An Interview With Global Justice Volunteers

A Typical Day in Brazil
Learning in the Philippines
Going on From Here

On July 23, I drove 50 miles north to the Stony Point Conference Center to interview seven young adults in their twenties. They had just completed an intensive, two-month pilot program for the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM). They were the first group of Global Justice Volunteers.

They were an ecumenical group (five United Methodists, a Baptist, and a Catholic) and included an African American, a Filipina American, and a Brazilian. All seven were either in college or were recent graduates, with majors ranging from anthropology, psychology, and political science to divinity and social work. Two—Jimee'n Jackson and Casey High—had gone to São Paulo, Brazil, while the other five—Kenia da Silva Guimaraes, Kim Lehmann, Michele Johns, Lynn Peralta, and Jessica Tulloch—had been in the Philippines.

The seven had learned about this pilot program from pastors, campus ministers, professors, friends, and GBGM executives. Michele's mom found the program on GBGM's web page on the Internet. All were drawn to the program through an interest in issues of human rights and of economic and environmental justice. "Instead of going somewhere to build a building," Casey said, "we went to develop an understanding of the people's situation."

A Typical Day in Brazil

Jimee'n: We would work from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. Tuesday through Saturday. The first part of the day, we'd visit different neighborhoods and talk to the street children. We'd ask: "What is your name? How old are you? How many brothers and sisters do you have? Do you stay with your mom? Where do you live?" The second part of the day, we would visit the favelas, the Brazilian slums.

Casey: The job of the street educator is to ask the kids: "What is your parents' situation? Why aren't you going to school?" We'd tell them: "We have a project where you can come, play soccer, and discuss these problems together in groups." After work, I would go to practice capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian dance form that combines dance with martial arts and resembles theater fighting. It is symbolic of Afro-Brazilian resistance to slavery during colonial times and perhaps also of the struggle against economic injustices that street kids face today. I felt that it was the most important cultural activity at the street kids' project because it gave the kids a positive alternative to violence on the streets.

Jimee'n: I was more interested in going to the favelas. Then at 5 P.M., I'd catch the bus, and it would be a straight shot from the favelas to the upper-class neighborhood where I lived with a White Brazilian family. I felt I was living in two different worlds and that I left my spirit behind in the favelas.

Casey: All the favelas were different. People have no work in the country, so they move to the city. They start with nothing. So they cut down a few trees, put up a few posts and a plastic tarp, and call it their home. Later they get bricks and build a house. Then they get electricity and running water. I never was in a favela that had telephones, but most have basic services. One way people cope with their situation there is by working together and organizing. The solidarity I saw in the favelas was something my community in the United States is far from.

Jimee'n: In Brazil, Afro-Brazilians are the majority, not a minority as African Americans are in the United States. But there, as in America, a lot of children of African heritage are deprived of their own culture. I come from an all-Black community in southern Illinois where Brazil is just a place on a map. For me, actually seeing it with my own eyes and being there was very different from just reading about it in books. It was a great opportunity.

Learning in the Philippines

Kim: Iloilo City was our home base. From there we went to different places and learned about open-pit mining, sugarcane workers, rice farmers, and out-of-school youth. The youth may be either high school graduates who could not afford college or younger children who had to leave school to work and support the family.

Kenia: The open-pit mining destroyed an entire farm community. They were not going to have that land anymore to produce their food. And the water was going to be polluted.

Michele: We were near Mt. Opao. An American mining company has come in, looking for gold and other minerals. If the mining goes through, it'll affect the ocean, which affects the fish, which affects the people's food supply. It will also affect the people's drinking water, which comes from the mountain. It will affect every part of their life.

Kim: With a local rice farmer, Toto Henry, and two others, Michele and I hiked up Mt. Opao. When we reached the top, we were surrounded by 36 people—all brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, neighbors, and friends. Despite the fact that they had only flip-flops to climb in, that we spoke very different languages, and that Michele and I were from the same place as the company that threatened to mine their mountain and destroy their livelihood, we were all able to come be in communion with one another on Mt. Opao.

Kenia: The sugarcane workers organized themselves into cooperatives. They will be able to export brown sugar and banana chips to several countries and they'll be able to get a fairer price.

Jessica: I worked with the Banao people in the Balbalasang barrio in Kalinga Province. It's a community where an elite group manipulates the majority, who are mostly farmers working their ancestral land. They raise rice and vegetables for their own consumption, but often there is not enough since the farmers still use the traditional plow pulled by the caribou. With better technology, they could produce more, sell the surplus, and have income to send their children to school. Meanwhile, a small farmer might have to borrow rice from the head of a rich family. If the farmer doesn't do what the rich man says, he won't lend the farmer any rice next time and won't let the farmer use his rice mill. It's important that the small farmers organize so that they can resist these manipulations.

Lynn: I worked primarily at the Cordillera Labor Center. The chief need is for jobs. There aren't enough jobs in the Philippines, in general. A memorable moment for me occurred when I visited a mushroom farming company along with labor organizers. One organizer, Aldwin—whose family was too poor for him to attend school this semester—told me about visiting a family of five that could eat only one meal a day, a bowl of rice mixed with sugar. I thought of my life in America and how food was not a worry of mine. As a Filipina American, when I learned about the people of the Philippines, I reconnected with my roots. Now I'll bring that experience back to my community in the United States.

Going on From Here

Jimee'n: I want to go back to Brazil. I'm interested in becoming a missionary or doing mission work. My special interest is in Afro-Latino culture. Afro-Brazilian culture is a big part of that.

Casey: I'm supposed to start a Ph.D. program in anthropology. Now I'm trying to decide: Should I go to graduate school and become a teacher so I can help educate my people, or should I go where I feel I belong right now, struggling and working with the people of Brazil? Can I do both?

Kim: I feel my work for the Filipino people and other oppressed people is here in the United States.

Kenia: I'd like to work in any situation where people are struggling to survive in poverty situations.

Michele: I want to do art therapy with children who've experienced trauma. That can be done globally and locally.

Jessica: I'm interested in community organizing and development and I've also thought about teaching.

Lynn: I already have a career track in social work, primarily with youth. After my graduate program, I'd like to return to the Bay Area and start my own nonprofit organization.

Alma Graham is Editor of New World Outlook