There's no denying it, these bloggers are bound to make you jealous. Whether it's their guts, their energy or their tan you admire, overseas volunteers have got plenty to share with you about their remarkable work in fascinating countries. Read on to find out what you could be missing.

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Saturday Sep 26, 2009

A New Stranger!

Hey There!

My name is Ashley; I am 19 years old and a brand spanking new Platform 2 volunteer!

Platform2 is a fully-funded programme ran by the Department for International Development (DFID), Christian Aid and BUNAC. Together they give young people, like me and (maybe) you aged 18-25 years old the opportunity to volunteer in developing countries and to really make a difference.

I "stumbled" across the scheme whilst researching independent GAP years and realizing that even the shortest and cheapest of opportunities were way our of my financial leave and beyond my level of traveling expertise; the vaccines, visa's and insurance all just dazed me!)

I applied, writing a bit about why I thought I would be a deserving and suitable candidate for the programme and was delighted to shortly after be called for interview. After a very thorough interview in Leeds, and a unnervingly long wait I was offered a place on the trip departing 13th October 09 to India and I was over the moon! Wow, I thought to myself, this is actually happening. It's actually happening to me and excitedly shared the news with family and friends whilst awaiting further information as to the finer details of what I would be doing. Sure enough, following my news of acceptance I was overloaded with a constant stream of project information, vaccine checklists, insurance forms, health screening questionnaires, health clearances, visa applications, kits lists etc. I knew then that I was going to be well looked after and that the guys at Platform2 well and truly knew what they were doing!

I learnt that I was to be traveling from Heathrow on the evening of the 13th October 2009 to Delhi with up to forty seven fellow volunteers aged between 18 and 25 from the UK. Lots of people in the same boat as me, phew I thought to myself! Following the flight, a nice long coach journey to Jaipur was in order where we were going to stay for three nights with a home stay/local family. Those three days are our time for in country orientation, to buy our local conservative dress and experience some amazing cultural experiences.

We would then have another, equally as lovely and equally as long journey this time by train with sleep compartments to near our destination. As a final leg of a killer journey, a three to four hour coach journey would take us right up into the mountains to reach Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, North India – our final destination! Yay!

Living in a volunteer house in dorms of four I am going to have the luxury of western style flushing toilets and running water, even if it is only cold! This makes me laugh. When I tell my friends this, their reaction is URGH, cold water! Then telling them there is no bath/shower, just a bucket and scoop to accompany the cold water the gasps of disgust and "HOW much are you getting paid for this" more often than not follow!! My reaction being "nothing, it's just going to be THE most amazing experience and I am just relieved that the toilets are in fact westernized, not squats" usually fazes them quiet!

Anyway, ten km over the river is Kandi (that's going to be a long morning dip) in which five villages make a population of approximately four to five thousand people. Many of these belonging to the Gaddi tribe and over eighty percent living below the poverty line, this is where we, as Platform 2 volunteers are going to reach out to.

How I hear you ask? Through many forms I answer. Mainly through the education system (schools, preschools), pregnant woman, tutoring, street work, computer courses, woman empowerment sessions, sports and coaching and local manual labour. As Kandi is a very child-care based project I was soooooo chuffed with my placement!

So time flies, and here I am sat here with exactly three weeks until I fly from Heathrow to Delhi. With the last of my injections on Thursday and my VISA application opening tomorrow I am physically ready to go almost but I am still finding it hard to believe it is actually me who is going! ME?! Going to India for ten weeks volunteering! ME?! Washing with a bucket and scoop – what about exfoliation and moisturizing?! ME?! Needing a backpack for day trips – I wonder if a new shoulder bag from accessorize will count?! ME?! Swallowing those massssiivvveee Malaria tablets?!

This is going to be the biggest, most amazing and life changing experience of my life and I plan to keep you guys updated every step of the way (or at least as often as India's dial up will let me!).

Stay tuned (or maybe that should be dialed up)!

Posted by Ashley ( 3:59 PM )
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Monday Sep 21, 2009

Religion

In the taxi journey on the way to Tamale where I lived, it was written on the rear windscreen, ‘Remember God’.  The shop names in Tamale, were faith based praise more often than not for example, ‘Christ the lord clothes’. Religious practices are public and affect every aspect of life. You constantly see people praying with their heads to the ground, the mosques it Tamale are as common as Starbucks and McDonalds are in England.  The way of communicating is always linked to God, ‘how are you, Thank God good’ .Tamale is 70% Muslim, 30% Christian, the different religions communities I was told co-exist really peacefully.

