Jane at IICD

from Jane Docherty

I joined IICD between my sophomore and junior years at college and 1992.  I was on the "Angola 5" team but as things got increasingly unstable after the elections there, I pushed for us to go to a different DAPP project. IICD gave the impression that switching projects as a group was a possibility, though it never happened.

We all banded together in response to the mistreatment, fund-raising nightmares, rumors and newspaper articles getting passed around. I switched teams at the last minute to go with the Nicaragua group because I didn't want to worry my family too much.  As a result, I lost a lot of the non-Tvind support that was necessary to maintaining any sense of grounding as an IICD participant. I ended up feeling pretty isolated and bewildered.  

IICD had us moving furniture for 12 hours from 10pm to 10am in NYC the night before our group was leaving for Nicaragua.  By the time we reached Guatemala en route to Nicaragua 8-10 days later I was a real mess -- couldn't sleep, couldn't function normally.  I eventually decided I needed to leave all together.  Our leader told me I had a responsibility to the project and I immediately agreed to stay, whereupon the rest of the group (bless them) told him he was crazy and that I'd just made it clear I needed to go home.

At some point in there I went from thinking IICD was a slightly disorganized, odd organization which I'd have to put up with in order to have an interesting work/travel experience to deciding I wasn't going back to college and that I wanted to work with IICD forever...that going home was a necessary evil and that after a few days rest I'd come back refreshed and able to be of use.  To this day I have no idea how much of that shift was a function of my lack of self-care/self-awareness and how much was "programming" by IICD...but I was pretty close to dropping out of life and becoming a fervent member of Tvind.  

A series of events allowed me to pull back and listen to what I was contemplating.  By the time I reached my parents, I was a wreck, but no longer interested in signing on to TVIND for life.  In fact I was furious with them and determined to "expose" them.  

All this was over ten years ago, and apart from one or two encounters, I've had nothing to do with IICD.  Once, when I was back at University, I ran into two rain-drenched IICD fund-raisers in New York City. I bought them a beer and shared with them all the information I had about IICD/TVIND/DAPP, and they ended up leaving the organization.    

Some time that year, another fund-raiser approached someone on Fifth Avenue who turned out to be a close high school friend of mine.  My friend said, "Is this IICD?  I'm not interested, thank you."  The volunteer asked why and Andrea said, "Because a friend had a very unpleasant experience with your organization,"  to which the volunteer responded, "Oh, you mean, Jane?"

At first I was horrified when she told me about this conversation, because I pictured the anti-Jane seminars they must have been giving at Swiss Meadows.  Then I started to enjoy it a bit because it meant they must have felt at least a bit threatened by me.


I paid them $4000 to join and fund-raised another $6000.  They paid for my $300 plane ticket to Mexico City and whatever costs I incurred at Swiss Meadows.They also gave me a $200 refund a few months after I went home. It took me at least six months to begin to feel vaguely normal after the experience, and there were lots of residual difficulties -- and lots of money spent on therapists and international phone call.

That's the general outline, though I could go on for hours about the details and all the sketchy things that went on.