A Declaration of Love, OR, A Volunteer's Manifesto

I don’t know how to play backgammon. It’s raining and the roof is leaking. There’s no electricity, so no espresso… Let’s have some rakija.

Oh we ran an extension cable over from the neighbours. Espresso. Open the sugar packet, stir the sugar in, put the plastic stirrer back on the saucer. Ritual #1.

Sardonic commentary and witticisms on some recent event—politics, art, football, something stupid some friend did last night in the bar. Ritual #2.

Make the receipts somehow match up to send to the donor, even though we have to stretch that one grant to cover a host of other expenses. Sandra is a genius. We all sit on the couches or at the tables together with our laptops and cables all mingling together.

Every now and then we all pitch in to sweep up the courtyard or clean after a concert. Every now and then Arma freaks out because Nani does the most cleaning. “What, like Nani is the only one with a ‘diploma’ in picking up the darn broom? Right???”  Arma starts a sardonic facebook group, ArtBeit, with hilarious photos and captions of Nani welding, hammering, etc.

[[Today I work in an office where my coffee is brought to my desk. I have my own desk. Also I have a phone, a work computer, work email account, intranet. I have an assistant, who is supposed to interpret for me, but I learned to speak Bosnian with you, so I feel confused and don’t know what to do with her.]]

I spent three years and three months (2007-2010) as a BVS volunteer in OKC Abrasevic in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. I am still discovering all that those three years meant to me, but it is no exaggeration to say that it changed my life.

If I’m being completely honest, sometimes I freak out about the fact that I spent 3 years not earning/saving any money, or at the very least interning at some international organization which would look good on my resume. I spent a frantic year+ after BVS interning, working and not getting paid, job hunting, etc. During that time, Abrasevic, with its tiny budget, paid me TWICE! I was moved to tears by their solidarity. (Also, Kristin extended my health insurance and BVS stipend by an extra month, at the last minute. Thank you KF!)

But really, I would NEVER take it back. This is who I am. This is how I become who I want to be.

In Abrasevic, the most important thing is to show up and to be present. To talk to people. To make jokes. People are an end in themselves. When Arma stopped being a member of the management team, he spent even more time at Abrasevic than he had before (he had already been there ALL the TIME)—but now he was in the café talking to people, rather than up in his office working. (Nedzad, a longtime volunteer, took on his tasks.) Tina said, when we discussed it, “what’s important is being here; that’s more important than what you do here.”

[[I’m tearing up again thinking about all of them and longing to jump into a car right this minute and visit them!]]

Everyone in Abrasevic has their own artistic dream. Even the waiters are all DJs or musicians or doing street performances or graffiti. People are so supportive of dedication to artistic dreams. We’re always going to the concerts of Mostar bands to hear the same songs and going to the book promotions of Mostar (Abrasevic) poets. I also had a poem published in an Abrasevic literary journal (Kolaps) and showed my videos in the main hall.

One of the main things that I learned in Abrasevic is how important PLACES are for cities. It’s like “a room of one’s own” for urban spaces. It’s essential for Mostar to have an Abrasevic. It’s essential for every city to have neutral urban spaces that encourage people to come together. Like Italo Calvino’s book “Invisible Cities” (which I studied in-depth in a video journalism course at Abrasevic), where Marko Polo tells Kublai Khan the stories of a hundred cities, only to reveal that “all cities are Venice”; now to me, “all cities are Mostar, and must contain an Abrasevic”. When I move to new places, I am always looking for an “Abrasevic”. Of course I can never find another Abrasevic, as it is irreplaceable and unique. But in my life I combine the elements which made Abras so dear to me (solidarity, creativity, espresso) to try to live an Abrasevicy life.

There’s nothing like putting a camera in the hands of a young person. So exciting to see what they come up with. I have to do this again! My life will not be complete unless I can make videos and help young people to make videos! About Roma, skaters, beautiful ramshackle monuments, artists, poets, musicians and activists.

I learned to film and edit video footage.

I also got some experience in grant writing.

I learned about challenges in project design and implementation.

I was so inspired.

I learned about the impact of political conflict on daily life.

I was filled with hope.

 
- Katie Hampton, BVSer at Abrasevic from October 2007 to December 2010 (currently working in Bratunac/Srebrenica)    

Volunteering in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Here's a BVS project opening in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina. For additional information, please contact me at brethrenservice@worldcom.ch or see www.brethrenvolunteerservice.org

#1110: Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina

The Abrasevic Youth Cultural Center believes that positive change is possible in post-war Mostar and offers programs and resources to promote social change, develop civil society and a cultural scene in the city and region. Website: http://www.okcabrasevic.org/

OKC Abrasevic is a youth cultural center which started in 2003 as a response to the need for an active and safe space in post-war Mostar.  It offers youth a place for creative expression, cultural education, and open-minded social discussion. Abrasevic currently consists of a café; an Info Center for HIV/AIDS education; Abart, which uses art to address the issue of divided cities; and AbrasMEDIA, our in-house media center.  AbrasMEDIA includes a news web portal (www.abrasmedia.info) and video production activities (available on the Youtube AbrasMedia channel).  Each of these projects offers programs and resources to promote social change as well as develop civil society and a vibrant cultural scene in the city and region. Regular activities include cultural events (films, concerts, exhibitions, and performances), festivals, and forums.  International Volunteers are welcome and are expected to find their own place in the Abrasevic community as they become more familiar with the center.  Requirements: Good communication and interpersonal skills, willingness to learn the local language, general computer skills, high level of autonomy/independence, flexibility, adaptability, patience, ability to work under stress as well as to enjoy relaxed social atmosphere.  Other useful skills: Education and/or experience in the fields of finance/accounting, management, computer technology, cultural activities, fundraising, video, radio, journalism, graphic design, IT/web maintenance.

