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Difference Maker

2 July 2015
Globe Aware
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Ian Tilling, a retired British policeman, went to Romania to help children in need. His nonprofit Casa Ioana is a place where women and children can go to feel safe and learn how to rebuild their lives. Ian was so inspired and pleased with the impact and success of his efforts, he never left Romania. Here is his story from the The Christian Science Monitor.

World People Making a Difference

By Kit Gillet, Correspondent

effa0a0f0a538262f96ed7a70b9a5634 LBucharest, Romania — It’s been a journey to Romania of a quarter-century-and-counting for Ian Tilling. During that time he has been instrumental in setting up long-term shelters in Bucharest, the capital, initially for orphans, later for the homeless, and later still for families suffering from domestic abuse.

Casa Ioana, which he founded 20 years ago, recently opened a second night shelter in Bucharest, where women and children can go to feel safe and start to rebuild their lives. The charity is also about to roll out a series of courses to help recovering women develop job skills.

“Without a job the chances of changing the situation [for these women] is quite remote. The only way out really is through employment,” says Mr. Tilling, sitting in the historic Old Town neighborhood in the heart of downtown Bucharest.
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Tilling, a retired police detective from England, first came to Romania after seeing disturbing televised images of institutionalized children that were broadcast around the world following the Romanian revolution in December 1989.

“My wife asked me if I had seen the pictures coming out of Romania, the awful images of children languishing in orphanages,” says Tilling, explaining his first glimpse of the country that would come to dominate his life.

Within six weeks he and a British nurse had gathered up supplies and were driving across Europe in a borrowed van filled with donated baby food, diapers, toys, and medicine. They ended up at an orphanage called Plataresti, a “hellhole 40 minutes drive outside Bucharest,” Tilling recalls.

At Plataresti, Tilling was asked to help with a group of twenty 7- to- 9-year-olds who lived together in one room. Their cots were lined up 10 on each wall “like a row of prison cells” and the children never left them, he says. Most were still being bottle fed. The smell was awful. Tilling was tasked with talking with the children and keeping them clean, neither an easy task.

“For the month I was working there I was numb,” he says. Yet during the drive back across the Continent to Britain he decided he must go back to Romania. A little while later he did return, this time with 298 other people and a convoy of 100 trucks with supplies.

At the time of his first visit Tilling had been coming to the end of a long police career and wondering what to do next.

“I joined the police at 16 as a cadet. It was all I knew,” he says. He was living in the south of England with his wife and four children. Then in 1991 his eldest son, just 19, died in a motorbike accident and Tilling’s life fell apart.

In 1992 he took early retirement and moved to Romania to run a British charity he had established to provide lifelong care to some of the children from Plataresti.

“Looking back I was clearly escaping the hurt I felt back home,” he says.

However, rather than helping to heal his pain the project proved to be a nightmare itself, with the Romanian government breaking promises and officials demanding bribes. He was left trying to manage a small apartment block in Ferentari, a district of Bucharest that was fast becoming a ghetto inhabited primarily by desperately poor Roma (commonly called Gypsy) families.

“It was all unraveling, and my personal demons were coming to the front, and I was having to deal with that, too,” Tilling says.

In the winter of 1994-95 he lived with 300 Roma families in a collection of dilapidated apartment buildings. To top it off his marriage was breaking up.

“It was the lowest point in my life, but I was fortunate in that I finished my grieving process,” he says today.

Near the end of that winter friends gathered to urge him to leave, even going so far as collecting money for his plane ticket. But he didn’t want to return to England defeated. Instead he regrouped, creating a new charity – a Romanian one – that would pick up where the British charity had left off.

Casa Ioana was born. Over the next few years it became a halfway house for formerly institutionalized young adults and a resource center that helped local organizations set up a school for children with profound disabilities, as well as a kindergarten for local Roma families.

In 1997 Tilling was approached by the mayor of Bucharest with a request to open a night shelter for homeless men, who had become a growing problem in the city. He eventually agreed after the mayor offered to supply a building to house the shelter.

It opened as an emergency shelter for homeless men. But after a few years Tilling noticed the large number of women who came looking for a place to stay together with their children.

Recognizing that the system was failing these families at a time when they needed to keep together he refocused his efforts. Today, Casa Ioana is the largest provider of temporary shelter for survivors of domestic abuse in Bucharest. “I do what I do out of a profound sense of justice,” he says. “I hate to see people suffering.”

Those who know Tilling say he works day and night. “He is a one-man tornado,” says Nigel Bell, a British expatriate businessman who volunteers his time and expertise to Casa Ioana. “He tries to do everything himself; it is absolutely personal to him.”

Despite having the title of president of Casa Ioana, Tilling is often found painting the walls or cleaning the toilets.

Women and children who arrive at the shelters are left alone for the first few weeks. When they are ready they sit down with members of his team, which includes psychologists working pro bono, to develop a plan for moving forward.

Families can stay for as long as a year but Tilling says the vast majority move on within six to eight months. The women get jobs and are able to afford their own places, he says.

Casa Ioana perpetually faces challenges of space and money. It has room for 20 families and nine single women; last year it had to turn away 200 families. “We simply didn’t have room,” Tilling says.

His charity has a budget of about $100,000 a year; 80 percent of its funding comes from private donors and 20 percent from the Romanian government. It employs six staff members. Tilling himself takes no salary and lives on his British pension.

“Ian keeps us together. He brings people in from outside, and he opens the right doors,” says Monica Breazu, one of the social workers employed at Casa Ioana.

Parts of Romania are very traditional, and domestic abuse is often swept under the rug. Women who break away from abusive relationships and end up at Casa Ioana are likely to have been almost completely reliant financially on their husbands.

“Many haven’t got high school diplomas, and without that they can’t access formal training,” Tilling says. “So we created the opportunity for them to return to school. We give them the equivalent of a minimum salary in order to study.” Casa Ioana is also developing a financial-literacy program and six other courses that cover what employers will be looking for from new hires.

Tilling’s journey has never been easy. In 1998 the first Casa Ioana was ransacked by outsiders; everything was stolen right down to the fixtures and electrical wiring. “There were many occasions when I was close to saying enough is enough,” he says. “I’ve invested so much of myself. The good thing was I literally had nothing to go back to, so that was a good incentive to persevere.”

In 2000 Tilling was honored with an MBE from Queen Elizabeth II, shortly after Prince Charles visited Casa Ioana. Two years later he was awarded Romania’s equivalent.

Tilling knows that eventually he’ll have to pass the responsibility for Casa Ioana along to someone else. But it appears that it isn’t going to be anytime soon.

