Syndicate: [Balkansunflower-list] Update 9

[Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@v2.nl>]

From: wam kat <wam@mir.org>
To: balkansunflower-list@ddh.nl
Subject: [Balkansunflower-list] Update 9


update 9

(15 may)

A long message to make up for the long wait!

(this update was originally written as a letter to all those who have
applied to be a volunteer, and, after a couple of little changes and
updates, now goes out to everyone)


Hallo, bonjour, guten tag, bonan tagon, buona giorno, ni hao, ....


Firstly, we must thank you all for applying to help Balkan Sunflowers. In
the relatively short time since Wam Kat's appeal, we have received many
offers of help from potential volunteers and from potential donors of
materials, organisations with which we can work together etc etc.

That sentence took me a few minutes to write, and before I give you the
latest update on the details of our progress and the status of your
applications, I will explain why.
It was because I (Krayg) wasn't sure how to use 'we' and 'you' ! 8 days ago
I was in Lyon, France, packing up after a late evening at the computer of
the transport campaign magazine where I was helping out as a volunteer. And
then the phone rang, it was Steffi, needing someone to help in the Belzig
co-ordination office whilst Wam goes to Albania. Could I help very quickly?
It was only week or so earlier I had decided to send in my application
form. Since the start of the war I had been looking for radical approaches
to doing something positive for the Kosov@ situation. I knew the work of
the Balkan Peace Team and through them I found 'Balkan Sunflowers' - it
seemed to be a very interesting idea for a grassroots initiative, with
experience already there from the previous refugee camps, and a beautiful
little story of planting sunflower seeds in sandbags.
So here I am, writing these paragraphs of introduction to you all, but
don't think that it couldn't have been the other way around! Balkan
Sunflowers will be what WE make it - 'us' here in Belzig, Albania and
Macedonia, and all of 'you' who perhaps do not realise that you ARE part of
the 'we'. You have not yet stepped on the plane (you also could come by bus
or train, which is more environmental freindly as an airplane) to start
your 3 or more weeks of being a volunteer, but it is not just the
volunteers 'in the field' who enable this idea to happen!! For instance,
when you find out what your visa requirement is, or a good way of finding a
donation, a source of teddy bears (or laptops and other technical
stuff..... we need things both for office and in the camps, or an autobus
for the mobil activities), etc. then you tell us, it goes out on the web
site and to the other sunflowers, and then they might save time because
they don't need to find the information themselves, or because they can try
the same idea. And during your work you may find, purely by chance, a
crucial contact who can help us in a big way!

***
Yes we exist, but what exists?
***

We have signed the papers to be a registered charity in Germany, we are
accepted as a partner organisation of Service Civil International /
International Voluntary Service (who also help with the accident insurance
for volunteers), and we are registered with the UNHCR as an NGO which is
operating in Albania. (We are not yet an implimenting agency but that will
come soon). We have the international co-ordination office here in Belzig,
in an intentional community which is offering office space and much more -
there are the regular names from whom you receive e-mail but also a finance
committee and a support group who do many things on a local level (getting
leaflets printed etc.).

(From Wam: We are by the way the only International NGO with contacts with
local NGO's UNHCR found out, funny :-) )

We now have offices in Tirana, Albania (a 3-storey house and 3 local staff
helping) and in Skopje, Macedonia. At present there are two groups of two
or three 'pathfinders' who will rest there for the coming weeks making the
contacts and establishing the training centre. Those of you who've offered
to be long term volunteers will arrive and join them to do more of the
initial work; this weekend Gary (from the USA) and Denai (from Berlin) will
arrive in Skopje, Max from England will arrive in Tirana from his stay in
Sarajevo, and other names 'to watch out for' include Koli, Francesco, Dara,
Seth, Jason, Merna, Phil and more ........
Also there is an international network of people who are helping to prepare
training materials and devise funding applications. These are mainly people
who worked in the Suncokret and Pakrac projects and thus have very relevant
experience. We have our first national co-ordinators who are helping the
pre-travel work for you all - raising funds for the travel and materials
etc.
And we have a computer or two and need more telephones ............

