Summary in two-months practice in volunteering

In the last two months, I participate in volunteering for 3 months. Participate in daily activities of an homeless charity; met more than 25 volunteers and more than 50 homeless people. But it worth more than just the hours and numbers. I acquired some real and powerful life spirits and it gives me a concentrated picture of homelessness charity and homeless issue.

This charity has good reputation. Found in 2008, it had over 4000 days of operation on helping homelessness including food and drink, life skills,IT courses and even art courses. In the last two months, from my observation, the daily operation of charity is 90% supported by volunteers, including production organising, inventory management, cleaning, marketing, and admin. It is like a “people’s commune”. One of my colleagues Jack is an website designer, he told me that he chose to work in this charity because its good quality content of website. In his professional sense, this is a right place to be. ” You can check ‘back link seo’ on Google where Google rated the website according to click rate, retention time on website and so on….This charity is performing very well on these, top level clicking rate and viewing time. This is A good charity.”

The charity founder Andrea has no “background”. Unlike some other organisations operating in this sector, he has no relationships from establishments, what he has is himself: his will and stance. He values servant leadership and he strive to overlook everything of this charity, in order to meet his standards. But since Andrea do not employ people to help, running a homeless charity is an very hard work for him. Firstly, inevitably, many volunteers are inconsistent in their attendence, and quality of work. This is mainly due to the economic nature of “people’s commune”—-There is no direct feedback, no proper motivation sheme, so collective production can frustrated people’s consistency and enthusiasm. In the case of “poor” management, he usually frustrated easily so he has plenty of complaints:

For example:

“Look at it, what a mess! Why can’t they(volunteers) tidy up the kitchen and floor after they finished….I can’t do all these by myself……My brain is …”

After he take a glance at the kitchen, he sighed and shake his head…..”I said time I time again, use foil before and put food on baking tray so you can wash them easily…they just not listen.”

“Why you put those little plants outside the door Felix(I did this for decoration)? It is gonna trip people, I have to pay insurance!”

“No, no, no….look at this….this can’t be eaten….please, check if there are any rotten fruits and throw them away.”

Secondly, he is the main guy to deal with daily emergencies. There are unwelcomed people come to charity everyday for different reasons, some are begging, some are being provacative, at this situation, he will come forward.

“This American lady comes here every day for us to help, she just come in a wrong bloody time….we are now leaving and she just come to pick our stuff…”

“Felix, do not give any money to homeless people when they visit our charity for whatever means. Because we don’t know how they spend the money, in what means…..And do not give any clothes, or flowers stuff like that, they are going to resale them…Especially the man with bald head and wearing high-heels…..I know them too well.”

“Next time, be firm.”,

After finish the daily routine of food distribution, he still need to work for charity. He will go to the local supermarket to do meetings, pitchings to compete with other charities for food resources, so that he can get the food resources for us to cook. Therefore, he has to make sure he is ‘full of beans’ all the time, with little space for rest, “one day a nurse ask me what is my blood type, I said my blood is filled with TPLip…it has to be thick.”

He Come back to charity at late night with all the lorries, and tomorow. “Felix, when I finished all the work and come back at 11:30 PM, I listen to this, Radioactive, <There, There>, bang bang.”

“…Just ’cause you feel it
Doesn’t mean it’s there
(Someone on your shoulder
Someone on your shoulder)
Just ’cause you feel it
Doesn’t mean it’s there
(Someone on your shoulder
Someone on your shoulder)
There there!……”

What makes me admire to him is that he does not have to run a homeless charity for main job, but he insist doing it. He want to motivate others by setting an example, even though sometimes he is hard to manage all these work. Once, he had his own commercial property management company for 7 years, and he started to work as photographer for fashion industry that earn his way to get away from life bottom. From years of practice, he has to be very familiar with fashion, commercial property management and can continue his career path in these areas much more easily. Also, jobs in these two areas are more lucrative and ordinary compare to runing a non-for-profit homeless charity. But instead, he put himself in a tangled web of homeless problem and try to solve it. He is a pure soldier fighting for himself, and homeless, everyday.

It makes me to remind an extract about Sisyphus:

Sisyphus’s silent happiness lies in the fact that the destiny belongs to him. His rocks are him. When the absurd person ponders his pain, he silences all idols. The absurd person knows that he is the master of his own life. We always see the burdens on him. And Sisyphus tell us that the highest piety is to dey the gods and remove the stones. He thinks he is fulfilled. This world that was never been dominated from now on is neither a dessert nor a fertile soil for him. Every particle on his shoulder, every ore on the dark mountain only forms a world for Sisyphus. The struggle he has to go to the top of the mountain is enough to fill a person’s heart.

———————————-Albert Camus <Le Mythe de Sisyphe>

Findings

Again, working in this charity is very laborous. It is busy, stressful, and hard. There are always huge amount of work need to be done, since there are loads of supplies in this charity and they need to be used and managed. However, it does not mean it is meaningless and repetitive labor task. I cherish this experience and try to use all of my five senses to really immerse in this working environment. I begin to learn something unique and memorable during this process. For example, “Can building”.

One day, my colleagues ask me to help to move about 50 cans of cola into the fridge. Since the rats problem is rampant aroung that week, their gang bitten up everything, even the cola cans. The fill-out of sweet cola can induce more rats and cockroach into the room/ Therefore the cans must be moved in to a sealed places to store.

It sounds like a very straight forward task. When I did that in practice, I met a lot of failure. I have to make sure all the cans fit in the fridge firmly; make sure I can successfully close the fridge door so that the space is appropriately used; also, when someone else open the fridge to take cans, I have to ensure the cans do not flood out like the first picture shown down below.

Somehow, the cans are very sensitive and do not simply follow my command. Even one slight dislocation, nearly all cans will fall. The crackling sound, the pain on my feet, the damp smell, the frightened mouse noise……which are significantly frustrating. However, the truth is that being stressful, complaint, and angry does not help at all. The cans are still on the floor and will not move themselves.

They sometimes like animals and sometimes like vegetables. If I rushed this and stuff them in the fridge, they will punish me for my careless by rolling away. If I put them in fridge with anger them can feel it and don’t step on their mates’ head firmly, and all wll fall. And if I just put them in a cold and mechanical way, they don’t allow the rest of their mates to join them in the fridge since the fridge is packed. They left me to pay all the price.

I start to realise that if I treat these cans as opposition, a task to fulfill, I will never success. A task is cold and static, but when I actually doing it, It become fluid and current. It is no longer a task anymore, but a part of my life, the reflection of my life condition, attitude, and direction. So I have to live with them. What they really need is understanding and caring, but not restlessness.

Therefore, I start to do it in a different way. I took a deep breath, roughly measure the base area of the fridge. Fully utilise the base in the stable way. Then, I build up the second, third, forth levels of can, with silence, calm, and being “in one”. Finally, I made it. The cans are in best place and I am purely satisfied.

This experience is very similar to what I feel during these months with failures, frustration, anxiety, and focus. Its genuine and immersive. It reminds me another proverb:

Two fish are swimming in the ocean.

One looks at the other and says,”The water looks pretty cloudy today.” 

The other fish looks back and says,”Yeah, what’s water?”

We are the water.