Forty Years of BVSers in Northern Ireland and Ireland!

When we met 10 years ago for the 30^th anniversary event of BVS in Northern Ireland, Rev. Harold Good, the Methodist pastor who invited us in 1972 to send volunteer youth workers to the Shankill area of Belfast, said:

"When the full story of all these years in Northern Ireland is written, sadly you probably won't be recorded or mentioned - not BVS or you individually. Sorry about that. But more important, in ways that can never be measured, is that you've made a huge contribution to the lives of so many people here and to our overall situation - by your coming here you have encouraged us, by helping us to realize we are part of a great world family who are concerned about justice, peace, and people.  It’s important that we’re not alone in that. … You’ve come to share that.  You’ve touched the lives of so many people.  Thank you for that, and we want to encourage you in return.”   
 

We didn’t stop with sending a first BVSer to that community center.   BVSers were placed in different corners of Belfast and beyond.   Back in the day, we were generous with more than sending volunteers, too, by giving a minivan to a group in Ligoniel, and even a house to another volunteer service organization. (I would love to still have that house!)  One interesting placement was in the mid 1970s when the general secretary of the Irish Council of Churches, who talked to paramilitary groups on all sides, arranged to bring one of our previous BVSers back to Belfast to work as a receptionist in the office of the think tank group of some Protestant paramilitaries on cease fire.   David Stevens, a more recent ICC general secretary, told us at the 30^th anniversary:   “That was an imaginative thing to do. Peace requires you to work with people who you might not like to associate with.” 

 

Forty years later, we’ve sent about 160 volunteers to over 40 different organizations in Northern Ireland and Ireland.   Some are still going strong – Quaker Cottage has had 24 of our volunteers throughout the years –but other groups have changed, folded, or no longer work with international volunteers. 

 

Along with the memories from the 30^th anniversary event in Belfast in 2002, I’ve rummaged through the Geneva office files, amidst early BVSers’ project reports and photos, and found other gems of information.  I kept travel notes in the past 25 years and re-discovered some interesting things in those.  Here is a small sampling:

 

My early annual meetings with David Stevens (then assistant general secretary of the Irish Council of Churches in Belfast) often gave me insights about the ongoing situation.  In the late 1980s he was fond of saying that “the situation is desperate but not serious.”  We got news that one of the BVSers who worked as an administrative assistant at the ICC had tried to attend the Milltown Cemetery funeral in 1988 for the IRA trio who were killed in Gibraltar, and a guy named Michael Stone started shooting at the Belfast funeral-goers.  David S. and I both agreed after that, I needed to have some serious talks with some of the BVSers. 

 

Occasionally we held joint meetings of the BVS and the EIRENE volunteers from Germany, not only discussing heavy issues like The Troubles, but also topics like “the role of foreigners in Northern Ireland.”

 

Year after year, I arrived at the international airport and took the bus in to Belfast, always seeing a banner along the motorway admonishing that “Ulster still needs Jesus.”  It disappeared a while ago.  As did the “Belfast says no” banner on the top of City Hall.   Did Ulster find Jesus?   Belfast did eventually say yes to the peace agreements.     

 

In 1992 we held a BVS day for the volunteers in Belfast and invited Mairead Corrigan-Maguire of Peace People fame to speak with us.  She told the BVSers to not get lost in the issues in Northern Ireland, but to concentrate on one-to-one relationships, to help people feel important about themselves, and to “be happy.”

 

One newly arrived BVSer in 1993 told me that he had “not been prepared for these kinds of kids” he was working with in a local youth center in north Belfast.  Hmmm.   

 

And the peace lines separating the two communities grew higher and looked ever more permanent.  

 

I’ll never forget the summer 1994 phone call from Vincent Bent, director of the Ulster Quaker Service Committee, who shouted “Kristin, we have a cease fire!”!   That was the first of the IRA cease fires, leading up to the peace agreement. 

After that a church executive asked me if we would leave Northern Ireland because peace had come.  Do cease fires really mean that everything’s changed?   By then we had worked with youth groups, with community organizations, with individual congregations, with the Irish Council of Churches, with children and their families, with prisoners, with the Peace People, with other peace or mediation or cross community initiatives and organizations and centers and farms.  Not only focusing on the causes and effects of the Troubles, we had also had volunteers in Women’s Aid refuges and with briefly with the Travelling Community. In 1996 we took on a placement at the Multi Cultural Resource Center.   In 1997 the first BVSer headed to a L’Arche community in the Republic of Ireland.  To this date, 20 BVSers have served at the L’Arche communities in the Republic and in Belfast.  