***
When will I be needed to go?
***

We will know within 10 days for certain that the plan to start on 30th May
will happen. We may not need 20 internationals at first since we have made
contact with students etc in Albania itself who want to help.
The chart is now up on the wall and as soon as we've sorted out the initial
phase of long-term volunteers we'll contact we will check who is still
available to part at such short notice.
ACTION***If you are available to arrive there for the 3 weeks beginning the
30th, you can help by sending me a short message to confirm this!

( Update after sending: We are now on such a level that we agree with the
local NGO (on this moment a network of 14 women, human right and
environmental organisations, who wanted to work withz refugees also) that
we start 30th May in Tirana, there are about 50.000-60.000 refugees in
Tirana in host-families. Our first jobs will be to work closely together
with the locals, heloing them a bit setting up there work and visa versa.
This work in Tirana will be more community work, we are near a big school
and on that square we maybe can organise things. So rather 20 and not less,
at least for Tirana.)


***
How is it structured
***

When we are fully operational we will be operating activities in perhaps 3
camps in each of the two countries. Each camp we will send a group of 20
volunteers.
All going to plan you will be there for three weeks and a day, like this
Week 1
Day1 (Sunday) - arrive
Mon-Thurs - training in Tirana or Skopje (co-ordination centre)
Friday - travel to camp
Saturday - meet the group that are already there and they hand-over to you.
Week 2
Sun-Sat - work and play all day !!
Week 3
Sun-Fri - contiue
Sat - meet incoming group and hand-over to them, return to co-ordination centre
Week 4
Sun - depart
Obviously for those of you coming from afar, eg the USA, this means you
will be away from home for nearly 4 weeks with the travel days either side
of this schedule.
If you decide to stay for 6 weeks you may stay in the same camp, maybe not.
There will be a degree of flexibility 'in the field'.
You will be expected to have some of your own ideas as to activities, and
to bring with you anything specific you may need. Obviously contact us if
you need anything and we will see how it works. But improvisation will be
the name of the game a lot!

Latest Update:
OK some other things. It is clear that the amount and the conditions of the
refugee camps outside the bigger cities (were the situation is almost OK
and NGO are offereing so many activities that the refugees don't know what
to do first) that we have to change plans a bit. So basically it will be
like community work in small town like Droja (200 inhabatants) with two
refugee centers with up to 4000 people and on top of it 400 displaced from
the civil war. In the direct neighbourhood, say 3 km away also 5 other
smaller camps withz 300-600 per camp, conditions undiscribeable. We either
rent a house in the village, either stay in the best refugee camp and work
from there.

Secondly, and on this one UNESCO, UNHCR and ICMC (Inter. Catholic Migrant
Council) are very keen (also on the funding side :-)), we work with teams,
say up to 15-17 people in an old bus, based in town like Shkoder, Tirana,
Durres, Elbassan, Girokastra, Vlora, etc.. And drive each morning out, say
in a radius of 100 Km around those place and visit refugee camps that way.
Each bus group has a special tour, so that we visit the same camps
regularly. This garanties safety (the buses return to big cities before
sunset), involve much more camps (there are too many and too small for 10
or more volunteers the whole time, but the situation too dirty, too
stressed, etc, to work with smaller groups) and the volunteers are living
under somehow more liveable conditions. Sorry but if you have seen the
conditions refugees have to live under this makes you cry, but we can't
bring volunteers in those conditions, without knowing for sure that after 5
days they are ill.



***
Information
***


We now have some more info on travel etc, because some of you sent it in!
So keep doing your research and letting us know - we'll get it up on the
web as soon as we can for everyone to see.


***
Listserves
***

We've had a confusion for the balkansunflowers-l list, and obviously we
didn't make it clear that it is not a good way to directly contact the
office here. But all the computer related stuff , well, it's computer
related so I'll just blame the machines ......... (Wam said "never blame
the computer, always the person working it".)
The list serves as a means for sunflowers activists to exchange ideas, and
news. The office can be reached via balkansunflower@mir.org, or directly to
steffie, krayg or burkie, all @mir.org.

