Volunteer with Gaia, Newcastle, 2007
This is my story about my experiences with Humana – I will call it ‘Humana’ for the sake of simplicity. My story is comparatively a short one, still it involves stories of others and gives a good insight into what is going on in UK Humana schools. The good news is that already 16 people left the organization since I started an avalanche of rebellion by leaving myself, in late 2007.
I was lucky enough to spend only two months with the organization. But that was already too much.
It all started in summer 2007, when I had an idea, that I would like to change something in my life and for a change work not just for earning money, but for some good in this world. So I started to search for volunteer work opportunities. Unluckily enough Humana was the only one that I found, which was suitable for me – who would accept me almost straight away, no matter of my nationality or previous experience.
Till the very moment of leaving there were a lot of things unclear, but myself being quite adventurous and willing to trust in something good, I gave it a chance. Still I am also a kind of person, who like to ask questions and also likes to receive answers, so I always kept in mind some portion of doubt.
As I did not want to pay the money for DI training I was first sent to Stockton house to do GAIA course with the aim to raise money for study fees, when I arrived there in the beginning of September, I was informed that I have to go to Newcastle house instead with the reason that Stockton house was due to be closed in a couple of weeks and moved to Manchester.
So I stayed in Newcastle for two following months.
When I arrived at Newcastle, I was very enthusiastic and felt optimistic and I just could not understand, why all those people, who have been there for longer period are depressed and feeling low. The general feeling in the house was quite heavy, despite all attempts by the Teachers to lift the spirit up.
The head teacher in Newcastle house was Lis Mikkelsen, Danish, who had been with Humana since 1977 and her help-teacher Elvis, 23, from Cameroon. All we knew about them is that Lis had previously worked with “problem children” in Denmark and Elvis had been a DI himself.
The first day I was driven from Stockton to Durham, where Stockton house and Newcastle house share a storage and I saw the Newcastle house boys doing a very hard work loading huge sacks of second-hand clothing each weighting close to 100 kg in a truck, which was supposed to go to Ukraine. Guys were really exhausted when we finally got “home” late that evening.
The next day I started to work hard myself – doing leafleting. To be honest, I enjoyed leafleting, although others complained about sore muscles and dullness of the job. I was physically fit after climbing mountains in August, so I had no difficulties in walking around 20 km per day and putting leaflets in mailboxes, and I learned how to deal with mad dogs and rude people on the go.
In fact it was such a pleasant change after working as a manager – all day at the computer and endless meetings – it felt like it was a vacation for the mind and a little bit of training for the body. And I did not even mind living together with 7 other girls in one really small room, cooking for 20 people or doing other chores at the house.
Amazingly, living so crowded we never had any conflicts between ourselves, instead we managed to build friendships.
But I started to be in a conflict with Lis. Me myself having management experience, I noticed various management flaws or things that could be done better or more effective and I openly expressed my opinions to Lis, who apparently did not like it much, because when we broke out in an open conversation in the presence of others, she accused me in trying to damage the system and that I did not believe in the good cause anyway.
The main issue was about declining amounts of gathered clothing. Lis was all the time trying to make us work more and more – to put out more and more leaflets per day – in order to keep up the amounts, although the sheer statistics clearly showed that amount of leaflets put out did not have relation to how much clothing we got, what I tried to point out was that there are other factors, that influence the decline much more and we need to deal with them in the first place.
I am not a person who just believes, I can believe in something that has a grounded reason behind, but when I was told that my amounts are declining just because I did not believe that I would get that clothing, although I was actually one of the best leafleters, I understood that it is pointless to try to change anything for better, that they are not interested in changing anything and that we are here just to work and keep our opinions to ourselves.
At least I knew that my fellows in the house understood my reasoning and agreed with me on most issues. And now I understood, why the people in the house never stood up for themselves, never showed any initiative- they had lost all trust and hope just like I did at that moment.