How to take action

Universal Giving helps people give to and volunteer for top-performing charitable organizations around the world. All the projects are vetted by Universal Giving; 100 percent of each donation goes directly to the listed cause. Below are links to groups that help children worldwide:

  • Globe Aware helps people and communities prosper without becoming dependent on outside aid. Take action: Volunteer to work helping the underprivileged in Romania.
  • Eastern Congo Initiative works with the people of eastern Congo, where local, community-based approaches are creating a sustainable society. Take action: Support access to education for girls in eastern Congo.
  • Half the Sky Foundation enriches the lives of orphans in China, offering loving, family-like care. Every orphaned child should have a caring adult in his or her life. Take action: Help a teen in Half the Sky’s youth services program.

 

Self

Battling Thailand’s illegal dog meat trade

29 January 2015
Globe Aware
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Categories: Globe Aware news

Every year tens of thousands of dogs are inhumanely transported from Thailand to neighboring countries where they are butchered for their meat. The Soi Dog Foundation and the Thai government are actively working to end this brutal and cruel practice. This story by by correspondent Tibor Krausz in The Christian Science Monitor relates the work of a retired British couple to put an end to the practice. The author also acknowledges the work done by Globe Aware volunteers to help Thai elephants.

John and Gill Dalley battle Thailand’s illegal dog meat trade

The British couple moved to Thailand to retire. But when they learned of the illegal capture and torture of dogs, their plans changed.

Buriram Province, Thailand ' You hear them before you see them. From inside seven well-equipped enclosures at an animal sanctuary within a remote forest in rural Buriram Province comes a canine cacophony of barks, woofs, and yelps. The spacious runs are home to some 1,500 dogs " young and old; big and small; white, tan, brown, spotted, blotched, dappled, and black. They loll in the shade, bicker over chew toys, or leap about, tails wagging, as visitors approach.

volunteer vacation ThailandUntil recently a terrible fate awaited all these dogs: They were destined for dinner tables. In Thailand' s clandestine dog meat trade countless dogs " pets and strays alike " have been seized from streets and outside homes by criminal gangs that cater to vendors and restaurants selling canine meat from Thailand to Vietnam.

John Dalley will have none of that. The retired chemical engineer from Leeds, England, and his wife, Gill, a former bank employee, set up the Soi Dog Foundation in 2003 on the tropical island of Phuket in southern Thailand, where the couple had just relocated for their retirement.   
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"We had a dog back home, but I wasn' t particularly involved with animal rights," recalls Mr. Dalley, a lanky, cordial man. "But you see these dogs [in Thailand] suffer, and you want to do something to help them."
Difference Maker 6 organizations that protect animal rights
Photos of the Day Photos of the Day 02/05

So they do. The animals here owe their lives to the Dalleys. Their charity has built a canine shelter with treatment and adoption areas. It pays for its operating costs through donations from Soi Dog' s global network of supporters.

The nonprofit has helped rescue thousands of dogs from being slaughtered. In the northeastern province of Sakon Nakhon, a hot spot for the underground dog meat trade, Soi Dog pays rewards to locals for tips on dog thieves and works with local police in arresting them.

The charity also has its own task force, which has intercepted dozens of trucks with cargoes of stolen dogs bound for Vietnam' s booming canine meat markets. The unit has also uncovered illegal butchers, tanneries, and holding centers, shutting them down and freeing scores of dogs.

According to the Thai Veterinary Medical Association, half a million Thai dogs were smuggled to Vietnam and China in 2011. Today the number is no more than one-third of that.

"The numbers are down. We' re winning," Dalley says. "But we have a long way to go yet."

To evade capture, the criminal gangs have changed their tactics. They used to transport dogs on torturous journeys across borders in cramped poultry cages without food or water, or hidden in sacks under their trucks' false floors. Not anymore.

"With the last two trucks we' ve caught, all the dogs had already been butchered with their meat placed in iceboxes," laments Varaporn Jittanonta, a nurse who works as Soi Dog' s relief coordinator. She' s standing beside kennels of young rescuees earmarked for adoption. Recently, four dogs from Buriram " easygoing Malt, bouncy Midnight, mischievous Sam, and affectionate Paige " were taken for adoption in the United States by the Virginia-based A Forever Home Rescue Foundation.

Yet successes in some areas come with setbacks in others. The drive spearheaded by Soi Dog to curb the cross-border dog meat trade has driven up demand for live dogs in Vietnam where thieves, often armed, scour villages and towns for unguarded pets.

"Dog thieves like to target pets because, unlike strays, they' re friendly and approachable," Dalley notes. "Pets also command better prices [at meat markets] because they' re healthy and well fed."  

In areas where dog meat is considered a delicacy, such as Thailand' s Sakon Nakhon Province and Hanoi, Vietnam, curbside food stalls sell roasted dogs and entire eateries specialize in dog meat dishes. The animals' skins often end up being used in leather goods, including golf gloves exported to the West.

"There are a lot of weird beliefs about dog meat," Dalley observes. "In Vietnam people like to eat it in winter because they consider it a warming dish. In [South] Korea they eat it in summer because they see it as a cooling dish. In Cambodia some men believe they gain virility from eating black dogs."

In Sakon Nakhon, a kilo (2.2 pounds) of dog meat jerky costs about 300 baht ($9) " the daily wages of a laborer. "It' s a luxury food," the Englishman notes.

"I abhor this trade because of the shocking cruelty involved in it," he says. No effort is made to ensure humane treatment of dogs before slaughter. In fact, the killing methods used can be intentionally brutal " still-conscious animals are often beaten or burned. Some in the trade believe the release of adrenalin in a frightened animal enhances the flavor of dog meat.

Recently, comedian Ricky Gervais, actress Judi Dench, and other British celebrities joined Soi Dog' s petition against Thailand' s "dark secret," endorsing the animal charity' s campaign in an online viral video. The move helped to put pressure on Thai lawmakers, whom Dalley has long been lobbying for more stringent animal welfare laws " or rather, for any meaningful legislation at all. Until recently, people who abused or maltreated animals faced only a small fine (the equivalent of $30).   

Then last December, after consultation with him and other animal rights advocates, Thailand' s parliament finally passed the country' s first Animal Welfare Bill, which has increased penalties to a maximum of two years in prison and 40,000 baht (around $1,200) in fines.

Yet for Dalley the new law has been a Pyrrhic victory: Despite his advice, Thai lawmakers failed to ban the slaughter of non-livestock animals for their meat and skin. "The only way to measure a law' s effectiveness is to see how it affects the level of crime it' s meant to stop," he says diplomatically. "We' ll see."

