El Viejo letter

 

Letter to New Internationalist

From the Norwich-El Viejo Link Organisation, UK

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am deeply concerned about a supposed aid organization which I ran across during a recent visit to Nicaragua. I apologise in advance for the length of the following but I want to explain my involvement and doubts. I feel the story needs an investigation because it is possibly a huge international scandal.

At the best, this organisation is using the goodwill of lots of young, ignorant and innocent volunteers to carry out meaningless projects, at least in Nicaragua, and at the worst it is an international scam, lining pockets in the North and contributing nothing to the South. This is not a letter for publication, as such, but a warning and a request for advice as to what to do about it.

Norwich is officially twinned with the municipality of El Viejo in Nicaragua, and four members of the Norwich-El Viejo Link visited our sister town in February. I was the only Spanish speaker and have local friends there from former visits with whom I stayed, so it happened that one evening I came across a group of young foreign volunteers, including a Canadian girl, a young man from Pittsburg, a young Scot, a couple of Japanese and a few others, and their English coordinator, called G---.

The group, called Ayuda al Planeta, had rented a house in the centre of El Viejo, outside which was a sign referring to emergency disaster relief. The young volunteers referred to programmes running preschools, helping farmers, a street child project, but none of it made sense when questions were put, although G--- assured us they worked in cooperation with local representatives of e.g. MEDC, the Ministry of Education. G--- himself said he had been there a year already, having been sent out by his organisation from one week to the next with no Spanish language training - in itself unusual for any normal NGO.

A couple of days later, I bumped into the young Scottish man, P---l, again, on his own. He was studying a dog-eared photocopy of a Peace Corps manual on emergency disaster work; he told me he was teaching it to campesinos. I did not express my reaction (- what on earth was a young Scot with very little Spanish doing trying to teach Nicaraguan campesinos, whove seen it all, how to cope with earthquakes and hurricanes?) - but asked him some questions about his set-up. The answers seemed vague and at last he stated that the volunteers were bound by contract not to discuss either the projects or the organisation, only G--- the leader could talk about the projects and even he could not talk about the organisation; volunteers could only talk about their own experiences. I was shocked.

P--- also expressed some criticism of the organisation, saying it had off-shore bank accounts but did not put any money into their projects, and that several of the group were unhappy. The volunteers (who all had to go through Boston) were self-financing, raising money by knocking on doors or approaching people on the streets of towns in the USA for a couple of months during their 6 month preparation time (Each group, called a team, were set a fundraising target of about US$ 5,000 per volunteer.)

He said the organisation was known by different names in different parts of the world, Planet Aid in the USA, Humana People to People in Europe, DAPP in Africa, Tvind in Denmark, IICD also in the States and a bunch of other acronyms in various countries round the world. He had joined it because they did not require any qualifications or experience in their volunteers.

P--- was clearly not at ease talking to me, having difficulty in expressing himself (small wonder as he was breaking his contract). I told him, if he was really unhappy, to talk to Neville of APSO who was probably the only other mother-tongue English speaker in El Viejo, then I had to leave.

I saw P--- in passing the next day and apologised for not having time to stop and chat; he mumbled something to the effect of "by the way, what I said to you yesterday about the organisation, its all OK..." To my mind, he had clearly been got at.

I was concerned enough by this point to voice my concerns to the Mayor of El Viejo, who said they themselves were concerned. Apparently the group had even approached local bodies such as the town hall for material help. Ironical, given the desperate state of the Nicaraguan economy, and the reverse of normally-run NGO projects practice.

In their Annual Report 2000 on work they said they were carrying out in El Viejo, most of it is nonsense, non-existent. They name partners (for example, Save the Children) which have little or no involvement with them., which gives them a kind of spurious legitimacy.

On return to the UK, I came across the website www.tvindalert.org.uk, which has increased my unease. This site is run by Michael Durham, a London-based journalist who has already published some articles, but it seems to me this case, needs to be brought to the attention of the wider international NGO community. and is too big for one unpaid individual to deal with.. There may be a need for NGOs to coordinate responses to this octopus-like organisation drawing in young volunteers from across the globe to work in so many developing countries. It is potentially damaging to legitimate fund-raising in the North and to the credibility of organisations working on the ground in the South.

I look forward to an early reply,

With thanks for your patience in reading this!

Yours sincerely,

Frances Knight
Norwich-El Viejo Link

________________________________________

 

Right of reply

Tvind Alert has received the following response from the young man identified above as P---.

Who the f--- do you think you are you lying bastards, how dare you think you can get away with slander like that. The letter you have on your website is full of bullshit and you are going to pay for that. You have slandered the wrong person this time. And how dare you carry a statement from fascist Unita murderers who killed a young Angolan teacher on front of my feinds - precisely the reason that country needs foreign vols - because your country funds scum like unita you piece of English s---. The world is sick fed up of you English imperialists. The IRA had the right idea about how to deal with you. Eradicate English imperialist thugs. Vive MPLA     <karen21cbfree@altavista.com>

See also reasoned entry in guestbook.  It goes without saying that Tvind Alert has nothing whatsoever to do with either Unita or MPLA.   See Angola pages. 

 

Tvind Alert has received the following response from the young man identified above as P---.

Who the f--- do you think you are you lying bastards, how dare you think you can get away with slander like that. The letter you have on your website is full of bullshit and you are going to pay for that. You have slandered the wrong person this time. And how dare you carry a statement from fascist Unita murderers who killed a young Angolan teacher on front of my feinds - precisely the reason that country needs foreign vols - because your country funds scum like unita you piece of English s---. The world is sick fed up of you English imperialists. The IRA had the right idea about how to deal with you. Eradicate English imperialist thugs. Vive MPLA     <karen21cbfree@altavista.com>

See also reasoned entry in guestbook.  It goes without saying that Tvind Alert has nothing whatsoever to do with either Unita or MPLA.   See Angola pages. 

 

Who the f--- do you think you are you lying bastards, how dare you think you can get away with slander like that. The letter you have on your website is full of bullshit and you are going to pay for that. You have slandered the wrong person this time. And how dare you carry a statement from fascist Unita murderers who killed a young Angolan teacher on front of my feinds - precisely the reason that country needs foreign vols - because your country funds scum like unita you piece of English s---. The world is sick fed up of you English imperialists. The IRA had the right idea about how to deal with you. Eradicate English imperialist thugs. Vive MPLA     <karen21cbfree@altavista.com>

See also reasoned entry in guestbook.  It goes without saying that Tvind Alert has nothing whatsoever to do with either Unita or MPLA.   See Angola pages. 

 

See also reasoned entry in guestbook.  It goes without saying that Tvind Alert has nothing whatsoever to do with either Unita or MPLA.   See Angola pages.