Burma Night June 2010

Meaningful Volunteer is a way of life and how to live your life to the fullest.

Visiting different countries has always been exciting and fun. I've realized that the places I have visited have meaning not simply because of the location but mostly because of the people.

Although l have never been to Burma, the Burmese people I have met here in Vancouver, are so proud of the beauty of their country, with rolling hills and vast amounts of green space, that their country seems amazing to me. You can almost feel the serenity while some elders talk about where they grew up.

Elders often speak of such things as the spirit of kindness and dedication, the spirit of fortitude, as well as loyalty and family values. They stress the importance of passing these values on to the next generation.

They dedicate their lives to serve others, especially their family. They will put their lives on the line, creating a better future for their sons or daughters. One feels their palpable kindness wrap around you like a warm blanket.

The parents will often go without, in order for their children to have a better life. The happiness of parents is based on fulfilling their children’s happiness and ensuring a successful future.

The adage to find something more meaningful than yourself, to dedicate your life to it, is something Burmese people demonstrate on a regular basis, in how they care for their families and their country.

Last night, preparations for ‘Burma Night For Aung San Suu Kyi’ started off chaotic, just like any other fundraiser event. Lots of “things” to be done before the guests arrived. One can feel the pressure of “too many things to do with so little time” but somehow, this time, it was different. It was peaceful, even though things didn’t go exactly according to plan. Some people were late. Some items that should have arrived didn’t make it. It didn't matter though because everyone just moved forward and did what needed to be done.

Once everything was decorated and in place, the guests started to arrive one by one. A few opening speeches were made by Burmese representatives followed by various performances. The food was delicious. There were varieties of vegetarian dishes but also some food for non-vegetarians.

Most of the songs were sung in a different language. That didn’t matter. Their passion and expressions on the faces of the singers along with their body language conveyed how proud the Burmese performers are of their heritage and nationality. Through their music & expression, they helped me envision what Burma must be like. Burmese people seem to understand how to live their life to the fullest, with kindness and compassion, which is a reminder of what Burma’s Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was all about.

I feel so fortunate that Meaningful Volunteer was there for Burma Night, because as our organization grows, this is exactly the kind of ideology, principles, and direction that we are striving toward. Meaningful Volunteer is not just about a unique travel experience, it’s about making a difference in the way we live our lives to the fullest. It’s about having shared beliefs that bring us together and help us care for each other in a meaningful way.

Meaningful Volunteer at the Filipino Independence Day Festival

The day started out sunny and hot just like in the Philippines, but today we are in Coquitlam, British Columbia getting ready to participate in the Filipino Independence Day festival.

I set up a booth for our Meaningful Volunteer Organization which was really easy. It consists of a table, my banner bamboo stand and my face painting kit. As I looked around, I saw the other booths setting up with piles of “stuff” – free stuff! Filipinos sure love receiving free “stuff” and today was jack pot day of freeness!

There were all sorts of free food: Lichon (roast pig), Filipino barbeque stick, sticky sweet rice, smokies, and hot dogs, and there was even a cotton candy machine! The different venues gave away free water bottles, key chains, pens, note pads, Filipino style spaghetti sauce, pancit noodles, and pineapple juice. There were also free prizes such as pots and pans, air conditioners, and concert tickets. The generosity of the businesses that participated in the Independence Day Festival was amazing.

Meaningful Volunteer didn’t have any physical items to distribute, some would call me korepot (thrifty), but we did offer something just as fun and maybe even more meaningful. I spent time with the kids, painting their tiny Filipino/Filipina faces and just talking. They asked me to draw Dora, Thomas the Tank Engine and Spider Man but I told them I would draw something better. I drew and painted red hearts and drew the flag of the Philippines. And while coloring their tiny faces I asked them “do you know why I am drawing a heart and painting the flag of the Philippines?” Some kids said “it’s because it’s Filipino Day” but most others said “it’s because we love being Filipino”. I was really pleasantly surprised by their answers and quite touched that they were proud of their roots. I was really waiting for one of them to say “because you suck at face painting, you don’t know how to draw!” That didn’t happen because Filipino children are quite respectful!

“Love being Filipino” was one of the main reasons I wanted to set up Meaningful Volunteer at the Filipino festival, as a reminder that even though we were born here or were raised here in Canada, we still are Filipinos and we owe it to ourselves and our children to keep our heritage and culture alive by staying connected and having meaningful connection with other Filipinos. The whole day was spent doing just that; talking, eating and visiting with each other. It was a hot sunny day just like in the Philippines but today we were in Coquitlam, BC.

Meaningful Volunteer may not have had physical “stuff” to give away but we did make lots of friends and I think they all walked away with meaningful smiles.