But it isn' t just dogs threatened by meat traders that need the Dalleys' help; many others do, too. Soi Dog provides emergency and veterinary care for abandoned pets and feeds hundreds of strays on the streets and at Buddhist temples.

The Dalleys also run a shelter and adoption center for some 400 dogs on their tourist island. Most arrive malnourished and diseased. Thanks to round-the-clock care from several veterinarians, dozens of other paid staff, and volunteers, hundreds of neglected and discarded dogs have made remarkable recoveries.

The couple also has had to overcome pain and sorrow. In October 2004, a stray dog, groggy from being tranquilized for a neutering procedure, fled into a boggy water buffalo field. To save him from drowning, Ms. Dalley waded in after him. Within days, however, she developed a serious bacterial infection. Eventually both her legs were amputated below the knee.

Then on Dec. 26 that same year a devastating Indian Ocean tsunami ravaged much of Phuket, claiming the life, among thousands of others, of a close friend of Gill' s who had been helping her save dogs.

"I went into shock for 24 hours," she recalls. A day later, though, using a wheelchair, she was out and about in the island' s worst-affected area helping counsel relatives of victims and tending to displaced dogs languishing without food and shelter.

She now uses prostheses to get around.

"As I was learning to walk again, I thought of the dogs that still needed my help," Gill says. "Pure joy for me is changing an animal' s life."

Her husband isn' t slowing down, either.

"I was going to spend my retirement in Thailand playing golf and diving," John says. "Instead, in all my time here I' ve gone diving once and never swung a club. But one thing I want to do before I die is to end the dog meat trade."

How to take action

Universal Giving helps people give to and volunteer for top-performing charitable organizations around the world. All the projects are vetted by Universal Giving; 100 percent of each donation goes directly to the listed cause. Below are links to the Soi Dog Foundation and Globe Aware, two organizations that protect animals in Thailand:

  • The mission of the Soi Dog Foundation is to improve the welfare of dogs and cats in Thailand, resulting in better lives for both the animal and human communities. Take action: Here are three Soi Dog Foundation programs seeking help. Support efforts to rescue dogs from the dog meat trade. Volunteer to help street dogs and cats. Donate $30 to give a stray animal medical treatment.
  • Globe Aware promotes sustainability, helping communities prosper without relying on outside aid. Take action: Volunteer to help elephants in Thailand.

The Christian Science Monitor

Why You Should Travel with Your Kids

1 December 2014
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Categories: Globe Aware news

Downoad Article

Travel abroad with young children? Are you NUTS? All the crying, nagging, and the money!! They won' t even remember it.

Why on EARTH would I do that to myself? What will they eat over there? Fried monkey eyeballs? No thanks! I get these responses all the time. I have been traveling with my children since they were infants all over the world. — all over Southeast Asia, Latin America, Europe, Russia, China, Africa.

Here are my two cents. First: young children are often more portable than older children. They still think you know something and they actually want to be with you. Second, until age 2, they can ride in your lap for usually 10% of the cost of a normal ticket. Third: with all the ipads/iphones electronic gadgets, keeping them happy with videos, games and more is much easier today on a plane than it was even 10 years ago. Fourth: You’re right, they may not remember all of it, but YOU will. Are •your* memories worth anything? Life is short, you never know what could happen. Take the chance while you can. Additionally you’d be surprised what they *do* absorb. Young globetrotters don’t take for granted what Perreault Magazine – 80 – language, music, dress or food is the norm.

perraultThey pick up on languages much faster than you do. Their palate is developing: at this stage and their capacity for learning, of course, is fertile.

Fifth: Interestingly they have fresh fruit, veggies, rice, and chicken, freshly prepared and usually not processed all over the world. Sixth: Traveling with a child is the greatest ice breaker there ever was. With the exception of a few Western Countries, most countries view children as a loveable, non-political human with whom to interact rather than as an irritant. Many more people will stop to talk with you simply because you have a child with you. Not too different in some ways than walking a puppy in the park.

Safety: I know some are worried that to travel with a young human is to dangle bait in front of human traffickers. But it' s all about common sense and where you go.

This topic deserves a whole chapter, but the sum of it is, staying safe abroad is usually not much more complicated than staying at home, it just takes knowing the danger zones. Seventh: because you will love it. Seeing your kids react to roaring lions on safari, or learning the joys of giving while building an adobe stove in Peru, or seeing food delivered by mini trains at Japanese restaurants in Tokyo is quadruple the fun. Bon Voyage! JOURNEYS 4 GOOD: CAMBODIA Journeys for Good is an original television series about transformative travel which inspires and uplifts. Each episode profiles a group of voluntourists, who travel the world to make a difference and reach across cultures to connect in a meaningful way. They go far beyond the tourist track to experience the heart and soul of a place, as was the case in 2012 when Journeys for Good traveled to Cambodia.

Voluntourism combines the adventure of travel with the purity of true charitable work.

Emmy award winning husband and wife production team Joanie and Steve Wynn have traveled the world together, producing stories that touch the heart.

Their mission is simple- they believe that engaging in a service project working alongside locals creates a unique opportunity for understanding and exchange, that volunteer traveler helps young people develop self-confidence, empathy and leadership skills, and that by sharing in sweat equity a deeper connection is forged between the volunteers and the communities visited.

Inspired by an earlier visit to Tanzania, the Wynn' s decided to develop Journeys for Good as a vehicle to spread the message of the importance of volunteer travel and to focus awareness on important underlying humanitarian issues and challenges facing communities globally.

In 2012, the Wynns embarked on another volunteer trip with their son Ryan. This Journey took them to Cambodia with the non-profit volunteer operator Globe Aware (www.globeaware.org). On this journey, the Wynns and a group of dedicated volunteers built wheelchairs for landmine victims, taught English to local school kids and worked on several short-term construction projects.

The result “Journeys for Good: “CAMBODIA” is the pilot for a series that the Wynns are currently developing for public television. After its original airing in 2013, the film garnered two regional Emmy awards, including best cultural/ historical program. Journeys for Good celebrates the everyday heroes who connect to the world in a meaningful way through voluntourism.

