A life in the day of a volunteer
Caroline Nodder, CMPiEvery now and then, when you are trudging through the 9 to 5, battling with your daily workload, worrying about the minute detail of your life, something makes you stop and look up. It can be anything. A death in the family, great novel, an unexpected compliment - for me, it was Brazil.
I am a journalist by trade, the editor of The Publican, a weekly newspaper for pubs. If you had told me a year ago I would be swapping a busy news desk to work with a charity in the shanty towns of Sao Paulo I probably would have laughed.
But that is just what I did in February this year, as part of a team of three from my publishing firm CMPi, along with Duncan Reid and James Blue.
My trip was the culmination of a year-long Leadership Development Programme run by the company. The idea was our new-found knowledge and skills would be put into practice in a high-pressure environment and used to improve the running of the charity involved.
Flying into Sao Paulo airport you get a sense of how vast Brazil is from the endless high rises and sprawling favela shanty towns on the edge of a city that dwarfs London. In total 19 million people live in the Sao Paulo area and very much as the contrast in housing suggests, the city is a divided one. The rich are rich and getting richer. The poor are some of the poorest in the world and the national welfare net is thin at best.
But, for all this, there is no “edge” to life in Sao Paulo. No sinister, violent undertones or class war, as I had expected. What I was overwhelmed by was the noise and the heat – 82 per cent humidity on a good day - and the almost daily tropical downpours that cascade down the streets, flooding bars and restaurants in seconds. The people are constantly talking, smiling, dancing, shouting, playing music, blaring their car horns and generally enjoying life – and that goes for all sections of society. It’s the Brazilian way!
Acer, the group we were working with, is based in the heart of Eldorado, a favela on the outskirts of the city which is home to some of Brazil’s poorest. The organisation offers education, art and cultural awareness courses, a community library, and an outreach programme helping children and families at risk. It was founded by a Brit, Jonathan Hannay and while we knew that Jonathan wanted our help, we also knew we were no ordinary volunteers. We would not be digging wells or teaching the children English. We had been set the task of writing Acer a communication plan to help it secure long-term funding through donations as well as ensuring it was able to build awareness of its vital work within its own community and beyond.
For someone who spends hours at a time writing and editing the pages of a newspaper for traditional British publicans, this was something of a challenge, and one I am not ashamed to say I was terrified of failing.
The thing with a 9 to 5 work existence is that it becomes comfortable. You are sheltered in air conditioning, soothed by meetings and paperwork, comforted by the paraphenalia of modern office life. At the end of the day if, you do make a mistake, it is not the end of the world.
But, take yourself out of that zone. Transplant yourself into a foreign country, a favela no less, where having a TV is a status symbol. It makes you think about all the things you take for granted every single day of your life. It also raises the stakes. Failure on this project would mean disappointing the whole community.
It’s hard to describe Eldorado but here goes. The “houses” are built on top of each other, next to each other, above each other, against each other, and in front of each other, in the most unplanned mess of a settlement I have ever seen. Most are breezeblock constructions, some are half falling down, others have wooden extensions, lean-tos, makeshift doors and corrugated tin roofs. Built into the hillside they stack on top of each other like Lego bricks, fighting for space, and covering a once green and lush area of tropical rainforest.
The roads are so steep, cars struggle on some inclines and when it rains the water gushes through the narrow gangways separating the houses, turning the dusty streets into temporary rivers.
Our base for the days we were out there was the Acer offices, housed in two buildings on the same street. Both are built around a steep open stairwell which cuts up into the hillside, with rooms jutting off it at each level as you climb – until finally you reach the very top where there is a small kitchen and office space for the volunteers. It is known among staff very simply as “heaven”.
From the moment you arrive at Acer it is clear the staff – many of whom attended Acer programmes as children and are barely older than the kids they now work with – have enormous pride in what they do. They are smiling, welcoming, friendly, interested in us and our project and falling over themselves to help out. We were taken on a tour of the library, where over 300 kids go each day to read, use the internet, or just hang out. And we saw the large half-uncovered room used for Brazilian dance, drumming and art classes.
I think what most impressed, or touched me, was the way the kids, the staff and the community care about the place. They lunch together every day in the office kitchen. Wilma the cook makes the daily stew of spiced beans and boiled rice, with grated carrot, and, if you are very lucky, the most wonderful moist orange cake. The staff eat, chat and then wash up together. There are no cleaners, as Jonathan points out. Staff keep the buildings clean and tidy themselves, because they are proud of them. This in turn reflects on the attitude of the children that come to Acer as well.
These are kids whose existence is hand-to-mouth. Many are from families where drug and alcohol abuse is the norm. Many will be shot and killed on the streets of this favela. Very few will ever live outside Eldorado, or have the opportunity to go to university or see the world. Yet they make the most of what they have. They dance, they sing, and most importantly they help each other. Acer was created by Jonathan, but it is run by the staff, by the kids and by the community.
Talking to the staff at Acer and to Jonathan, we were given an idea of the size of our task. We could easily spend a year with Acer designing a website, working with the local and national press to raise their profile, publicising their work. But we only had five days, so our plan is really a beginning for them – a list of ideas and suggestions they themselves will have to put into practice.
We want to make it all happen at once, as is the usual way with impatient Brits. After a frustrating day arguing as a team over how to prioritise the little time we have, the importance of projects like this hits home to me. It is of far more long term use to the community to have the ideas, skills and training to do the job themselves than for us to do it for them. Microfinance is all about just that – giving the community the ability to sustain itself long term, not just to prop it up with cash in the short term.
I hope the plan we drew up will have a positive impact on Acer's future, much as Acer has, I like to think, had a positive impact on mine. It has certainly put my problems firmly into perspective – and we all need a bit of that from time to time!
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