Helping Developing Countries Help Developing Countries Funding Project

Volunteers from western countries for programs in developing nations are in a position to provide for their own expenses. Such is the wealth of the world’s 50 or 60 richest countries that even the “poor” seem wealthy to most people living in one of the poorer developing countries. Even when someone from a richer country is temporarily without the money to pay their own costs when working as a volunteer, opportunities are nearly always available (through sponsorship, taking on extra work, making savings or setting up fund raising ventures, for example) to enable that person to become a self-financing volunteer within a reasonable time frame.

On the other hand there is no realistic way that many talented and strongly motivated young people from developing countries who aspire to volunteer can possibly raise the basic costs for a volunteer to function, for three months, living frugally but meeting all the expenses necessarily incurred when performing all his or her appointed duties. There are many skilled, well-educated and qualified Africans, for example, who cannot obtain permanent employment. Similarly, there are many disadvantaged and powerless individuals who may lack formal education but who nevertheless would welcome the opportunity to work to improve the lives of others even more disadvantaged, powerless and uneducated than themselves.

It is these individuals from the developing countries that this Fund is designed to help. In true Omidyan spirit, the funding is to enable those who are funded to discover their power to make good things happen.

This is the beginning of a fund that we hope will be able to provide sustainable support to assist people living in developing countries to be able to discover their own power to work in a range of settings on omidiyar.net projects in developing countries. We see this initiative to help fund volunteers working with Life in Africa as the first step of a broader commitment to fund volunteers from developing countries to discover their own power to work in a range of settings. The second step will be to widen the eligibility requirements to include work with other children’s projects in developing countries; eventually, we hope there will a final step whereby the criteria are widened still further, so that aspiring volunteers from developing countries can be funded to work with other kinds of projects too.

Why is this fund needed so badly at the present time?

As peace begins to take hold, the Ugandan government has decided it is time to close down the night commuter centres, once being used nightly by tens of thousands of “invisible children”, but now being regularly used by only a small fraction of those numbers. Those still making use of the remaining night commuter centres are often those without any family support. They are already the ones most vulnerable to social change.

The night commuter centres are due to be closed at the end of this month.

Right now Life in Africa is setting up a program of Volunteer Tag Teams.

The basic tag team idea is that each volunteer team will work together as a team to help achieve some community objectives, leaving a structured agenda for follow up to the next team coming in. We might also consider scheduling teams of shorter or longer duration, but 3 months is what we are targeting as a preferred duration right now.

The children who have been served by the night commuter centres are the target group for the proposed Volunteer Tag Teams. This is starting as a drive to raise enough money to cover the Volunteer Tag Team’s start-up costs and to begin to accumulate enough money in this Fund to pay for the basic expenses incurred by volunteers from African or other developing countries.

For the first team, LiA currently has strong interest from 5 self-supported volunteers from the USA and 1 from Kenya, for a total of 6 people. A couple of people (incl at least one from Kenya so far) have already indicated an interest for the fall.

Life in Africa Plans

1. Volunteer Tag Teams

   The idea of scheduling revolving teams of volunteers who would hand off to each other seems to resonate well with many people. David Bale has indicated a willingness to to help us with some fund raising for making sure those teams include volunteers from other African/non-western countries which I agree is a fabulous idea.

   The basic tag team idea is that each volunteer team will work together as a team to help achieve some community objectives, leaving a structured agenda for follow up to the next team coming in. For the first team, we currently have strong interest from 5 self-supported volunteers from the USA and 1 from Kenya, for a total of 6 people. A couple of people (incl at least one from Kenya so far) have already indicated an interest for the fall. We might also consider scheduling teams of shorter or longer duration, but 3 months is what we are targeting as a preferred duration right now.

2. Volunteer assignments

   We have a lot of variety going on at Life in Africa that volunteers can sink their teeth into. The number one priority for this first team will be to establish one on one relationships with and detailed household information records about a portfolio of 20-25 children each. The children will be in school for most of the May-Aug period, so opportunities to interact with them will be limited to non-school daylight hours. This will not take up all of any volunteer's time.

