by Joao <joao_albergaria@hotmail.com>
I was a volunteer in 1996.
Ill give
you an inside view over the six months preparation course held in Den
Reisende Høgskole, Norway. Although, Im sure that much will
remain to be said.
I went to Norway with my mind and heart opened, to start a dream coming true.
I was joining an organization that defended everyone, could do something useful in needed countries regardless their sex, age, colour, religion or background. One just needed the right motivation.
The first 3
weeks were spent joyfully. I was happy to meet everyone, happy to do all the
tasks required
happy to pay the course fees in advance
happy to sign a
contract with the school saying I would have to fundraise a certain amount of
money before going to Africa.
The doubts began when for the first time we were going out to sell postcards as fundraising action.
We were building up a strong team spirit. We were 12, from 7 nationalities with ages from 19 to 55 years old.
We already knew how we wanted things to be organized in our team but our way was denied.
The impositions began. The postcard selling teams were to be made by the school members.
One night we were invited to a meeting with the headmaster of the school. With coffee and cake we were told about the existence of the Teachers Group (TG). Its beginning and principles (common time, common work, common money). We were also told that to be a project leader in Africa one had to join the TG first.
We strongly reacted the meeting went on and on with us asking hundreds of questions! To all of them, the same answer I cant explain it to you, you are not prepared to understand it yet.
Going out of the meeting almost all of us individually understood something was very wrong about that place. We just didnt know what!
We were living in an old building (half school, half empty hotel) at the end of a road on some Norwegian mountains, 18km from the main road, one hour from Lillehammer.
No
newspapers, no magazines, no
. Only one computer with a lousy Internet
connection controlled by the headmaster.
Our preparation course consisted in performing different tasks.
The written ones, done with the support of very old computers, were almost all concerning the same subjects:
The organization (principles, projects, vision)
Our selves (projects for the future, dreams, daily activities)
All those were to be corrected by our teacher.
Although presented in different ways, these tasks were repeated several times, forcing us to write the same things over and over again.
The teachers tried to force us to fill a weekly report available in the schools intranet with questions like:
Everyone lie! What lies did you say this week?
Did you help to solve a fight between two persons in the school? How?
Empty your bucket! (Expression often used meaning tell us everything)
At the time of that report, our team was already in war with the people working at the school (the so called teachers).
One word
about them all: ex-volunteers, contract signed with the TG, single, all looking
alike (regardless their sex), talking alike (a few key expressions), without any
professional qualification, amazingly aggressive when defending their ideas and
the organization. They all lie, distort and keep information secret amazingly
well.
From then on, the psychological oppression was permanent and stronger.
We were always reacting against their attempts to impose ideas. Each time that happened, endless common meetings were held to discuss until exhaustion the subject, only finishing when everyone agree (even if lying) with their initial ideas.
In those
meetings the arguments could go from shouting at a person, to insulting,
even to threatening in different ways.
As our suspicion about everything concerning the organization increased, so did our difficulty to sell postcards on the streets.
Soon, our entire preparation course was around selling postcards and achieving the goals signed in the initial contract, if not you are not prepared to go to Africa.
Our goals were not being achieved!
To go fundraising, we were given little pocket money and:
We had to hitchhike hundreds of km to the targeted towns.
If we couldnt do it all in one day, we had to sleep at the roadside to restart hitchhiking next morning.
We had to ask in churches, schools, etc for a roof to sleep under.
We had to ask in supermarkets, bakeries, and restaurants for some food.
We had to sell postcards on the streets from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 9/10 p.m. door to door. Approaching everyone passing by, sometimes being shouted down by people knowing the organizations reputation.
Arriving to the shelter we had to count the money earned individually.
Every evening we had to call the school to tell the headmaster how much money each person earned.
The one behind his/her goal had to phone the headmaster to discuss why was that and how to improve the situation. Often people ended up crying, physically and psychologically exhausted.
Finishing
a normally 2 weeks long fundraising action each time we went out of the school,
we had to hitchhike the same hundreds of km back to be closed in the top of the
mountain in Norway.
Once we were in Gothenburg selling postcards escorted by a teacher (from certain point on one of them was always present in order to control our moves, conversations, etc).
One of our friends had just left the organization (the second one in our team to do so).
We were told we also had to earn all the money of her individual goal once she didnt accomplish it before leaving.
After long hours of discussion, we made a strike. We were told by Jørgen (the teacher) that street children in Africa dont want a solidarity worker that couldnt sell postcards.
We were 10 very angry persons around him. To avoid the worse I just said:
- Jørgen, you dont exist!
At a certain point, everything was twisted:
Everybodys only concern was money.
Our mental sanity preservation strategy was group strengthening and lying pretending to agree with what they said.
The reasons to remain in the course were to resist their oppression, not to break.
We
could not have privacy, spear time, own ideas
Back in the school, joining all the experience we had so far, I came to the conclusion they should follow Maoist ideologies.
In one of the endless and aggressive meetings I told that to the headmaster. From that moment on he often made me look ridiculous in front of as much people as he could because of that stupid idea of mine.
The same strategy was held in front of any voice raised against the organization, against their ideas.
We heard about some people trying to damage the organizations image (now I know they were talking about TvinAlert). About that they used to say, Those are just a bunch of losers or weak people that didnt manage this tough preparation course
If the voices
raised are strong enough, they kind of hibernate for a while, change skin and
come back again strongly.
They make volunteers believe they are the ones doing the right thing; they are the ones living in the real world.
As Portuguese, I establish a good relationship with the only other Portuguese at the school. He was as against them as I was. He was also coming out of some serious personal problems back in Portugal.
Already in Zambia I heard he had join the TG! I think he is still there.
After
diminishing the volunteer's belief in themselves, they come up as supporters of
all their fears, guaranteeing security and a sense of belonging to something.
Last time we went postcard selling we were divided into several groups, each one escorted by one teacher. We went to different cities in Sweden far from each other.
Each teacher made each group believe the others where breaking down to all the teachers money raising demands.
That time they managed to split our strong group. Reaching their goals, all other team members from the other towns left back to Norway. My group stayed to finish the Zambia team goal. Once more we had to trick the teachers pretending only two persons stayed to work. In fact another friend of us stayed to help selling the last postcards.
Back in the
school we re-established our strong union.
Two weeks before leaving to Africa we had serious damages in our team.
Resulting from all the oppression during the passed 6 months, two of our teammates went into a hard psychological situation. One closed in her room was unable to perform any simple task requested. The other one declared him self unable to face the responsibility of his work in Africa.
Neither of
them went with us. Notice that at the beginning of the course those were
two joyfully, bright, daring young people.
The last discussion I remember was about a health insurance contract written in Danish presented by the headmaster for us to sign. Once more we were declared ridiculous (etc) to raise problems out of that.
Later in Zambia, living deep in the bush we were always very ill. We sent our bills to the insurance company. Never heard of them!
Last days at the school the teachers tried to look as friendly as they could. The money was raised!
At the last individual meeting each one of us had with the headmaster, he tried to convince us we should, or could latter join the TG.
We all were very surprised after all the terrible fight we had during the past 6,5 months.
At that time
we thought they couldnt surprise us any more. They had tried everything. But
no
they always try one more!
In Zambia, the situation was the same I read in so many stories in Tvind Alerts website.
No doubt they are real!
Africans are mistreated, disrespected, neglected in relation to the organizations own interests.
Solidarity workers suffer same treatments.
The projects are very unprofessionally managed. Almost no money is going in (really very few!)
Etc, etc, etc