Meaningful Volunteer's Growth

Malaria Operation Logo

After a couple of months of hard work and careful planning, the Malaria Operation project is all set to go.   I am very excited about this project.  It is going to give volunteers that chance to tackle the problem of malaria in Buyaya in a systematic way. The project should - and will - have a positive impact on so many people.

The beauty of the project is that we can copy-and-paste to other areas that Meaningful Volunteer is based.  In fact, anyone is free to use the material from the Malaria Project in anyway they see fit: All Meaningful Volunteer resources are freely available to everyone.  It's not as if there isn't enough poverty to go around...

The hard work and rigor that has gone into the Malaria Operation is yet another sign of Meaningful Volunteer's growth since it started up more than a year ago.  It's come along way since Steve and Ingrid - the first Meaningful Volunteers - and I arrived on the island of Romblon in the Philippines.

I'm especially pleased with staff that is now working within Meaningful Volunteer.  We have the Meran Chang as our volunteer coordinator, Eden Navia as the district manager for the Philippines, Scarlet Nabwire as the district manager for Uganda, and Raymund Villanueva providing technical support and gentle prodding when needed.

The support from people outside the organization has also been phenomenal. Meaningful has received over $US 1,500 for the care of Flavia Anying: a member of Grassroots Uganda who suffered a vicious machette attack at the hands of her partner. Flavia is currently undergoing treatment at a hospital in Kampala.  Check out this picture to see how she is recovering from her wounds.  The picture is a little graphic, so be warned if you get a little quezzy from such pictures.

Another kind soul is also giving 10% (!) of his income to Meaningful Volunteer.  We are using this money to support our education programs in Uganda.  The money is used to support about 18 students every month including all their educational materials and a decent meal at the start of the lesson.

So what's next for Meaningful Volunteer?

Meaningful Volunteer is about to send out a job description for the marketing manager position, as well as hiring a financial officer from the Philippines to take over the day-to-day financial running of the organization.

New projects on the horizon include an HIV project for Buyaya.  This one is going to be especially cool and will include education campaigns, ARV programs and day-to-day support.

Exciting times ahead!

Year in Review

Back over here, I hinted at all the successes that Meaningful Volunteer has had in 2009 thanks to its merry band of volunteers, but did not have the space to enumerate them all.  Now as the new year begins, its seems fitting to list the successes.
So, here it is! Meaningful Volunteer's year in review:

General

• Meaningful Volunteer holds its launch event in Korea.
   
• The Meaningful Shop is launched
   
• Computer Studies lesson plans released under the Creative Commons License (any non-profit can use them for free)
   
• Meaningful Volunteer partners with CERV Philippines

Philippines

• Established Meaningful Volunteer in the Philippines with our first two volunteers
   
• Appointed Eden Navia as district manager
   
• Purchased a motorcycle for use on the island
   
• YouTube videos released of our Filipino programs 

RYE School Program

• Established a RYE School on the island of Tablas
   
• Purchased four laptop computers for use in the computer programs
   
• Summer Program launched
   
• Control Group testing completed
   
• Detailed student statistics added to site
   
• RYE School building plans released
   
• RYE School proposal completed
   
• Laptop computers donated by Ed Thayer
   
• RYE School classes added in Carmen, Cawayan and Sugod
   
• Projector donated by Bob Bosza
   
• Laptop computers donated by Bob Bosza (again!)
   
• Pico-Hydro feasibility study released
   
• Teacher handover notes added to the site to ease volunteer transition

Project Mangrove

• Interactive mangrove reforestation project plan released
   
• Interactive coastal map released
   
• Detailed mangrove species list released
   
• Mangrove Education Kit released
   
• Summary of problems at nursery released

Project Lifecycle

• Partnership formed with IRH
   
• Project Lifecycle detailed in outline
   
• Information released about the local healthcare centers
   
• Sexual health surveys finished
   
• Community Talks
   
• Healthcare workers in twelve different villages trained
   
• Healthcare workers rolling out the SDM method
   
• Locals using the SDM method
   
• Interactive project plan released

 School Building Project
 

• RYE School building plans released
   
• RYE School proposal completed
   
• Pico-Hydro feasibility study released
   

Meaningful Shop

• Payawpao Orchids group formed
   
• First payment to the Payawpao Orchids
   
• The Meaningful Shop launched

Uganda

• Meaningful Volunteer arrives in Uganda.
   
• Appointed Scarlet Nabwire as district manager of Uganda
   

Heart of Uganda

• Project Plan released
   
• Buyaya chosen as target district
   
• Community told of our programs
   
• A detailed census of Buyaya and a educational survey completed
   
• A generator donated

RYE School

• Three classes added in Buyaya

Excellent!

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!

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^*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.

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^* 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.

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