View half hour program on Vimeo HERE

 

Perreault Magazine

Volunteers share hearts, experience

7 April 2014
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A former school principal and business executive look abroad for adventure and volunteer opportunities. They find their calling overseas working with communities in Africa and Eastern Europe:

LI volunteers share their hearts, experience abroad

Published: April 4, 2014 8:56 AM
By CARA S. TRAGER  Special to Newsday

For Helen Boxwill, it was as simple as this: Retire? YES. Rest and relax? NO!
So, in 2003, after a 23-year career in education, including three years as principal of Southdown Primary School in Huntington, Boxwill answered an ad for volunteer teachers in Africa. Nine months later, Boxwill landed in a remote Ethiopian village called Hosanna. It has since become her home away from home, she said.
Boxwill, 68, a divorced Huntington Station resident with three grown children, returns at least once a year, staying three weeks to 12 months, while pursuing different projects. During her time there, she said, she has developed a community library in Hosanna; expanded and refurbished a school in Tetema, a community 25 miles from Hosanna; and instructed college faculty on training new teachers. h2Empower, a nonprofit she established in 2006, provides financial contributions for her projects, and Long Islanders, including schoolchildren and her church’s members, have supplied books and other materials.
“I have found my purpose in life,” said Boxwill during a Skype interview from Ethiopia. “Everything I’ve learned or done professionally, I can apply in a place where my experience can make a difference.”
For some Long Islanders, retirement, sabbaticals or vacations are an opportunity to volunteer, pursue an interest or travel to distant lands. Some manage to accomplish all three by volunteering overseas. “It gives you the advantage of seeing a new culture and new ways of living and looking at the world and an appreciation that the grass is not greener on the other side or, if it is, it can give a new sense of purpose,” said Jaye Smith, 59, a Sag Harbor executive coach and author of “Reboot Your Life: Energize Your Career & Life by Taking a Break.”

More boomers volunteer

There are no hard statistics on how many boomers volunteer abroad, but the 50-plus crowd has represented a steadily increasing percentage of Peace Corps volunteers since 2006, according to spokeswoman Elizabeth Chamberlain. Currently, 8 percent, or 577, of its 7,209 volunteers are 50 or older.
With many retired from teaching or running a business or nonprofit, the corps’ older volunteers know how to work with groups and motivate the local population to ensure a project’s continuity, Chamberlain said. And because the organization typically places volunteers in areas where the culture venerates elders, their age is an asset, too, she said.
But volunteering can be challenging, experts said. In underdeveloped regions and non-Western countries where volunteers often serve, Internet service can be sporadic and local cuisines may not be compatible with the average gastrointestinal system. In addition, certain prescription medications may not be available, and top-notch medical care may be difficult, if not impossible, to find, experts said.
Volunteering overseas also means acclimating to new environments. For instance, in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, where few traffic lights exist, Boxwill said she follows other pedestrians when crossing a street, and during rush hour traffic jams, she forgoes public transportation and walks everywhere.
For the adventuresome and altruistic, though, overseas opportunities abound. A Google search for “overseas volunteering opportunities” will generate a lengthy list of nonprofits with programs abroad. The Peace Corps, which generally requires a 27-month commitment, offers assignments in 40 countries, such as teaching English in China. Globe Aware, a nonprofit that develops short-term, international volunteer programs, has projects in 17 countries, including Cambodia, where volunteers assemble and distribute wheelchairs to land mine victims, an official said. Project HOPE has been sending health care professionals throughout the globe to provide medical assistance since 1958, according to its website.
Agency policies differ regarding program duration and who picks up the tab for transportation overseas, daily lodging and meals. For example, Globe Aware’s tax-deductible program fee, which covers food, accommodations, medical care and a bilingual coordinator, costs each volunteer $1,100 to $1,500, depending on the project, a spokesman said.
Given the commitment that overseas projects often require, Smith suggested that potential volunteers test the waters by participating first in the efforts of a local nonprofit involved with international programs. The local experience can help volunteers become confident and comfortable working with the population the organization serves and determine whether they can add value to its overseas work, she said.

Back to Kenya

Since 2005, Kenyan-born Anne and George Mungai, who live in Baldwin, have volunteered annually for one month in an orphanage and school they founded in Wangige, a suburb about 16 miles from Nairobi. The Caroline Wambui Mungai Children’s Home pays tribute to their daughter, who died nine years ago of lupus. Caroline, then 25, was pursuing a master’s degree in early childhood education and had envisioned starting a school for Kenyan children in need.
“We lost our daughter and gained 40 children,” said Anne Mungai, 60. “We are carrying on her dream.” Both parents have doctorates. She is chairwoman of the Curriculum and Instruction Department and director of the Special Education Graduate Program at Adelphi’s Ruth S. Ammon School of Education. George, who is 63, teaches math at a Brooklyn high school.
They started the children’s home by donating a four-bedroom house and 31/2 acres they inherited. The site now encompasses nine buildings, including classrooms, dormitories and a dining hall. George designs the classrooms and supervises the construction, keeping track of their progress through photos that are emailed to him.
“We are rescuing these children from poverty to destiny, which is our motto, and we want them to be independent and stand on their own,” said George. “And that’s what the kids want, too.”
With three daughters, all in their 30s, accompanying them to the orphanage, the Mungais work in the kitchen, read to the children and take them to the doctor, pitching in wherever they are needed.
“If they need a hug, I give them a hug,” Anne said.
“I feel so gratified and so fulfilled that we are living my daughter’s legacy, multiplied many times over,” George said. “It’s not just what we are doing for one generation, but I believe the children will give back.”
Along with organizing fundraisers, receiving financial support from Adelphi students, alumni and her colleagues, many of whom have volunteered at the home, the Mungais contribute part of their salaries to the Caroline Wambui Mungai Foundation, which sustains the facility.
“When I go to the orphanage, I think I am going to help, but the children help balance me to see what’s important in life,” said Anne. “When we see the children in good health and the love they feel, it gives us joy.”

Philanthropy and photography

Volunteering has allowed Hollis Rafkin-Sax, 58, to channel a passion for travel overseas and photography into a philanthropic endeavor.
In 2008, Rafkin-Sax left the global crisis communications company she helped build. After enrolling at the International Center of Photography in New York City, she completed the yearlong general Studies degree program in 2010. Since then, she has participated in humanitarian missions with various organizations. On each trip, she has gone beyond the group’s activities, taking photos and providing them at no charge to the nonprofits to use in printed materials and websites.
“I have always loved photography and wanted to use it in a way I could give back,” said Rafkin-Sax, who is married with two grown sons and has homes in Sag Harbor and Larchmont.
In 2012, she spent two weeks in Bosnia, courtesy of a mission organized by the nonprofit Women’s World Banking. While there, she took photos and shared her marketing experience with young women entrepreneurs.
And as a participant in a one-year fellowship last year under the aegis of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, an international social service agency, Rafkin-Sax delivered food staples and medicines to the homes of impoverished, elderly men and women in the Ukraine and Hungary. The fellowship also involved a mission to Haiti, where she advised student leaders on entrepreneurship.
Wherever she has lent a hand, Rafkin-Sax said, she has not only been moved by the people she helped but also by other volunteers.
The committee “changed my whole way of thinking about the world and who the unsung heroes are,” she said. “You go to disaster places, like Haiti, and you see people who have given up their relatively comfortable lives because they want to help, and that’s hugely impressive.”

