Letting Go and Moving On

Way (way) back over here I laid the seeds for was what to become Meaningful Volunteer.  It’s now been about a year since Meaningful Volunteer has got down in dirty in both the Philippines and Uganda.

During that year, the successes have been amazing.  Meaningful Volunteers^* have made a real and lasting impact in developing communities.  I started listed all that we have accomplished, but the list was becoming too large and unwieldy!  This is surely a good sign!

But now, it is time for me – Malcolm Trevena founder of Meaningful Volunteer – to let go and move on.  At least for a little while.  I am going to be moving back to South Korea with a view to returning to Uganda in the not-too-distant-future.

Why would I do this having had so much success with Meaningful Volunteer?

Well, firstly both the Filipino and Uganda operations are in the immensely capable hands of Eden Navia and Scarlet Nabwire Waduwa respectively.  These two ladies are awesome!  They are proof that there are amazingly capable females in developing countries just waiting to excel giving the opportunity.  I have no doubt that Meaningful Volunteer will flourish in their hands.

Secondly, while Meaningful Volunteer had flourished in terms of a meaningful impact, it has not flourished financially.  It is a constant source of frustration to me that Meaningful Volunteer has – without doubt in my opinion – the best volunteer programs going around.  Couple this with its non-profit status and it is a wonder that volunteers have not flooded in.

But – alas – they haven’t flooded in and I don’t know why.  Marketing seems to be Meaningful Volunteer’s Achilles heel.  And this – incidentally – is where you can help.  Very soon we are going to work on some high quality flyers that you can distribute around your campuses, schools, churches, mosques, or wherever it is you like to hang out.  Watch this space for more info.

South Korea will allow me to engage in some serious fundraising for the organization.  This is where I can be of most use at present.

And lastly, it is time for me to step back and take a breath.  I love this work.  It is my passion.   Alas, the work does not love me quite as much and it has taken a serious mental toll on me.  In my recent past, I suffered horribly under the burden of poor mental health.  It once prevented me from working for the best part of a year – including a five month stay in a psychiatric hospital.  Yikes!  Scary stuff!

I am now in a position of recognizing the signs that could lead me into that dark hole again.  I haven’t taking great care of myself mentally.  I spent the past year constantly throwing myself against the brick wall of extreme poverty and it is no surprise that I have come out bloodied.

I gave much thought about how to survive mentally before I embarked on this journey and – quite frankly – ignored all my own good advice.  Some valuable lessons learned no doubt.

What other lessons have been learnt?

One way to do this kind of thing is to partner with local NGOs and let them be responsible for taking care of volunteers and running the programs.  This method is wrought with problems: Corruption and incompetence being at the forefront.  This is what I saw time and time again in Africa especially and it was one the main reasons why I set up Meaningful Volunteer in the first place.

A much better way to do it – in my opinion – is to set up your own NGOs, establish easy to replicate systems, and appoint competent people to be in charge of them.  This is – of course – what I did.  The problem with this is that it takes time (and therefore capital) to get it established.  You need to establish a track record before the volunteers will arrive.

This is what happened in the Philippines.  Meaningful Volunteer did (and is doing) great things in the Philippines and the volunteers have come as a result.  Due to a whole raft of reasons – not the least being without power for seven weeks now, this has not quite happened in Uganda.

So the lesson learnt is that setting an organization takes time.  A lot of time.  And you need to expect to burn money as it establishes itself.

Why am I telling you all this?

Meaningful Volunteer has always been based on honesty and openness.  I hope that by sharing my experiences, others can learn from it.  Heck, maybe you wanna do what I do and set up your own volunteer organization.  Send me an email.  I’d be happy to share all that I have learned with you in the hope that more people can be dragged out of extreme poverty.

What’s next for Meaningful Volunteer?

Well, that question is best directed to Eden and Scarlet.  But to whet your appetite, here are some upcoming future projects:

• Meaningful Coffee
  A fair-trade coffee product from Uganda.

• Meaningful Fashion
  Meaningful Volunteer gets its own fashion label

• A comprehensive HIV program in Uganda

• A school for the Philippines and an orphanage for Uganda
  Both green-powered!

Watch this space!  Exciting times ahead for Meaningful Volunteer!

---

^*I love that phrase!  Not just plain old boring volunteers, but Meaningful Volunteers

Inter-NGO politics

Inter-NGO politics is a common problem in NGO saturated Africa. One must not encroach on an NGO’s turf. “This is our turf. Not yours. No, you can’t set up a school here. Yes, yes. We know it’s needed, but you were not listening. This is our turf.”

It is a little frustrating and quite the opposite of my experiences in the Philippines where I worked quite closely with a – technically speaking – competitor. We shared resources and both benefited as a result. We were both working for the betterment of the Filipino people so there wasn’t a conflict of interest.