Since then I just got more and more responsibilities, got really tired, never had any time for myself, had less and less chance for contacts with my family and boyfriend, but I still managed to stay positive until my unanswered questions started to build up and I noticed strange reactions of our teachers.
One day in a week we were supposed to have a study day, although you can hardly call it that way- mostly study days were spent cleaning the house and then lazily lying around trying to regain energy for next days of hard work.
We had to prepare some presentations on some topics, but nobody spent any effort on them, so the presentations were more like a joke. Instead of lying in front of the TV, I preferred to go out and visit a museum or go for a walk on my own. I have always been quite independent and was not used to telling anyone, where I am going, until one time Lis accused me of not informing her, that I go out. It just struck me- all those grown-up people that we were there- some as old as 40 had to report our every single move. I felt like I lost my last bit of privacy.
And I also felt that our teachers reaction was exaggerated about an incident that involved the police.
Once we were out dancing, when one of us got his wallet stolen from a pocket, we approached the security of the place and they advised to file the theft with the police in order to get access to CCTV camera records. So we went to the police and there made an appointment for a policeman to visit at home and clear things up.
When teachers got to know that we have been in the police and that police is coming to the house, they reacted so that I instantly felt that they are afraid of the police. So I became highly suspicious – a charity organization, doing good work should not be afraid of police whatsoever.
Soon came the news that I was being sent away from Newcastle to Norway, to do promotion there. I agreed to go, with a condition that I will have one week back home before I go to Norway. On the last weekend before leaving I organized an outdoor trip and 4 people joined me to camp and ride bicycles in the Northumbria national park. Away from the house and away from the teachers, people became more open and started to talk about things they knew and it came out that some of them knew about Tvind Alert and all the accusations, but still stayed in the organization for different reasons.
When I got to know the web address of Tvind Alert, I tried to read it in the Newcastle house, but it was impossible- the only chance was to do it during nights with a deadly slow internet connection, when I was exhausted and was falling asleep on the computer. So I just could not realize all the might of the Tvind Empire. But I seriously started to think about quitting for good.
I was lucky enough to have that week at home, because I finally got the chance to explore Tvind Alert and a picture started to draw in my mind, and that picture was so awful, that I felt physically close to vomiting. I knew straight away, that I could not be a part of something like that. At the same time I then realized, why people find it hard to leave Humana even after they get to know all the facts.
Firstly, because a lot of them have paid money and want to get at least something for that money, secondly, because they still believe that even if the organization is corrupt, they can stay uncorrupted and try to do some good on their own when they get to Africa or India and, thirdly, the hardest thing is to admit to yourself, to your family, friends and others that you have been fooled, exploited and naive enough to have faith in good cause that proved to be rotten. The fall of illusions is psychologically hard, I wouldn’t be surprised that people would need psychological help after quitting Humana.
At the end of the week at home I knew I was not going to Norway, but I felt so sorry for all the good people that were still in Newcastle and mostly did not know anything for what they are working. So I endeavored to fly back to UK once more with the aim to secretly meet some of the people and talk with them about all that I had found out. I managed to do that and I managed to plant a seed of serious doubt in them and until now have stayed in virtual contact.
Then I wrote a letter to teachers that I have left Humana because of my personal understanding of ethics and moral standards.
I kept exchanging e-mails with my fellow volunteers and not long after I started lo hear news of people leaving – first a German couple, then a Finnish guy, who was sent to Manchester to work as a driver, then another couple and now, today 10 people at once are leaving from CICD and at least 3 to 5 more are willing to quit from CICD and from Newcastle and from Birmingham as well. It is my wish come true. As one of those leaving wrote to me “the rebellion has started”.
Still I have one more wish – I would like to stop Humana from expanding in my country – Latvia. I know very well that they want to do that – after all I was supposed to promote here from Norway. And I know that with so many people leaving, they will intensify the promotion and search for new volunteers. And we also have Humana shops here, where people go believing that with their purchases there they support charity.
I hope I can fulfill this wish as well.