GO IN WITH YOUR EYES OPEN

Think you might be interested in volunteering overseas? Here are experts’ tips for a positive experience.

  • Learn about the destination and its year-round climate, which could include drought and rainy seasons, as well as scorching temperatures, by contacting former volunteers and by researching online.
  • Visit a doctor specializing in travel medicine for vaccinations, medications and health-care advice.
  • Review the U.S. State Department’s website for travel alerts and warnings about your destination.
  • Don’t bring expensive or flashy jewelry.
  • Limit how much cash you carry each day.
  • Follow the local dress and etiquette code.
  • Only drink bottled water.
  • Keep travel documents in a safe place.
  • Be open to different people and a different culture.

Long Island Newsday

Making A Difference: The World of Giving — Voluntour and Do-Good Vacations

27 June 2011
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Categories: Globe Aware news

Globe Aware was featured in a June article written by Lisa M. Dietlin, CEO of Lisa M. Dietlin and Associates, Inc., philanthropic advisor, author, for the Huffington Post.

Enjoy:
Making A Difference: The World of Giving — Voluntour and Do-Good Vacations
Posted: 06/ 7/11 01:12 PM ET
It’s summertime and many of us are thinking about our vacation plans. With gas prices still rising and travel becoming even more challenging, I recommend considering a Voluntour Vacation or a Do-Good Vacation.
Voluntour vacations or do-good vacations are fast becoming a popular way to plan your excursions and volunteer. Though Americans volunteer in large numbers annually, using a vacation into a volunteer opportunity is a new phenomenon that, surprising to many, is are often tax-deductible.
Here are some reasons to consider voluntouring on your next vacation:
Voluntouring is rapidly gaining popularity. Some studies indicate that as many as half of the people living in the United States intend to take a volunteer vacation at some point in the future.
Voluntouring is thought of as a “mini-stint” in the Peace Corps — you will be working with a community and its residents side by side. It is a unique way to give back.
A voluntour vacation is about helping and learning both in terms of aid, and cultural experiences. Most voluntours are taking place in Third World and developing countries such as Peru, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Morocco, Romania, Russia, Nepal, South Africa, Thailand, or Vietnam.
Remember it is very important, if you plan on doing this, to consider ways to respect and connect with the communities and people you are trying to help.
Your experience can last from 1 to 12 weeks.
Alternatively, Do-Good Vacations are money raising adventures combined with European vacations to Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Scotland and Spain and include nights in historic castles and visits to lesser-known areas. Do-Good Vacations are about traveling to a distant land, working with a nonprofit outfitter to raise money for a cause — unlike voluntouring you will not be working with the local community and its residents.
You can start by finding a reputable organization that works in the area in which you want to explore. Here are a few for a voluntour vacation:
  • Cross-Cultural Solutions was founded in 1995 and has an outstanding reputation. Their tag states:
  • “Volunteer Abroad – work side-by-side with local people and experience another culture like never before. It’s the experience of a lifetime.”
  • They work with over 4000 volunteers annually, have a staff of more than 300, and work in 12 countries.
Globe Aware, which started volunteer missions in 2000 but has been working in this area since 1993, provides short term weeklong adventures in service, focused on cultural awareness and sustainability. Their tag line is:
“Have Fun. Help People.”
Their website states:
  • All costs including air fare are tax deductible
  • You need no special skills nor do you need to speak a foreign language.
  • People can go solo or with families such as multi generational trips.
  • Enjoy befriending people in new and interesting countries and experience the reward of helping them on meaningful community projects.
  • Promote cultural awareness and promote sustainability; cultural awareness means recognizing the beauty and challenges of a culture, but not changing it; sustainability is the idea of helping others to stand on their own two feet; teaching skills rather than reliance.
According to USA Today, Global Volunteers is the:
“granddaddy of the volunteer vacation movement”.
Their tag line is:
“travel that feeds the soul”
Founded in 1984 and facilitated more than 22,000 volunteers on six continents.
You can teach conversational English, care for at risk children, paint, build and repair buildings, provide health care services, work with young children including infants and toddlers as well as teens, adults and elders.
Families, students, solo travelers, Baby Boomers and groups are the types of people that participate.
You can have an experience in Europe, North America, South America, Central America, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.
For Do-Good Vacations, consider these:
  • For a Cause’s mission is to energize and inspire people to make a difference in the lives of those affected by HIV/AIDS and Breast Cancer so that no one faces these battles alone.
  • The World Bank runs a program called Stay Another Day that directs tourists via a website and booklets to pre-evaluated activities that benefit the local community. For instance, vacationers can tour an orphanage in Cambodia, playing with the children and, if they wish, purchase goods such as the silk products the locals have made. The visit is free, but tourists are asked to make a donation.
Here are five recommendations and tips on easy ways to Make A Difference (M.A.D.):
  1. Find the best organization that matches your passion and has a long standing commitment to that area.
  2. Select a trip that suits your abilities and interests.
  3. Speak with volunteers who have been on the excursion before.
  4. If traveling to a non-English speaking country, try to learn the language or at least some phrases; even though it is not required, it is a great way to begin getting prepared.
  5. Research local customs and mores, but recognize that reality can be different from what you read in a book or online.
Bonus Tips: Expect none of the comforts of home. In other words, you will be “roughing it” so go with an open mind and see how your heart is transformed. It can be the vacation of a lifetime!
By taking a voluntour or do-good vacation, here are some benefits to you:
  • You know you will be making a difference through your efforts.
  • Studies show that volunteering adds years and health to your life.
  • You will be traveling to places with unique cultures and in some instances, especially with voluntouring, you become immersed in the culture and community.
  • Your trip could be tax deductible.
  • You will make lifelong friends!
Doing something for someone else always adds value to our life! Consider adding a voluntour or do-good component to your next vacation! You just be might surprised at how vacationing can lead to making a difference! Are you M.A.D. today?
 