Christian missionaries’ impact from colonisation until today can be felt in Ghana. The NGO I worked in was founded by a female Christian missionary from America.  The director of the NGO was born in a small poor rural village and a male missionary picked him out of all the children who didn’t go to school, to get an education and changed his life completely.

We visited a Muslim rural community and the people told us the village had resisted education when an American volunteer came and wanted to build a school. They didn’t want a school, as they linked schools with Christian missionaries and did not want to convert.  Religion is in Ghana’s history and present and is intertwined with many of the issues of development. Power, wealth, education and religion are often inseparable.

Traditional beliefs are often still held at the same time someone is Christian or Muslim beliefs which I found really interesting.  Witchcraft here is a common belief, many believe a woman giving her opinion three time shows she is a witch. I definitely know a lot of witches if this is the case! It was interesting to me to see the different ways Christianity and Islam were practiced here compared to what I’m used to in England. It makes you realise how religious tradition is greatly affected by culture.

Visiting ‘Paga Crocodile Park’ , the guide explained the crocodiles are friends with the villagers so don’t eat people. We saw and touched them, which apparently is a compliment as they only come out the water for honest, God fearing people. The guide was told me how they didn’t come out for a group of Ghanaian politician.

The majority of the Ghanaians I met were very religious people. One of my NGO workers fasts every Wednesday to ask God to improve his fortune. I wonder how the individual benefits from faith in a place where there is so little you can count on. Religion is  a key part of life and to be honest I was a bit jealous, I wish I could have the complete faith so many had. I was envious of their worldview in some ways.

Religion and community are extremely interlinked. The church or mosque is the central part of the community. The religious leaders often lead the community in every sense in their public and personal life with a great deal of power over the individuals in the community. The religious groups are the only real groups that can fundraise in Ghana. Religious leaders have so much power over their community even in the poorest of communities they can gather funds. It’s quite scary to me, the power many community leaders hold. My friend who went to church was shocked by the religious leaders openly sating I want to retire in wealth, give me your money and everyone like robots just gave it.

Religion was also a big part of my trip, ‘Tzedek’, the charity I went with is a Jewish organisation, which is motivated by Jewish values to do social action. The group was made up of sixteen British Jews and we discussed how Jewish texts and values give us an obligation to try to combat social injustice.It was interesting how people often only associated Jews with the biblical tribe ,as in Tamale everyone has a tribe, it amused us how people would say 'oh yes you are the hebrew tribe',

Religion , as I experienced it in Tamale, a force for positive social change and in my view, a force for oppressive social conservatism. Religion was liberating and subjugating to the individual. The really interesting question is what religion is and what is culture? How do you separate the two?

Posted by Lucille ( 1:53 PM )
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Friday Sep 18, 2009

Change is in the air

Tamale, where I lived in Ghana is apparently the fastest growing city in West Africa. In Tamale change and development is in the air like the mosquitoes. The issues of politics and development are apparent everywhere. You get into a taxi and invariably the program on the radio will the talking about development, often about really specific policy issues, people obviously care as this stiff really impacts them. It felt so different to the average British apathy to politics. The charity signs fill the edges of the streets. Advertising obviously echoes the psyche of the target audience, in Tamale the advertising is about development. The soap powder promises to be 'the one for development!' as if their clothes magic you out of poverty. The books I noticed were all comically rubbish get rich quick schemes because of course thinking positively will get you out of poverty.
 
The traditional ways are being questioned, the change of economics brining the change of culture. Technology is impacting cultural change.The phone companies are having a full out war for the Ghanian mobile monolopy. Vodaphone has just done a huge campaign, every street covered with Vodaphone red. People even have vodaphone T-shirts.Like a tribe or a football club the companies fight it out with their colours like war paint.  The same technology exists but can be used in very different ways. Apparently it is custom not to call someone who has a senior status from you, is its sign of dis-respect. The customs is still to physically visit someone who you deem as important not ring them. It was interesting to see how the same technology can bee appropriated so differently by another culture.  Internet cafes are common with face book and porn being their main uses, maybe some things are cross cultural!