ACTION*** All sunflowers need to be reading the new Tirana Diary from Wam,
since it gives an excellent picture of what's happening for us and what the
life will be like there. Send an e-mail to majordomo@ecn.cz with the text
"subscribe diary-l"

If you've missed the first instalments (since 5/6 mai) then send a blank
e-mail to diaries@mir.org and you'll receive a text file with them in, or
check out the web site (http://www.ddh.nl/org/balkansunflower/99/diary.html)


***
Other information
***
We had an error in the set up for getting the list of questions to ask
yourself before you go, from Vanja, an experienced person from the Pakrac
project. This has now been corrected so if you haven't already read them
from the web site, send a blank e-mail to questions@mir.org
Many of you will have received Wam's greeting mesaage ("this is an almost
private mail to all of you") - another essential read so if you don't
remember what he said, send a blank e-mail to greetings1@mir.org
Please send us any information on visas, travel info, vaccinations etc.
This will get put up on the web. As Krayg personally speaking I would be
very interested to find some information on homeopathic possibiliites to
add to this.
So check the Volunteers Info page of the web site.

***
Fundraising
***
You will shortly receive a message urging you to raise somemoney, since our
grant applications etc even if succcessful will take a long time and we
need money to make sure that we all have the training materials etc.
We've now added our wish list to the ideas document for fundraising - send,
yes, you've guessed it, a blank e-mail to fundideas@mir.org

***
Finances
***
Again, something we didn't make clear. For all of us from 'rich' countries
it is expected that we will pay our own travel costs to get to Albania or
Macedonia, plus a contribution the equivalent of 200DEM (about 110USD) to
cover living costs.
If you are wondering why you should contribute this, as well as your time
and effort for the three weeks, I can only answer that *someone* would have
to find the money from somewhere to pay for your ticket and food, and you
have the advantage to do this that you are fundraising for you! And thus
all your contacts will be personal ones. This can and does work - contact
your local paper and tell them what you're doing, etc. You'll be surprised
at what sponsorship you can find, and then you may well hit upon a contact
who can give us a box of books, toys, washing powder (seriously, washing
powder is a bit like gold dust according to Wam).
When you filled in your application form, there were three check boxes. The
third did seem to indicate that Balkan Sunflowers could help those who
don't have enough resources. This was really designed for those from 'poor'
countries - the internationalism of our teams is one of the key factors we
will consider when allocating times to people, as well as gender and age
balance, and of course, skills. Experience shows that an international team
really adds a dimension to the impact upon the refugees' life - hard to
explain but true.
***ACTION For those of you who indicated that you could lend some financial
support to those who need it for air fares etc, please contact us. If you
can just write a check, great, or if you want to be 'matched up' with a
volunteer to target your help to them, let us know.

*******
Anything can happen
*******
This is long enough to shock those of you who haven't heard anything for a
while, so other subjects will follow in a short while. But there is one
final thing to say.
Anything can happen
Burki here at the office was working with Wam during the previous volunteer
camps in Croatia etc. His words to you are that you can not begin to think
of all the possible things that could go wrong!! At no notice at all we
could be refused permission to work in a particular camp. A taxi could
break down completely ruining a schedule. A huge power cut. Etc. So even
when we finally end your unease and tell you what day to book your ticket
for, and you set out, you may not get to spend the weeks in the camp
teaching music or whatever.
Anything can happen
On the other hand, you could get to particpate in a free concert by an
aging german heavy metal band, or discover a new world of people and
culture. Etc.


Mir sada

Krayg


Mir sada,
                     wam ;-)
-----------------
Latest info about the Balkan Sunflowers:
http://www.balkansunflowers.org
or by email: lists@mir.org
apply as volunteer: http://www.mir.org/dataform
by the way, we have bankaccount now:
Accountnr:         160 160 1
Accountname:    Sunflower
Bank                   Oekobank Frankfurt (Germany)
Blz                       500 901 00
Telephone numbers: +49-33841-30670 +49-33841-30671 (fax)

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