivia and history led him to major in history and education at the University of Wisconsin.

After a one-year internship with the Atlanta Falcons of the NFL, Andy had returned to Madison to pursue his dream of becoming a teacher. Given his caring nature, his wonderful disposition and his passion for history, there is little doubt he would have been a fabulous teacher.

On November 9th, 2010, Andy died in an horrific house explosion.

Because he was so young, and because of the shocking way in which he died, both family and friends have struggled mightily with his death. Andy was a best friend, a wonderful brother, a good son, the best uncle and most importantly, an amazing person. He spoke with family members daily, making his loss devastating on many levels.

Because he was so caring, and so smart, Andy set a great example for all of us. His kind way with others and his ability to light up a room with his smile are examples of things Andy shared with all of us. Andy was a unique person: he was funny, kind and smart all rolled up with a very easy going personality.

Although his loss is painful, and although we will never fully recover from his absence, we can try to keep his spirit alive through this school and other endeavors in his name.

For more information, please contact us.

Cherry Trees in Bloom

A cherry tree in bloom.

Running a non-profit NGO is hard.  It is a daily struggle to find the money to keep Meaningful Volunteer afloat.

Almost like clockwork, something comes up to keep us going and inspires us that there are other people out there to whom the words "human solidarity" really means something.

Such was the case early in 2011 when I received an unexpected email from the fine folks at the Cherry Tree House announcing that they had raised $US1,500 for Meaningful Volunteer.

A most welcome start to the new year!

So a tip-of-the-hat and many thanks to the Cherry Tree House.

A special shout out also goes out to my rock-and-roll friend.  You know who you are.

Casting a worrisome eye towards Uganda's Election

Police Brutality

Early 2011 will see a general election to determine the presidency of Uganda.

The election will be rigged.  There will be voter intimidation.  There will be police brutality. It will be violent.  People will die.

In no way shape or form will Meaningful Volunteer ever consider sending volunteers to Uganda during this time.  Our placement area is far away from political hotspots and it is hard to imagine anything untoward happening there.  Nevertheless, safety is our number one concern and prudence is our best course during this time.

How will things look after the election however?

Well, firstly standing president Yoweri Museveni will almost certainly be re-elected.  He has held power since 1986 and is not about to relinquish it.  Museveni's human rights record is... not good, but he at least brings some semblance of stability to the region.

Museveni will win because he has the most money, and knows how to work an election and spend his money wisely.

There will be outrage against the results and the big question is what opposition parties will do.

Will they become violent?  Will they become organized in their violence?

I don't know the answers to these questions.

I do know that if things become too bad in Uganda post-election, then Meaningful Volunteer will pull out of the region and set up its numerous projects elsewhere, most likely in Ghana.

Challenges in 2011

Looking ahead to 2011

2011 is shaping up to be a challenging one for Meaningful Volunteer and myself.

It's all a bit scary and exciting at the same time

• The RYE School
  We're building a solar powered school for a start.  We've never built a school before yet alone one that is powered by green solar-juice.
  
  We raised a massive $US 3,888.70 from our world-spanning Rubber Soul event and are about to announce a couple of new sponsors for the school.
  
  It is a bit overwhelming launching into such a big project.  We know that for it to succeed both as a building project and a project that empowers, that we must involve the local community.  As a result, we'll be employing numerous locals to help us build the project along with all the international volunteers we can muster.

• Mama Pamba
  Mamba Pamba is also looking very exciting in a scary kinda way.  Our team is slowly coming together and project planning is well advanced to fit in with a two-month on-the-ground time frame.
  
  We're also set to announce some especially exciting news about a fashion designer coming to Uganda...

• Malaria Operation
  We're also excited to see our Malaria Operation under way.  We've got our processes sorted and raised a bunch of money to buy nets with.
  
  
• Expansions
  We're also looking to expand into some other countries. At this stage, Nepal and Ghana look promising.

I look at this list and it all seems a bit overwhelming. But then people appear. Awesome people. Empowered people. People who step up and help make our vision a reality.

Meaningful Volunteer's Stuff

The Story of Stuff is a fascinating thought provoking video made by Annie Leonard.

It offers very interesting insights into the true costs of the stuff we consume everyday.  Not only costs to us the consumer, but costs to the planet, costs to the environment, and costs to the industrial workers who make the stuff.

She advocates not only reducing our waste, but eliminating it all together.  

Meaningful Volunteer aims to be as green as we can with initiatives like:

• Project Mangrove
  
  
• Mama Pamba
  We trying to include zero plastics in our production cycle.  The packaging for the fashion - for example - will be tote bags which can be reused as shopping bags for the supermarket.
  
  
• Our upcoming solar powered school in Uganda
  Renewable energy has some obvious pluses.

But is all this enough?  Could Meaningful Volunteer be doing more?  How can our activities actually benefit the planet as opposed to just being neutral?