One tries to be “above all this” and keep the welfares of Africans firmly at the forefront of one’s mind.

This was put to the test recently when a NGO^* moved in on Grassroots Uganda’s turf. Grassroots Uganda is an NGO I set up in 2006. It has about 170 ladies involved and raised about $US 20,000 last year. One American lady liked the organization so much that she decided to – well, these no easy way to put this – butt in on two of our women’s groups and try to take them over. She has stolen logos and text from Grassroots Uganda for her own NGO. She even disbanded one of our boards and then immediately reformed it as her board!

This is frustrating. I’ve turned a blind eye for the most part as she does sell an enormous amount of merchandise. She is helping to empower African women, which is the reason for which Grassroots Uganda was set up for in the first place.

But things recently took a rather sinister turn. As I reported over here, one of the Grassroots Uganda ladies – Flavia – was hideously attacked with a machete by her former partner. She was lucky to survive. Grassroots Uganda along with some good souls from around the world, have raised about $US 2,000 to help Flavia cover her medical expenses.

Pretty cool, huh? Who could object to this? A victim of a horrific domestic violence incident gets the help she needs.

Turns out the previously mentioned infiltrator does object. We are apparently “stealing her thunder” and “she’s mad that Grassroots Uganda is helping her” (as one of Grassroots Uganda volunteers put it). Incidentally, she has contributed nothing to the rehabilitation of Flavia

The possible reason I can think of for such behavior is that she’s really not interested in empowering African women, but is more interested in the glory of being seen to be helping African women.

So what is one to do? She is hindering us trying to help Flavia: Local volunteers are walking on eggshells. They want to help Flavia, but don’t won’t to offend the aforementioned lady for fear of losing an income stream.

We can’t really stay “Say the hell away from our groups!”, as she has her glory-sinking tentacles entrenched firmly inside the groups.

This sorry tale reminds me of the recently concluded talks in Copenhagen. The outcome from the talks was lukewarm: Too many countries and ill-informed interest groups pursuing their own selfish agendas. The sooner we realize that we share this lifeboat called Planet Earth, and that our fates are closely tied with the less fortunate, the better off we will all be. This applies equally well on a global scale, smalltime inter-NGO politics, and the fate of one poor victim of domestic violence.

---

^* Name withheld to protect the guilty.

Electricity Woes

Here's a good idea: Design a whole lot of cool systems that'll empower a group of impoverished people in many ways.

Get some literacy programs together - both English and computer, get an online shop together to sell their crafts, work with local health officials to begin the fight against HIV, and bring in some international volunteers to help you.

Then all you need to do is rent a house, flick the electricity switch, and you're away.

Flick the switch. Ugh. Flicking the switch has taken four weeks.

The Heart of Uganda programs - that have been patiently designed over the course of months - have all been delayed for four weeks due to ongoing power nightmares.

Our initial time in Uganda was spent targeting an area in which to start our programs. We settled on the Sironko district as detailed here^*. We found a gated compound in a little village called Chino. The house had all the right electrical connections inside the house and a power line running right outside. All we had to do was "connect it up".

To recount the entire tale of woe would take another four weeks. For brevity's sake, here are some selected highlights:

• We arrived on a Tuesday. People assured us that we would have power by Wednesday.
  
  
• The guy who was going to install electricity dieing (seriously).
  
  
• Giving a guy 80,000 shillings (about $US40) to come early and connect our house to the main electricity line.
  This proved to be pointless as the main electricity line wasn't on.
  
  
• Hiring a retired electricity worker to come to the village to tell us what the problem was.
  The place where the main electricity line connects to the village line was disconnected along with a transformer.
  
  
• The landlord failing to sign the electricity agreement for three weeks.
  
  
• The electricity company refusing to connect the power until we had organized a community meeting to discuss safety issues.
  This is fair enough. Many people die in Uganda every year as they try to illegally connect their houses to the grid. Just a few days ago, a ten year girl died after stepping on an illegal line that had fallen off her house.
  
  
• At said community meeting, the electricity company representatives shuffling their feet, and gazing into the middle distance.
  I didn't know it at the time, but shuffling one's feet and middle distance gazing means "Give me a bribe and I'll connect you now."

We have another community meeting organized for this week. The electricity reps will almost continue their "zig-zagging ways" (as they say here in Uganda). I'm not going to bribe them.

Once we are connected, we will be the only (legally) connected house in the parish.

On the plus side, some kind hearted souls have donated a generator to Meaningful Volunteer. Not only will this help us to get over our initial power problems, but it will also help to keep us operating during the numerous "normal" power outages in Uganda.

