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Trinity News - Volunteering Abroad More Than Package Holidays With A Conscience
By Emily Sharratt
As summer approached last year I along with countless other library-crazed students, turned my mind to what to do with the four month break. All fired up by the Suas development course which I took in Trinity term. I began to consider the possibility of volunteering somewhere. A perfect opportunity to perhaps be of use to someone, to gain a bit of perspective ( as well as new skills and experiences) and to see a different part of the world.
However, I had done a 'volunteering-holiday' before and this had left me with very specific ideas about how I would like to do it differently . During my gap year I travelled to mexico for three and a half months with a British company called Teaching and Projects abroad. Barely out of school, and a little newvous at the prospect of travelling so far by myself. I didn't really baulk at the £2,000 fee they charged for the three month placement.
But when I got out to mexico I couldn't help but wonder what had happened to all the money I had earned and raised. And I found many other volunteers asking the same thing. The project,having assured us of 24 hr support, more or less left us to our own devices for the duration of the trip. When questioned, they said that the remaining money not used for travel or accommodation went towards their advertising costs. Hmmmm
What was more, our usefulness whithin our placements was debatable to say the least. On the first day the head of english in the school where I was to be teaching looked at me with the same 'what am I supposed to do with you for three months?' expression that comes with a sixteen year olds on work experience. She led me into a classroom of about forty rowdy, undisciplined teenagers and presented me with the worlds most boring, irrelavant and comically inaccurate text-book ever, and then retreated out of the line of paper aeroplanes and flying eggs [dont ask]. Dont get me wrong, it was lots of fun, in a dangerous minds sort of way, but im not sure the kids noticed when I walked out on my last day. The conclusion I drew was that TAPA, and other similar organisations provided a sort of 'package holiday with a conscience' service useful in its own way but not for me.
But trawling the internet with such specific requirements in mind, I soon discovered that the opportunities to volunteer where I could be genuinely useful, and not have to pay a fortune for the privilege, were scarce.
The few organisation that didn't ask for money were looking for volunteers who had a specific skill, such as nursing, engineering or the like. Not many prospects for an unqualified arts student. I had more or less given up when I came across a link to Project Galle 2005 on the lonely planet website. PG05 was set up in the sri lankan city of galle in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami last december. It was founded by a group of individuals who found themselves in the galle are on december 26th last year, and who realised that by joining forces they could achieve much more than their individual efforts. They recieved the sponsorship of the british high commission in sri lanka and have been doing valuable work in the galle area ever since.
Pg05 do not ask for anything more from their volunteers than willingness to work, an ability to fund themselves, and respect for the local culture. The projects have changed in the months since the tsunami, evolving with the needs if and when they arise. For example in the days immediately following december 26th, the most urgent work was obviously removing bodies from the rubble, clearing debris and providing hot water and food for those left with nothing. More than nine months on, they initiated and expanded as diverse and important as helping people to get back to work by providing them with essential equipment, monitoring the camps, and working to improve them, taking photos of family groups in camps, providing accurate maps of the camps and temporary housing in the region encouraging ecological and environmental awareness in schools and running movie nights in the camps.
Project Galle is completely democratic and non hierarchical and volunteers are actively encouraged to contribute their own skills and ideas. While I was there, some of the boys working to build playgrounds in the camps started up a project to provide schools and clubs with football equipment. Since I've been home i have checked PG05's website and have seen that this project has already been expanded, with new aims to encourage girls to play footbal as well, in a bid to encurage gender equality.
Another long term volunteer was in the initial stages of research into a new project while we were there. Sri Lanka is listed as one of the countries with the highest level of alcoholosm in the world, with world bank statistics claiming that 30% of Sri Lankan families use alcohol and spend more than 30% of their income on it. Similarly drug addictions (with heroin presenting the greatest problem) are on the rise. The Un Office of Drugs Crimes argues that most heroin addicts in Sri Lanka require more than their daily income to maintain their habit. These problems have become even more pressing sine the tsunami and many PG05 volunteers working in camps and elsewhere saw their tragic effects on a daily basis. The aformentioned PG05 volunteer is now looking into the possibility of setting up some kind of rehabilitation scheme for the camps.
In addition to the 30-40 short-term volunteers, and roughly 10 long-term internationals, PG05 employs over 60 SRI Lankans as drivers, translators,project leaders, kitchen staff and office clerks. It is largely due to their involvement that PG05 has been so successful at identifying the local needs and providing for them. Most of the money donated internationally after the tsunami went to the larger NGO's and aid agencies. While they obviously had greater funds, man-power and experience in the development sector, many of them had little or no history of work in Sri Lanka. The fact that PG05 were equipped with local knowledge soon marked them out, and they have been liasing with and recieving funding from better known NGO's since february known as the 'maverick' aid group among the development sector in Sri Lanka, the fact that PG05 has no political or religious ties or any of the problems associated with larger and better known NGO's has also helped them bypass a lot of red-tape and just get on with their projects.
As time goes on and the immediate urgency of the situation is alleviated somewhat, inevitably PG05 has run into more and more delays with local councils, new post tsunami planning laws and unsurance issues, to name but a few. Their reputation in the area remains largely unchanged, however the nearest beach town to Galle, Unawatuna, where most of the project's volunteers stay while working is evidence of how much can be achieved on a small scale by an organisation like Project Galle. Living there for over four weeks, it would have been impossible not to have heard of PG05 even had I not been working for them. From the tables and chairs made for the roti (tasty local snack) mans shop, to the coconut tree's planet along the beach, most of the locals know of and have something positive to say about the Galle Project even without the plastering of their name all over the place that some NGO's resort to. On one of my last days I ran into Mike who makes and sells necklaces on the beach, and is known amongst volunteers as a terrible practivle-joker. Grinning broadly he told me that Project Galle had given him vouchers to buy a new cart so that he can wheel his necklaces ( and books when he starts up his mobile library) along the beach. Just a small thing but a perfect example of why PRoject Galle is so well-loved in the area. It was a nice memory to take away with me when I left Galle.
I dont wish to suggest that PG05 is perfect, I know that some of the long term volunteers have become a little disillusioned about the effectiveness of aid in a country like Sri Lanka. However, the whole experience was a world away from my time as a volunteer in Mexico. The genuine enthusiasm and dedication buzzing round the project Galle office, as well the opportunity to work with locals, reassured me that it is possible to volunteer as an independent travller.
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