International Herald Tribune features Globe Aware

27 June 2011
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Globe Aware was featured in a June, 2011 spotlight in the International Herald Tribune:

For students longing to take time off before starting college or university or working people who would like a complete change from their daily occupation, taking a " " gap year' ' can be a rewarding, lifechanging experience, especially if the time is spent volunteering.
Teaching English, for example, is a huge help in poor communities in Asia and requires little training. Other projects may include sports coaching, community building projects and working with handicapped children.
According to studies by such leading universities as Harvard, students who take a year off before college are more focused and motivated when they begin their studies than those who don' t.
Globe Aware, a nonprofit organization based in Texas, organizes volunteer programs around the world.
" " Gap-year volunteering broadens horizons, strengthens résumés and brings the kind of perspective that can change lives,' ' says Catherine Greenberg, its vice president of volunteer communications. " " Kids who volunteer internationally realize how fortunate they are and gain insight into what' s truly important in life ' not money or greed or luxury items, but community, compassion and hard work.' ' Each project aims to promote cultural awareness and/or sustainability. Cultural awareness, explain the organizers, means learning to appreciate a culture but not changing it.
" " By promoting volunteerism,' ' says Greenberg, " " we' re promoting active civic engagement in disadvantaged communities in an exciting and different way.' ' Combining travel with volunteering has become popular enough that a conference on " " voluntourism' ' will be held June 28 in Denver, Colorado.
" " This is the first time there has been a conference held that focuses solely on voluntourism,' ' says its organizer, Alexia Nestora.
Subject matter for the conference will include the economic impact of voluntourism, how it has evolved and how to create sustainable projects, as well as industry sessions on subjects such as the marketing of volunteer travel.
Nestora is a consultant on the industry Though the company is American, Asian students participate, too.
WLS International is a London-based organizer of volunteer-abroad projects that focuses on Asia, specifically Cambodia, China, Nepal, India, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Volunteering abroad, says the company, is a way to make travel meaningful and have a simple, affordable vacation. Many of its projects attract those taking a gap year.
Ben Mattress, a young volunteer from Australia, says his weeklong project teaching English to young children in Siem Reap, Cambodia, was a life-changing experience.
The children are " " so happy and eager to learn, and very smart,' ' says Mattress, adding that he is eager to volunteer there again. An added benefit of this project is its location at the gateway to the ancient Angkor Wat temple complex, a Unesco World Heritage site.
Young people may spend several weeks or months abroad, but will certainly return with experiences that will last a lifetime.
Says Greenberg of Global Aware: " " If our local young people can benefit from this experience, it' s one vital step toward reshaping our culture to be more green, more responsible and more caring.' ' and writes the blog Voluntourism Gal. She says that the industry has been very competitive and that conference participants " " are showing their willingness to move into an era of cooperation that can only better serve the sometimes-at-risk and always needy populations where our collective projects are concentrated.' ' In Globe Aware' s Laos program, volunteers have the opportunity to work with orphans and schoolchildren in Luang Prabang.
In a weeklong program, participants work with local monks and perform such tasks as teaching English, assembling wheelchairs from recycled parts and distributing them to the needy, distributing books and helping to repair schools. There is also free time to visit the temples, Buddhist caves and waterfalls of this charming Unesco World Heritage site.
Adventures Cross-Country, a Californiabased youth-travel company, has been leading volunteer programs for gap-year students for nearly 30 years. Its Asia Gap Semester, for example, takes students to China, Thailand and Tibet, and includes such activities as helping mahouts and biologists rehabilitate elephants at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang, and teaching English to Chinese and Thai students, some of whom have never met Westerners.
 

Spring Break a Chance to Give Back

24 February 2011
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Toronto-based freelance journalist Aaron Broverman examines how volunteer vacation opportunities are helping redefine how we view Spring Break.

Spring Break a Chance to Give Back

 
By Aaron Broverman
 

Thanks to Joe Francis and movies like The Real Cancun, when people think of Spring Break it’s all about beer, beaches and breasts, but what if it could be about something more?

 
If you’re not into the typical college vacation scene, the break provides an excellent opportunity to give back, lend a hand and ‘Be the change.’
 
Volunteering abroad can be an excellent way to make a lasting contribution to an under privileged community, while still kicking it in the sun and sand of exotic locales. Below are just a few of the destinations with a social conscience you may find yourself in during your week away from school.
 
Start with Your School
 
Alternative Spring Break [ASB] is a matter of course in the U.S., with close to every college and university offering some kind of international and community exchange program with the focus on lending assistance to communities in need.
 
Universities in Canada, particularly those in Ontario, such as Carelton, Ryerson and the University of Western Ontario also offer great opportunities. There are also programs offered from Concordia and the University of Winnipeg. Whether it be within the local community or at destinations abroad, the ASB projects change every year.
 
In 2011, Ryerson students are building a school, teaching students and feeding the homeless in Columbia. Carelton has decided to aid both the local Ottawa community and organizations in Mexico and Guatamala focused on poverty and homelessness. Concordia will be teaching at orphanages in Peru and the Dominican Republic, building houses with Habitat for Huminanity in Louisiana and stocking food banks at home in Montreal. The University of Western Ontario offers the most varied number of locations, including initiatives in Costa Rica, London, ON., Winnipeg, Peru, Dominican Republic, Louisiana and Nicaragua. The University of Manitoba is partnering with the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba (IRCOM) to help refugees and new immigrants.
 
All of these programs run during Reading Week in the last week of February at varying costs from $200 to $800 for the trips within North America and $1,500 to $3,000 for the international trips. These fees cover meals, accommodations and flights. But if you cannot afford them, don’t worry. Financial assistance is available with every ASB project. Also, most of these schools offer a second program in the summer, so if you miss your opportunity during spring break, you can apply for the summer program.
 
Eligibility requirements vary between each university, but for all of them you must be a student of the schools running the program and students who have already been on the trip are ineligible for a return. However, they can apply for leadership positions on their trip.
 
Organizations Offering Opportunities
 
Though the Alternative Spring Break movement is primarily an American one with organizations like Break Away hosting trips with schools exclusively in the U.S. Other non-profits like Free the Children and travel agencies like Globe Aware specialize in volunteer vacations abroad all year. One could simply schedule a trip near their Spring Break respite.
 
Global Aware destinations include countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, The Caribbean and Eastern Europe, with trips leaving from February to December. They come at a varying cost between $1140 and $2100 U.S. and could be booked by parties of any number — though groups of ten or more from corporate offices, to schools and others, receive a discount.
 