---

^*Seems slightly tragic now that one of things we liked about Sironko was that its electricity was "quite reliable".

Solving Illiteracy, HIV, and Malnutrition Problems in One Go

Illiteracy. HIV. Malnutrition.

Three huge problems in Uganda. Wouldn't it be great if you could solve all problems in one easy to run program? The staff at Meaningful Volunteer think they have come up with a solution.

The Three Problems

• Illiteracy
  Illiteracy rates are huge in Sironko (Meaningful Volunteer's target area in Uganda). Many people are denied even the chance to attend school and face an ever-increasing English language dominated world without this vital skill. We are about the conduct some literacy tests around the region to find out the true extent of the problem.
  
  Those who perform poorly on the literacy test will be invited to join the program.

• Nutrition
  Yesterday I visited a wonderful old lady who lived in a mud shack. Her husband had passed away many years ago and she had lost her only child when he was young. She is lucky to eat a meal a day. Sometimes she doesn't eat for days on end and shakes uncontrollably.
  
  She was ashamed that she had no food to give us and at one point set off to get some firewood to cook something with. We had to ask her to sit down again and we got some simple supplies for her from a nearby shop
  
  
• HIV
  Everyone knows how bad that HIV problem is in Africa. Meaningful Volunteer is about to conduct a census survey to try and get a handle of the size of the problem in Sironko.
  
  One obvious solution is to get the ARV medication into the hands of the sufferers. The ARVs need to be taken after eating. If you're not eating regularly, then it is pointless to be taking the ARVs.

The Solution
Illiteracy rates are high. Nutrition is poor. And HIV sufferers can't take their ARVs because they are not eating regular meals. Hmmm... How could we address these problems in one easy to run program?

The staff at Meaningful Volunteer have come up with a solution: Run a literacy program, and provide ARV medicine to take with the meals! Three nasty problems solved at once!

How to Fund It

A simple meal here costs 500 shillings (about a U.S. quarter). ARVs are usually freely available from the local clinic. Taking paper and other resources into account, we can run a literacy program (with ARVs and food of course) for about $US10 a month per lady. This will include four hours of tuition a week plus a meal everyday. Each lady will take turns to prepare the meals for the day.

Meaningful Volunteer will conduct a pilot program with ten ladies. We will be having sponsorship opportunities so you can help a lady to solve her HIV, malnutrition and literacy issued all in one go.

Meaningfully Empowered

Way back in September 2008 (see the entry on my personal blog here) , I had an idea to start an online shop that would empower Ugandan women.

My search for something to sell led me to the village of Namukuma. Namukuma has no electricity and is a one hour car ride down a dirt road, followed by a half hour motorcycle road down something that might be generously called a goat track. I'd given my usual "What crafts do you have?" speech to the community. The lack of forthcoming crafts was frustrating enough for me to advance my ever receding hairline. I was almost ready to give up.

Then Alaisa Nandudu came along.

Alaisa had been up all night and making this seed bracelet. I was suitably impressed. Alaisa was living in a small house with her husband, four of her own kids, two HIV orphaned nephews, and a bunch of chickens. Alaisa and her family were eating maybe one meal a day. She had it rough.

One thing led to another and I eventually released GrassRootsUganda.com. One village I knew I had to go back to introduce GrassRootsUganda.com was Namukuma.

So, what happened next?

Well, firstly GrassRootsUganda.com has gone from strength to strength in my absence thanks to dedicated volunteers on the ground in Uganda.

Alaisa herself has made great progress. With a little extra help from a volunteer, and the money she has earned from GrassRootsUganda.com Alaisa has moved out her her one room "home", bought land and built a brand spanking new home. It's not quite finished. It needs doors, windows, a concrete floor, and a little work on the roof. Out back, Alaisa has a little farm that she uses for both for food and a cash crop. See here and here.

Here in Africa, one sometimes feels like bashing one's head against a wall with all the poverty and corruption and people seeming to be working for poverty. Then I remember Alaisa and I get up and try again.

---

^* Just for interest's sake, here is Alasia's orginal biography from the GrassRootsUganda.com site.

Alaisa lives in a single room with her husband and three of their own children. Her sister and her brother-in-law both died of AIDS and Alaisa is looking after their two children as well. Her nephew is HIV positive - he is very prone to malaria and misses many days of school.

Her husband can sometimes get work digging the soil on other people's farm for ush1,000 ($US0.54) a day. He is happy to get ten days of work every month, but would like more.

Her husband is also a trained tailor. Alaisa often pleads with other tailors in the area to rent their sewing machines for ush5,000 ($US2.70) a month. They cannot afford to buy material to convert into clothes, so they can only perform simple repairs for between ush200 and ush300 ($US0.11 and $US0.16).