We started holding annual weekend retreats for the Northern Irish and Irish BVSers in the mid 1990’s at various places around Northern Ireland.  One highlight was when our BVS group climbed Slieve Donard in the Mourne Mountains.

After the on- and off- and on-again ceasefires, the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998.  By 2002 I noticed that taxi companies had suddenly flourished and some cab drivers would venture all across Belfast.  Taxis as a sign of peace?   And sadly more peace walls. 

 

We were caught off guard by stricter UK visa requirements in early 2004 and had to send two newly arrived BVSers home to the USA to get those pesky visas, without which they could not enter the UK as long term volunteers.  We’d previously always successfully avoided visas because of a handy letter from the Home Office that allowed BVSers to sail through UK Immigration – which was the work of MP Enoch Powell, but that’s another weird odd story.   It’s been an adventure keeping up with the new demands and requirements.  In 2006 one BVSer could tragically only spend a weekend at her project because her visa had been rejected by UK immigration.  And we still today encounter unexpected glitches in the UK visa process!  Fortunately it’s much easier for us North Americans to get volunteer status in the Republic of Ireland.  

 

My first ever visit to Northern Ireland was to attend my very first European BVS retreat in September 1978 before starting my BVS project in Austria.  I flew from the USA directly to Northern Ireland and joined the other European BVSers at the Corrymeela Community retreat center on the northeast coast; we visited Belfast and other areas, too.  I never imagined then that I would later get the opportunity to see so much history up close – well, from the vantage point of accompanying all the BVSers and annual visits with friends and projects over the last 25 years. 

 
While I have often been preoccupied in recent years with visas and other volunteer adventures, you BVSers have done so many great things in Ireland and Northern Ireland (and everywhere else!), and like Harold Good said: “you’ve come here to share and have touched the lives of so many people.”  Thank you! 

40th BVS anniversary gathering in Belfast, 15 September

The seven current and seven of the former BVSers, their children and partners (and I) celebrated our 40 years of BVSers going to Northern Ireland and Ireland.  We converged at Quaker Cottage, overlooking Belfast, on 15 September.

European BVS retreat in Berlin

BVSers in Northern Ireland

           The volunteers in Northern Ireland met in Belfast last month.

Snow in Mostar

When I first arrived in Mostar, I was basically told not to expect much, if any, snow during the winter months, which made me a bit sad after a lifetime of Midwest winters. So I was incredibly surprised when Mostar received, what I and those around me perceived as, a record-breaking snowstorm, more than I had ever seen at home. It snowed heavily for two days. The door to my balcony was completely covered in snow, blocking out the sunlight, and people had to create little walking paths because the snow was as much as 5 feet high. The snow completely covered cars and blocked the roadways. Nothing could come into or out of Mostar.

Then on the night of Monday February 6, the north wind blew down a bunch of electrical towers holding the power cables to all of east Mostar. East Mostar, where I live, was without power for three days and four nights. Since there was so much snow, no one could get to the towers to fix them. Snow shovels are pretty rare in Mostar, and in some cases, people couldn't get to their shovels because their sheds were buried in snow. Most of the people on the east side depend on public-provided electricity for heating, cooking and water. The temperatures were cold enough that all the food in my non-functioning fridge froze. All this meant that a lot of people on the east side (mostly Bosniaks) had to find a place to stay on the west side (mostly Bosnian Croats). In one case, there was an orphanage with a bunch of children freezing for two days because they had no heat and couldn't be moved to just anywhere for legal reasons.

The government was completely disorganized and understandably unprepared for this crisis. I think there was a lot of miscommunication between the east and west side. They would ask for volunteers to help shovel snow to get to the electrical towers and people would volunteer, but then no one would contact them. Everyday, they would say the electricity would be back by six o'clock and then when it wasn't, they would say it would be back the next morning.

From my perspective, it was civil society organizations like Abrasevic that provided the real aid and support to Mostar’s citizens. Abresevic started organizing the community to help the people without power. They started by collecting bread and canned food for the children in the orphanage. Abrasevic let three families stay in their office space and individuals stay in the cafe. They also started food and clothing drives for people. Everyday we made warm meals for people, which was great because I got to learn how to cook some seriously good food. It was pretty cool. I got to know a lot of the Roma in Mostar. It turns out even Roma kids have Facebook, so to keep them busy I lent my computer to them. After a few days at Abrasevic, one of the Roma dads that I got to know showed me his arm, which now includes my name minus the 'h'. I'm not sure if it was a tattoo, but it was quite flattering.

Many people connected with Abrasevic stayed there for five whole days helping out even though they had homes on the west side. I don't know how they managed because even those of us who did leave at night got no more than four to five hours of sleep, and I personally would go crazy without a little alone time. Abrasevic was the busiest I had ever seen it, a constant whirl of activity and work. By the end, three days and four nights felt more like a week. Still, watching and being part of this experience—a community coming together in crisis—was amazing. So, painful solidarity describes the situation well.