Though travelers pay for their week-long vacations, Globe Aware’s status as a non-profit organization means the cost of their vacation is a tax deduction. 12% of your expenses go to administrative costs and overhead, while the rest goes to meals, accommodation, on-site travel, donations to the various community projects, your orientation package, volunteer coordination, program development, country manager expenses, community team recruitment, logistical support, medical emergency evacuation, medical insurance and project consultants. Airfare is not covered and is an additional expense. However, Globe Aware will help with finding flights.
 
Free the Children offers Me to We volunteer vacations for those wanting to give back during the summer in places like Kenya, China, Ecuador, India and along the Arizona-Mexican border.
 
Trips are available for adults, families, youth and school groups for prices among $2400 and $4995. This covers flight, accommodation, meals, transportation and the cost of the program itself. Free the Children also offers a Joe’s Dream scholarship, named for Joe Opatowski — a former trip leader who was killed in a car accident in 2001, for those young people who don’t have the financial means for the trip.
 
Beyond these organizations, you can always turn to religion for opportunities to give back through missionary work. Many churches and individuals choose Habitat for Humanity on one of their many builds around the world. Most build trips cost $1,650 for airfare and the rest of the living essentials and insurance, plus another $1,200 for what is known as R&R. These are the cultural activities and tourism that fit between the build days. Only the build – half of the trip cost actually gets a tax receipt — the rest is just a vacation.

The rise of volunteer tourism: Globe Aware featured in global edition of the New York Times

21 October 2010
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On Friday, September 17, 2010, Globe Aware was featured in the global edition of the New York Times. Below is the article, including an interview with Catherine McMillan, Globe Aware' s vice president of volunteer communications.

The rise of volunteer tourism: Travelers help out while having fun

In today' s interconnected world, being environmentally responsible has evolved from fringe advocacy to mainstream behavior. Many travelers are also more aware of helping those less fortunate than themselves.

One emerging trend is volunteer tourism, or voluntourism, as it is known. Altruistic visitors partake in such projects as helping in orphanages or schools, teaching English or doing repairs and working on community projects.

According to the International Ecotourism Society, voluntourism is taking shape as one of the fastest-growing markets in tourism today.

Globe Aware, a nonprofit organization based in Texas, organizes volunteer programs all over the world. " " Our mission is twofold ' to promote sustainability through volunteer work projects and to promote cultural understanding,' ' explains Catherine McMillan, Globe Aware' s vice president of volunteer communications. The organization specializes in connecting short-term volunteers with communities that have a variety of needs.

" " It isn' t just work,' ' she says. " " As we say here, " Have fun and help people.' ' ' This type of travel is very different from the normal tourist experience, adds McMillan. " " You get a much deeper, nuanced experience of the culture of the place you are visiting,' ' she points out. " " You create real relationships with the locals.' ' Volunteers experience both the beauties and the challenges that local people face, she adds. In Cambodia, for example, Globe Aware projects range from working with schools and Buddhist monasteries to building and distributing wheelchairs to land-mine victims.

One volunteer, who came to Globe Aware through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, had a condition in which he lost control of the movement in his legs. " " He had experimental surgery and regained mobility, but his wish was to help give the gift of mobility to others,' ' says McMillan. " " He went with his parents to Cambodia last year and built wheelchairs.' ' The 2010 Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference, held Sept. 8-10 in Portland, Oregon, featured Bruce Poon Tip as keynote speaker.

Poon Tip is the founder of Gap Adventures, an adventure travel company that promotes sustainable tourism. " " We love changing people' s lives through travel,' ' said Poon Tip, " " and ESTC is a perfect forum to help us advance that goal.' ' He explains that the company has proven through initiatives like its voluntourism projects that sustainability and travel needn' t be mutually exclusive.

Smart travel that respects local ecosystems, economies and communities not only provides a more exciting experience for travelers, but also is simply the right thing to do, says Poon Tip.

Hong Kong-based Kit Sinclair, an occupational therapist and ambassador for the World Federation of Occupational Therapists, frequently offers her expertise when she travels. " " When I visit a city, I often offer to provide lectures, meet with students, visit hospitals or clinics, and discuss with staff about their work and their patients,' ' says Sinclair, who has done this throughout China and other parts of Asia.

While visiting Chiang Mai in Thailand a few years ago, Sinclair had a memorable adventure, " " eating a local dish of worms/larvae at a roadside restaurant, heading into the hills for the most fantastic massage at a local hot springs and enjoying the company of local health care professionals, learning their culture, understanding their concerns and having a great time.' ' Another volunteer tourism organization, with offices in Bangkok and Luang Prabang, North by North-East Travel, specializes in trips to Southeast Asia. The company says it " " provides meaningful volunteer work by aiming to empower communities through the transfer of vocational skills and leadership abilities, so they can benefit directly from tourism.' ' North by North-East has facilitated a number of projects in both Thailand and Laos, from educational ones to providing tsunami relief. Responsible tourism, it says, is not imposing one' s culture on others or conforming totally to a local culture. It is about a respectful and equal exchange of values.

Before jumping on the voluntourism bandwagon, says Globe Aware' s McMillan, travelers should make sure that the organization they are working with is legitimate and that they understand how donations are used for the benefit of the community.

" " Just handing out funds creates dependency, and you don' t want to do that,' ' McMillan points out. " " Potential volunteers should be able to ask for references from past volunteer participants.' ' For Sinclair, the occupational therapist, the rewards of service " " are in increased knowledge of the region and its health care needs, in sharing global perspectives with my local counterparts and in getting to know some really fantastic people.' '

 

USAToday: Finding the Right Volunteer Vacation

19 August 2010
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Anne Wallace Allen, a reporter with The Associated Press, considers the motivating factors that leads Americans to take volunteer vacations. Allen considers the life and professional experience of a number of volunteer vacationers and how these individuals want more out of a vacation – and life – than a standard day on the beach and an extended period of downtime.  Allen also spoke with Globe Aware client Pam Solon who explains she selected Globe Aware “because it was nondenominational; offered destinations the family wanted; accommodated kids; and was the right price.”

How to find the right volunteer vacation

By Anne Wallace Allen, For The Associated Press

Kathy Boisvert, who teaches preschoolers with special needs near her home in Massachusetts, had never been overseas before she signed up with World Teach, a nonprofit organization that matches volunteer teachers with overseas assignments.

Now Boisvert is spending her third summer at a tiny school in a small community an hour northeast of Cape Town, through World Teach. Volunteering at the school for children with disabilities gives her a way to travel and enriches her life when she gets back home.

“Going on a vacation is fun, but I’m not somebody who wants to sit; I won’t lie on the beach,” said Boisvert, of Uxbridge, Mass. “I like being busy.”

