Jodie's story

IICD Michigan, One World Institute, 2000

I am sure you are inundated with personal stories of experiences with Tvind. Please let me add my own.

My name is Jodie Giroux from Canada and I joined the One World Volunteer Organization in 2000 after visiting a Planet Aid school in Michigan. After making what I thought would be a life-changing experience, I made my way to the hogskole in Norway close to Lillehammer to be a part of a team that would travel by bus from Norway to India to document the lives of third world people for others to see.

It turned out to be a nightmare. We were forced to hitchike to Sweden from Norway to 'fundraise.' If we didn't make our target for the day the head teachers would get upset with us. By the way, a day consisted of 8 hours of street selling a magazine we had to put together ourselves, and 4 hours of evening door to door selling. The average amount we were to raise was about $150 per day, and we were given about $2 Cdn to use for food. The rest we had to 'klunse' which was essentially begging for food at restaurants.

After our first two week period of fundraising my team and I (consisting of 8 people from 7 different countries) decided that if the school couldn't show us where all of this money was going to, we would leave. Surprise, they couldn't. Our entire team left the school, but had to fight tooth and nail to get our tuition fees back (they were in the neighbourhood of $2000-$3000 Cdn.) Finally we got most of the money back after finding a loophole in the contract we had signed.

Four of us didn't want to give up our dream of going to India to volunteer. In January of 2001 we headed to India on our own and volunteered independently, all the while hearing horror stories from our friends who
decided to stay at the school. One man got sick with TB and they didn't offer medical services, another group who went to Angola (right in middle of a civil war) had their passports taken for 'their own protection,' and were stranded.

The reason I write this story to you now is that in my local newspaper, a very small daily in a town of 15,000, I have just seen an advertisement asking for volunteers who would like to go to Africa and teach HIV awareness. The websites given...humana.org and drh-movement.org. with an email contact of elsemarie@humana.org.

This may sound strange, but in order for us to get our money back they made us sign some kind of agreement that we would not seek retribution for what happened. We did not receive a copy of this, nor do I remember the details. We were all so physically and mentally drained at that point that all we wanted to do was get our money and get out. After seeing that ad, however, and the thought of others getting involved, I give permission to use my name and email address

I'm writing a letter as we speak to the Better Business bureau here in Canada to try and get these terrible ads taken out of unassuming newspapers. Any guidance or advice you can give would be greatly appreciated.

I thank you for your time and good luck with exposing these monsters who prey on young and well-intentioned people from around the world.

Kind regards,

Jodie Giroux
Pembroke, Ontario

email: tofugiroux@hotmail.com