I loved the little unobvious changes. Mud huts are still common but even those are changing. I was in a village and someone showed me their hut with not just mud but now cement!!!!! is being mixed in with the mud . To be honest don’t find cement that radical but then I realised maybe  him this was revolutionary to them. The traditional mud hut for hundred of years the same, now changing.

There is a mixture of shopping here, most clothes are hand made, and you buy material and take it to a seamstress. There are some western style clothes with jeans etc. I wonder in five years what people will be wearing.

Ghanaian music was three main categories, Religious music with Allah and Jesus being a main focus. There is always a spiritual message and lots of praising. The Ghanaian ‘R and B’ music had lots of praising too, with ‘big booty girls as the main object of worship. Thirdly my favourite cheesy pop was very popular, west life and Backstreet boys are big. On our way to safari the forty year old driver with a long beard played spice girls again and again to our delight. I’m pleased to say I still know every word of their first album.

Marriage is a really interesting issue for me with when looking at change and their gender roles. It used to be very much the girl had no choice in marriage, but a village woman told me things are changing. A guy asks a girl to marry first, they go on a lot of dates and if she likes him after a year of dating they marry. Apparently this is ‘because of human rights and things’. The traditional marriage gift used to be a special traditional drink but for some reason this has changed to Schnapps, why Schnapps I have no idea but it’s presented to the boy’s family. Same drink we drink in England very different context and way of using it. Has advertising of Schnapps reached even the village psyche?

Change is happening, but I would love to understand the relationship between economic development and cultural change. People were telling me about the fast pace of change and the New Ghana some liked it, some didn’t. What in ten years will Ghana look like?  Is Ghana driving the change or is it outside companies?

Is this the Ghanian dream or the American dream? Most importantly, is it the Ghanaians that are benefiting, or the multi-national companies?

Posted by Lucille ( 10:58 AM )
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Friday Sep 04, 2009

Making a difference?

Telling people I was volunteering in Ghana, I would cringe inwardly. People would inevitably react in one of two ways, both of which made me uncomfortable:  ‘You’re a naive idiot who thinks they can change the world in two months’ or ‘aren’t you fantastic, a wonderful person, so giving’. Neither is true.

The question is why did I go to Ghana? Obviously, I went for a number of reasons, but I certainly didn’t go to Ghana because solely because I wanted to make a difference. If the only reason I was going was to help others then I could have spent the summer in England volunteering and donated the flight money to Ghana.

I’m not saying for a second that I didn’t want to help, but it would be delusional to pretend like it was my only motive. My motives were to learn about development, another culture and have an experience of a different way of living. I wanted to explore the world and have a challenge. As a career in the long run I want to work in NGOs [Non Governmental Organisations] and development so this summer was an experience for learning about the NGO world.

The story I hear from friends again and again is they went to a developing country to make a difference. The reality was they came back frustrated, disappointed and questioning why they went.

The charity I went with ‘Tzedek’ told us again and again making a difference is for when you come home .The time in Ghana is to learn. Ten months volunteering with the charity in England is part of the program.  The charity is almost entirely volunteer run, so they want you to stay involved for a lifetime ideally.

Making a difference in a foreign country isn’t simple; who is some twenty-year-old volunteer to know how to help people they have just met, from a different culture.  The advice we were told on our orientation is, try not to do any harm. The question when volunteering is always, what happens when you leave? Is this action sustainable? Someone gave me some useful advice for volunteering, never presume you know the problem and never presume you know the solution.

Teaching skills to people who do a job is always better that doing things yourself, for example teach the school’s teachers to improve. Rather than working on documents, teach the NGO workers computer skills. Little things make a difference; my proudest moment was with the introduction the magical to do list. A concept my co-workers loved and put proudly on the wall, smiling broadly as they crossed things off. It took me two months to see it might be useful. The problem is that by the time you have settled in and worked out how to help, you leave. Any changes you do make also might not last, I have no idea whether they are still making to do lists, but realism tells me probably not!

At the end of the day it is difficult to know what’s changing another person for the better and even more difficult to actually implement the changes in a sustainable way. Positive change takes time and thought and is difficult to do in two months, not impossible but unlikely.  The only thing for certain that can be meaningfully changed is yourself, in the hope you will be able to give in the long run and in my view that’s a worthwhile and legitimate reason to volunteer abroad.

Posted by Lucille ( 2:28 PM )
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