Alaisa use to own thirty chickens, but twelve died because she couldn't afford to feed them properly. One kilo of maize bran (chicken food) costs ush300 ($US0.11). The chickens sleep in the same one room apartment that Alaisa and her family live in because Alaisa fears they will get stolen again. They eat some of the eggs and sell some for ush100 ($US 0.05) per egg. She hopes to sell some of the chickens to raise school fees.

At the moment, they are managing to keep the children in school. They are paying ush15,000 ($US 8.18) per year for each of the children to go to school. Alaisa wishes she could send at least some of her children to a boarding school, but cannot afford the fees.

Malaria is a problem in Alaisa's home, much like everyone else's in her village of Namukama.

Alaisa can only afford to feed her family once per day. Sometimes they cannot afford to eat at all and they go hungry.

Alaisa walks a five kilometer round trip every day to fetch the five jerry cans of water her family needs. The water is unsafe for drinking and needs boiling.

She hopes that many Namukama necklaces are sold on GrassRootsUganda.com because she wants some capital to pay for school fees and uniforms. She would also use the money to rent a bigger home and purchase a sewing machine.

She wished that her husband could have a permanent job and the Namukama could get electricity one day.

Developing Countries: The good and the bad

Check out this house. Nice huh? That'll cost you the princely sum of 1,000,000 Filipino pesos, which is about $US20,000.

So why wouldn't you want to move here? The houses are cheap, the people are wonderful and the weather balmy.

One of the best things about life in developing countries is th cost of living. Everything is so cheap! The bad things include education, security and healthcare. They're all terrible!

Take healthcare for example. My 62 year old mother^* recently volunteered in the Philippines. My mum's a diabetic and managed to get her toe infected, which is a very serious thing for a diabetic. She may yet lose her toe. Being the dutiful son that I am, I decided to get her to the hospital. This is where the problems start. I had to send a friend Jen Jen (who was wonderfully helpful throughout) to get a tricycle to get my mother to the hospital. Getting into one of those things is hard at the best of times, let alone when you have an infected toe. The staff at the hospital were awesome and did everything possible to help my mum. No complaints there. The hospital didn't have a well supplied pharmacy, so Jen Jen and I had to dash out to get the required medicine. We had to go to four different pharmacies to get it all - one of which was in a neighboring town! Even getting her back home was an issue. We had to hire some peddle-powered tricycles to get her home, though - truth be told - I think she quite enjoyed that experience!

It is interesting to note that a Filipino nurse working in the States earns ten times as much as a doctor in the Philippines.

Security is also an issue in developing countries. 2010 is an election year in the Philippines. The current president recently tried to change the constitution to allow her to rule for more than two terms. There is also a small chance that she will declare martial law to maintain power. Regardless of what the president does, there will be violence in 2010. The double whammy of presidential and mayoral elections guarantees it. Candidates will be shot, there will be violence protests, and banks will be robbed to raise bribe money.

And education is also - alas - pretty terrible. Only the very lucky students on Tablas island (where Meaningful Volunteer is based) will get to go to university. Most will finish elementary school, but some of those will emerge illiterate. At a guess, I'd say about 50% will finish high school. There are a dearth of reasons why education is so poor on Tablas. Poor governance, bad roads preventing access to schools, under resourced classrooms, disillusioned teachers... the list goes on.

So, if the low cost of living good enough to offset the educational, healthcare and security issues? Come on over and check it out first hand and make up your own mind!

---

^* If she can, why can't you?

Desperate people do desperate things.

Physically preventing the elderly and young from access to emergency food is not something I thought I'd ever be doing. Yet, there I was - as part of a human wall keeping the aid workers safe from a desperate crowd. Elderly hands kept poking through the wall as people begged me for food in broken English. One grandmother fell to her knees and pleaded and pleaded for an aid pack. Shafaq - a fellow volunteer - broke protocol and gave her one. I remember one young girl trying to piece together a torn aid docket in an attempt to get herself some food.

Desperate people do desperate things.

This was all in response to Typhoon Ondoy which slammed into Manila leaving hundreds dead. The even bigger Typhoon Pepeng was mercifully deflected at the last minute.

The aid effort was coordinated by the Bayan Muna (People First) political party. Bayan Muna is headed by Satur Ocampo. Mr. Ocampo is one of the premiere human rights activists in the Philippines. He has been arrested, tortured and harassed by various oppressive regimes. He even has some daring prison escape stories. Mr. Ocampo was one of the people I was keeping safe at the aid distribution.

Looking back at that day, I can't help but feel a little guilty as I was little more than a 'disaster tourist'. I didn't really help in any meaningful way. Meeting Mr. Ocampo was a personal highlight. I'll die a happy man if Meaningful Volunteer achieves half as much as he ha