Training For Trainers (TFT), Seoul, KOREA
October 2003



The Training for Trainers (TFT) seminar was organized by IWO and was held in Seoul, Korea in October 2003. It was designed to train participating workcamp leaders and active volunteers for them to: start organizing workcamps; enhance their organizational structure; train camp leaders and participants; develop a well-organized workcamp program; learn and develop means of finance generation; have a fruitful cooperation among members in the workcamp networks. TFT was instrumental in building up WINPHIL.


Semarang, INDONESIA
January 2006



The meeting was designed to strengthen ties among organizations within the network, but special attention was focused on HIV-AIDS. Within the prostitution area, the participants lived in a tiny clinic, while the plenary discussions were conducted in a town hall near a mosque. Then the group moved to live in an orphanage, then to a villa near a temple for the NVDA General Assembly. A defining moment in this gathering was Demak river clean-up. Demak is a very important river for a community living in the area, but it is also very dirty. The volunteers gathered on both banks to scour the weeds, until a loud splash was heard – It was Kai, the NVDA President, diving for garbage! With a loud cheer, the rest joined him in the river. At the end of the day, each participant swallowed a fly, and bugs, and a host of other insects…


Tokyo, JAPAN
November 2004



Another form of voluntary service promoted by the workcamp network is LMTV or the Long and Middle Term Volunteer program, a fairly new concept of voluntary work. In comparison with a regular workcamp, which involves 10 to 20 participants for a 2-week activity, LMTV lasts for 6 months to 2 years and involves a smaller number of volunteers, but the work is more in-depth and specialized. However, the various organizations doing LMTV has yet to come up with a standard form on which future LMTV programs will be based. Hence, after a series of consultations with other organizations and networks, the LMTV seminar was hatched and realized on November 2004 in Tokyo. The LMTV handbook was the result, and is now the basis of all LMTV programs.


Willits, Mendocino County, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
August 2007




There were 15 full-time participants from Germany, Austria, the U.S.A., Denmark, France, Italy, Korea, Japan, Australia and Indonesia and the Philippines. Our hosts are Max from Willits and Maria from Colombia. MELC is conveniently perched on the highest level of this rolling terrain of temperate forests. The surrounding woods was made up mostly of pine but also of a few endemic tree species. In the clearing was a house powered solely by the sun. Walkways are lighted at night by solar powered torches. Within hours, a tent city arose, as all of us pitched our tents which will become our places of abode for the next two weeks. This is going to be a strictly vegetarian camp and we will gather most of the veggies from garden patches that dot the area. Lush spiraling spice gardens grow beside the outdoor kitchen for a convenient tossing of rosemary or jasmine directly from plant to boiling pot.

But before we came, the earth was moved by a backhoe giving way to berms that catch precious rainwater. Some of the trees were also felled to let in the sunshine and to reveal the stars in the night sky. In one of these nights, Max’ father Harry came over for an enchanting night of storytelling. He was garbed in a wizard’s wardrobe complete with a walking stick. It was an enchanting night alright. The stars were out and it was a bit chilly. The common camp tent was being illuminated only by a faint light. Then Harry started telling his stories, mostly of Indian gods and kings and immortals as we huddled close to Harry.

Click here for pertinent Freeman Newspaper article.

Hanoi, VIETNAM
January 2008



A mighty river flowing from southwestern China, going all the way to northern Vietnam and emptying itself to the Gulf of Tonkin is the Red River. And today we are paying it a visit, particularly, towards a floating community along its banks in Hanoi. To get there, we have to walk on Long Bien Bridge, designed and constructed by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel at the turn of the 20th century. The residents’ source of water is the Red River which needs filtration before being boiled for drinking and cooking. So today we are making a UNICEF-designed water filter to be donated to the floating residents.

We hopped on the island going towards the other side facing another arm of the Red River where it has a football field. Interestingly in cold Hanoi, nude local footballers play here in the afternoons unmindful of the dark history surrounding the area. On the right side of the floating houses were concrete columns rising thirty feet in the air which line the river bank all the way to Long Bien Bridge. These sturdy pillars are mute witnesses to the atrocities of the past during the French colonization of the country where hundreds of Vietnamese POWs were said to be tied to the posts and shot here.

For a snapshot of the newspaper article about this NVDA Meeting in Hanoi click here.

Sete, FRANCE
March 2008





This is ALLIANCE Technical Meeting (TM) where more than 150 delegates from over 80 organizations all over the world come together at Sete, a southern city of France close to the Mediterranean sea. The lower middle photo was taken at the Philippine embassy in Paris.

Click here for Part I of Freeman Newspaper Article about TM in Sete and Pre-TM in Paris.
Click here for Part II
Click here for Part III