   There will also, however, be regular opportunities to engage with the children's parents through the Life in Africa activities they are involved in. So in addition to child/family monitoring and working with Robert to develop programs and activities for the children, each of the 6 volunteers will choose 1 of the following Life in Africa programs that they commit to as a support person during the course of their stay:

   • Local Marketing Team
   • Community craft production
   • Community Learning program
   • Community Guaranteed Online Micro-Lending
   • New (Opok Farms) project preparation
   • Volunteer program coordination

   It's going to be really important to LiA that our volunteers post to a weekly journal online about their experiences with the LiA community. Not only will this be welcome from your family and friends, but it will help us build up a body of online documentation about our community and those who know the people in it in person. We could do a team blog, a discussion thread here on Onet, or something at Myspace - ideas from the team on what kind of online reflections you would like to be creating about your experience online are most welcome.

   Each volunteer should also plan on at least 1 trip to Kampala sometime at a mid point during their stay to touch base with LiA HQ staff and take a short break from Gulu.

   We don't need to make decisions about the details of these points right now. I am hoping we can arrange to have a 2-3 day volunteer team orientation in Kampala before the first volunteer team travels to Gulu, so as to discuss these programs in greater detail and decide the who-what-when of everything in a participatory way that involves the team.

3. Volunteer Housing & Costs

   The unexpected closure of Invisible Children's volunteer hostel has given us a reason to start one ourselves. Otherwise we feel the daily lodging costs end up being just too expensive to propose. We are now in the process of renting and equipping a 3 bedroom house where 6-8 people will be able to stay with shared cooking facilities. The price works out to $5/day ($150/mo) per person including all utilities.

   After 3-5 months, the investment we need to make in furniture will be paid off so that continued occupancy of at least 50% will enable the hostel to earn a bit of income for the community. With so many volunteers in Gulu looking for reasonable lodging, we don't think we will have any problem filling the space through other organizations, even when our own volunteer numbers might be low, or there is a gap between outgoing-incoming teams.

   In addition to the $5 lodging cost, volunteers should calculate an additional $2-5 per day for local transport around Gulu, food and entertainment. $100/month would be a reasonable budget to target for, though there is an active nightlife in Gulu town - if you like to go out then your costs will certainly be higher.

   As mentioned above, during a 3 month stay, each volunteer should plan at least one 4-5 day trip to Kampala to take a break and touch base with the LiA mgmt team there. Lodging in Kampala can be arranged with LiA member host families for $5/night including 2 meals - in fact, that is what I am hoping we can agree to arrange for the 2-3 day orientation as well. Transport to Gulu is $10-15 each way, so all told, additional travel costs in Uganda will range from about $100 (minimum) to $300 if you decide to take an additional couple of trips or stay in a guest house instead of with a host family.

   Totaling that all up we come to the following estimated minimum costs for a 3 month volunteer period:

   • Lodging: $450
   • Food/local transport: $300
   • Kampala-Gulu travel: $100

   GRAND TOTAL: $850 + international travel

   Please note, the above is a basic estimated minimum cost for basic living in Gulu. If you are the type of person who likes to go out a lot in the evenings and/or you intend to do other traveling while in Uganda, then you should count up to $1500 total costs in Uganda to be more comfortable.

   Many volunteers also buy mobile phones while they are in Uganda to be able to keep in touch with family abroad. A basic phone with sim card will cost less than $75. With that you can receive calls and load airtime to make calls on a pay as you go system that's not very expensive.

4. Timing for Team 1

   From my correspondence with Sam it looks like the group of 4 from Tennessee is planning to travel 20 May - 7 Aug, which is about 2.5 months. I believe Richard from Kenya is flexible and could join you for orientation in Kampala. Amber had mentioned Mid June to end August, so it looks like she would join the team late but could possibly stay on a bit longer with Richard to facilitate handover to the next team.

FUNDS NEEDED

• $2300 - enough for LiA to rent and furnish accommodation for up to 6 volunteers
• $850 - to fund M'Kananga Richard on the first tag team
• Build the fund to be able to fund (at least initially) 1 Developing Country Volunteer per quarter. This would require a monthly commitment of about $300 (to also cover expenses of collection and money transfer)

THE PLAN for THE FUND

This vision will not happen without the support of this O.net community.

That is why we are appealing to you to

• Join the Fund Team and help us get this show on the road. We thought it might be nice to have at least one person from each continent on the team!
• Commit to donating a fixed sum per month ($10 perhaps) to enable talented and creative volunteers from developing countries to help provide practical solutions to some of the world’s most urgent and difficult contemporary problems
• Consider other way of donating - single donations, holding a collection, other fund raising initiatives etc
• Pledge your support on the HDC^2 Fund workspace

Fund Team

POSSIBLE FUNDING TECHNIQUES

1. One-time Donations
2. Monthly regular donations
3. Other ideas