Global Justice Volunteers: A New Way to Reach Out
by A. Victoria Hunter
Living in the Philippines for two months as a Global Justice Volunteer helped Lynn Peralta, a 26-year-old Filipina-American, reconnect with her roots.
She found the immersion in the language, culture and food, and working with labor organizers on behalf of farm workers exhilarating. She had her guitar with her so the Filippine people taught her their songs.
"People were curious," Ms. Peralta said. "They wanted to know what is it like to be an American. What they know of the United States is from the movies and TV shows. And they’re aware of the exchange rate."
Eighty percent of the Filippine people live as peasants, farmers and squatters.
"They seem happy," she said. "I don’t know how they find the things they need, but they manage."
Ms. Peralta a student at Union Theological Seminary, who is pursuing a double masters in divinity and social work, was one of three women who traveled to the Philippines as part of the Global Justice Volunteer pilot program last summer. Kenia da Silva Guimaraes, 22, of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Jessica Tulloch, 23, of Chicago, Ill., also were volunteers in the Philippines.
Global Justice Volunteers, a short-term mission opportunity of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries, lets young adults, 18-25, explore links between faith and justice in international settings. It was initiated by the Women’s Division Committee on International Ministries with Women, Children and Youth and is administered by the General Board of Global Ministries’ mission-volunteer department.
Global Justice Volunteers serve with community groups, non-governmental organizations or church-related agencies committed to changing oppressive social, political and economic systems.
The program is designed to help young adults see directions for their lives and ministries. Both Ms. Guimaraes and Ms. Tulloch found the experience helped define their future goals.
Ms. Guimaraes, a third-year United Methodist scholarship student at Rust College, a historically Black school in Holly Springs, Miss., is majoring in political science with an emphasis on international relations and minoring in mass communications. Her Global-Justice-Volunteer experience is helping her chart her future.
"I want to work with social development and organizing," she said. "I want to be useful to the church here in the United States and back home in Brazil."
For Ms. Tulloch, the international experience helped her see that her future is in the United States.
"I need to be in the United States because it’s the place I come from and I know it best," she said. "I want to work on economic issues. This country wields so much power. The most effective way I can be used is to raise public consciousness here. As the general perception changes in foreign policy, people in government will have to change."
She is considering teaching as an outlet to achieve her goal.
Ms. Guimaraes was assigned to the Island of Panay in the Phillippines where she worked with people who are trying to hold onto their farmland against European and U.S. companies that want it for mining. They are struggling with environmental concerns including water pollution and disease.
She also worked with Pitasa, a sugar-cane plantation in the Fair Trade Center, where sugar cane is cleaned, cooked and processed as mascubado -- brown sugar. She helped harvest rice in Janiuay.
Throughout the Philippines, Ms. Guimaraes was struck by the influence of the United States. And she was struck by the poverty. In the city of Antique, she learned a lot of children don’t attend school because they cannot afford school fees.
"The Philippines has a high rate of unemployment," she said. "About 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. People are not supported by government. They do whatever they can to survive."
She noted areas where there was no running water or electricity.
"Coming from a poor country, to see those conditions somewhere else makes you think and reflect upon your life," Ms. Guimaraes said. "People are trying to give their best even though they are poor. Lack of material things doesn’t stop them. They are a strong people. They do not have degrees but they read and write."
Ms. Tulloch’s assignment was also to a rural area where she learned about farming and how people get the things they need.
"There was a sense of community and a lot of laughter,"
Ms. Tulloch said. "It was a communal way of living. The sense that ‘my house is your house,’ is prevalent."
Like Ms. Guimaraes, she experienced life without electricity. It felt like camping though she quickly realized this was how these people lived their lives, she said. When she got back to the United States, she found it strange to have lights everywhere.
"Electricity would make Filipine lives a lot easier," Ms. Tulloch said.
Many of her observations of the Philippines came from helping survey people in a village in the province of Kalinga.
"Farmers there were frustrated by the lack of technology," she said. "It takes much longer to prepare fields for planting when it is carabao -- -- that pulls the plow and lacombe -- -- that cuts the rice a stalk at a time."
Second group sent out
Volunteers from a second Global-Justice-Volunteer pilot group, who were assigned for eight weeks in Liberia, Armenia and Brazil, returned to the United States in December 1999. Like the first group, their experiences expanded their understandings of justice issues.
Laurie Day of Caldwell, Idaho, and Kevin Robbins of Charlottesville, Va., participated in a program of the United Methodist Annual Conference in Liberia called PRAY -- Promote Reconciliation Among Young People -- which is an important task in a nation that is recovering from war.
Ms. Day said reconciliation is being accomplished in small ways through community-based efforts.
"But little is being done at the top," she said. Ms. Day is recipient of the 2000 Theressa Hoover Community Service and Global Citizen Award of the Women’s Division.
Mr. Robbins, a student at Columbia University in New York City, noted concerns about government corruption in Liberia, but added:
"The Liberians have a powerful hope that things will get better."
Being a Global Justice Volunteer impacted Mr. Robbins.
"The experience definitely has challenged me to revisit how I’m going to be involved in social justice and human-rights work," he said.
Karen Alley of Townsend, Mont., and Michael Hammond of Ghana worked with Noah’s Ark, a community-development program supported by the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) in Armenia. They worked with two 4-H Clubs that are teaching youth skills such as carpet and dressmaking and are setting up small agricultural projects. In one project, each youth raised 15 chickens, selling the eggs for income, Ms. Alley said.
Mr. Hammond hopes to start similar small agricultural programs in Ghana with the church’s assistance.
Maria Garcia of San Antonio, Texas, and Clifton Conrad Jr. of Lafayette, La., served as volunteers with the Street Children’s Project in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Ms. Garcia said they discovered most of the children are not abandoned or homeless orphans.
"They all have families," she said. "Most of the time, they’re the only one in the family who works."
That work includes such tasks as washing or parking cars, washing windows, loading groceries, and shining shoes, Mr. Conrad said.
Ms. Garcia came to appreciate how people in Brazil have organized themselves to promote social justice.
"I came out of this knowing that whether it’s a small change or a large change, it will help in some way," she said.
Mr. Conrad, who is considering future mission work, admired the staff of the street project:
"It was amazing to see some of the things they did for the children –- the love they had for them.
Working for a better world
Having young adults see and participate in social-justice mission outreach is the purpose of Global Justice volunteers. As they learn the issues facing sisters and brothers around the world, and learn ways others are working for social change, they can begin to see their roles in working for a better world. And they can bring new ideas and creativity to programs in their home countries.
A. Victoria Hunter is senior writer for Response. Portions of this article came from a United Methodist News Service release.