Volunteer vacations are a way for travelers to see an area, especially in the developing world, and to get to know its people in a way that would be difficult, if not impossible, for tourists. They also give travelers a way to help with problems they might not see in closer to home. And for kids, they provide some perspective, said Mark Solon of Boise, who is volunteering in Cambodia and Ghana this summer with his wife Pam and their two kids, ages 10 and 11.

“American kids need a better dose of perspective about how fortunate they are,” said Solon. “Our job as parents is to produce two kids that contribute to society. So we think this is just part of their education.”

Boisvert, who has a doctorate, teaches an extra class at the University of Massachusetts during the school year to pay for her airfare and lodging.

“It’s really an investment,” said Boisvert. “It has changed my point of view. In this community in South Africa they’re doing the best they can with the little they have, so here, I think I can do so much more. The resources are here; it’s not catastrophic like it was there.”

Volunteer abroad programs can charge thousands of dollars a week for the privilege of helping out, not including airfare. The money goes to administration, lodging, food, and often to the community organizations that are working with the volunteers.

Fees charged by World Teach range from $1,000 to teach in Columbia or China, to almost $6,000 for Rwanda, Tanzania, or Namibia, including airfare. The organization offers year-long and summer-long programs.

“The airfare tends to be a very large percentage of the program cost,” said Maki Park, the outreach director at World Teach.

With so many options for volunteering abroad, it’s difficult to figure out which programs are legitimate ' and which ones really do help people in the local communities they serve, for example ' and which are just costly vacations with a veneer of volunteerism.

Boisvert chose World Teach because it’s part of Harvard University’s Center for International Development, a name that she trusted would ensure the program’s legitimacy. She likes World Teach because volunteers can choose where they want to go based on their own interests. She also looked at the Peace Corps, which doesn’t cost volunteers anything, but which requires a two-year commitment and sends the volunteer to a site chosen by the Peace Corps, not by the volunteer.

Pam Solon reviewed dozens of websites, talked to other families who had volunteered abroad, and read Volunteer Vacations: Short-Term Adventures That Will Benefit You and Others, by Bill McMillon, Doug Cutchins, Anne Geissinger and Ed Asner. She chose GlobeAware, globeaware.org, because it was nondenominational; offered destinations the family wanted; accommodated kids; and was the right price.

But there are many other online options for finding volunteer opportunities abroad.

VAOPS, which stands for Volunteer Abroad Opportunities ' vaops.com' helps would-be volunteers find free and low-cost trips. Site founder Russell Gagnebin says he created the site after spending hours searching for a volunteer opportunity for himself and realizing that fees paid by volunteers don’t always benefit the charities they work with. Many of the VAOPS listings are designed to connect volunteers directly with the charities, rather than having the trip organized by a middleman.

Gagnebin says that one of his favorite volunteer programs is The Light in Leadership Initiative, a nonprofit organization in Peru where volunteers can teach, help kids with their homework, and carry out building projects. Room and board is about $300 a month; information about contacting the group is on the VAOPS site along with many others.

The University of Minnesota Learning Abroad Center ' umabroad.umn.edu' has a wealth of information for would-be volunteers, including a list of high-quality programs that UMN has worked with in the past. The site also offers sample questions that can help you learn if a program is legitimate and a good fit.

“Every program sounds wonderful, but if you talk to an actual past participant and ask the right questions you can get some meaningful answers,” said Scott Daby, a program director at the Learning Abroad Center. “Ask how the project helped the community, how much money goes into the community, that kind of thing.”

The International Volunteer Program Association at volunteerinternational.org also offers guidance on choosing the right program, including a list of best practices.

Chicago Healthcare Software Salesman and Globe Aware Volunteer Vacationer Named Chief of Ghana Village

28 July 2010
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Special ceremony held to make Peter Sheehan a chief of Mafi-Wudukpo, a rural community located within the North Tongu District of the Volta region of Ghana.

On July 8, 2010, Peter Sheehan, 34, of Chicago IL., was officially made chief of Mafi-Wudukpo, a village in Ghana. Peter accepted the new moniker Torgbui Nubueke I (New Dawn) from Torgbui Torbo Dakpui III and an assortment of Ghanaian elders, welcoming him as a chief of the agrarian village located in south eastern Ghana.

Peter, and his wife Colleen Sheehan, 29, a senior associate producer at Oprah Winfrey Show, were in Ghana with Globe Aware (www.globeaware.org) on a one-week volunteer vacation, July 3-9, 2010. Colleen taught in the village while Peter helped construct sanitation facilities, including digging trenches, laying conduits, drainage, and mixing concrete.

"I tried my best to be the first to the job site every day and I always tried to keep busy in order to quickly earn the trust and respect of the people since verbal communication was difficult," explains Peter. "Chief Torgbui Torbo Dakpui III and the elders would be at the worksite all day, observing the progress. The chief eventually invited me to sit and talk and we discussed a wide variety of topics. He is a very interesting man because he is only 30 years old but he has been chief for 12 years."
 
On July 8 and the day before Peter and Colleen were to leave, their Globe Aware guide notified Peter that the chief had decided to make him a chief. A formal ceremony was held that day.
 
Peter was dressed in a traditional robe, provided special beads, special sandals and two girls were assigned to follow and fan Peter as he made a formal entrance before the entire village.
 
"I quickly realized that this was not simple gesture. This was no joke and this was real," relates Peter." I remember thinking to myself that I had better be attentive, very present in the moment and pay attention to every detail."
The video of the ceremony can be viewed on Globe Aware' s website (www.globeaware.org) and blog (www.volunteervacationsblog.com).
 
"During the ceremony my translator was explaining that the chief felt that the fact two Americans came all this way to help his village marked a new era for the region, hence, " new dawn' became my honorary name." Adds Peter, "The chief explained that my wife would be crowned " Queen Mother' on our next visit since tradition dictates both ceremonies cannot be held on the same day."
 
Peter received a plot of land to build on and he also received a ram during the ceremony.
 
"Living in the village we were able to overcome the language barrier by communicating through active participation and working within their environment," says Peter. "While I am proud of what were able to accomplish, we are now absolutely committed to ensure that this is just the very beginning of the work we will do for our new family in Mafi-Wudukpo."
If you would like more information about taking a volunteer vacation to Costa Rica, Romania, Peru, China, India, or you are interested in voluntourism in another country or on another continent, please visit Globe Aware’s Destinations Gallery for program and trip descriptions, dates and Minimum Contribution Fees.

 

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