The writer Alexandre Jollien went to Nepal last October with a press trip organised by the Head Office of Terre des hommes. Their stay there aimed to present the projects of Tdh in Nepal (treatment, nutrition, protection of displaced persons and trafficking) in the Swiss weekly Migros Magazine.
As a follow-up of this trip, Alexandre Jollien and Jean-Marc Richard will be holding a series of talks in Switzerland at the end of January 2009. Before these talks, the writer has done us the honour of giving us impressions of his Nepal experiences.

Extract from the story:

Thursday morning
16 October 2008

Joseph knocks on my windowpane. I answer "Just an hour longer, I'm too tired!" Half an hour later he is back. So I get ready. Then we are on our way to a brickyard. The Terre des hommes people in charge of this issue are holding talks with the bosses who control the fate of the workmen making bricks here. Jean-Marc asks about basic rights, about clean drinking water, toilet facilities, schooling. Jean-Marc amazes me. With his simple English he gets to the bottom of the matter, he invites people to unburden themselves and to put into words what is worrying them, their main needs. Forthright, he displays an alert understanding which commands my respect.



Once more, Joseph teaches me a lesson. I would like to charge ahead, hand out ultimatums to the bosses, to be indignant and demand on the spot that they construct toilets for the 500 people work-ing in this smokestack, whereas he quietly and calmly negotiates, pursues a suitable dialogue, perse-veres.

In one of the smokestacks, over 500 people are busy manufacturing bricks. Paid piece rate, they work for a minimum of 10 hours a day under terrible conditions. There is no drinking water. To supplement their income, some parents have their children work here. It is hard work, but one more contribution to the family's livelihood. When one knows that schooling often functions as a "counter-destiny", one can image how precarious things become when the very rudiments of education are missing. Here, the workpeople get only two meals a day, and our team is there to help and support them. The team is adjusted to the complexities of reality. It is not a matter of "having a resounding success" but to build up, stone by stone, improved conditions freely given.

I leave the brickyard, appraising for the first time the difficulties humanitarian workers have to adjust ideals to realities. There again, the image of Joseph, objective but really touched by the lot of the workpeople, comes back to me as an example. In theory, a child does not and may not go to work. But how should we work for this inalienable right without penalizing a whole family? Faced with this problem, Terre des hommes advances correctly. Uncompromising towards injustice and persevering in an all-out effort.
[..]

That evening, at the DDC, I feel myself Swiss as never before. I savor the idea of an open, humanitar-ian Switzerland sharing its resources. In my heart I thank Terre des hommes for having given me the chance to add a stone to the structure. This small stone is the joy of my day.

Alexandre Jollien - writer - Tdh volunteer - 2008

You can download the whole of Alexandre Jollien's travel notes




Manuella Maury in Bangladesh

Last January the journalist Manuella Maury, a producer and presenter with the TSR (television of the French-speaking part of Switzerland), traveled to Bangladesh with the 'Press' expedition organized by Terre des hommes Head Office. The trip was aimed at putting the projects of Tdh in Bangladesh (mother/child health care, nutrition, social and occupational integration, and children living in a street situation) to the fore in the Swiss weekly paper 'L'Illustré'. Manuella Maury, a volunteer worker for Tdh who also takes part in activities in Switzerland such as the sale of oranges, 16th October, 20th November, gives us some impressions received during her stay there:

Extract from the story:

Guest House Kurigram
12 January 2008

On waking, the fog is still here. It’s Friday. A holiday in Muslim lands. The muezzin sang very early. It was gentle. Very beautiful.

Potato curry and fried pancakes with fresh mango. In this Terre des hommes house, managed by a local NGO, the breakfast could make us believe we’re on holiday. There’s no more mistrust of the food. Extreme vigilance so far, encouraged by the well-experienced Nathalie: “If you get sick here, you can forget about repatriation.” Sure, there are a few private clinics with sky-high fees, but on the whole, the health system is catastrophic. A paradox of circumstance: while we speak of stomach aches and automatic repatriation, women and children are waiting for our visit next-door in the nutrition center that doubles as a dispensary.



The visit is a shock. Behind the hundreds of brightly colored saris, mothers – some still children, others that seem over a hundred – are asking, with their child on their shoulder, for a chance of treatment. The local personnel are overwhelmed with the demand. Every day, six days per week, hundreds of women stream towards the center in the hope of being taken in. The children are weighed in an aluminum basin. Those reached and malnourished may have the “luck” to stay at the dispensary so they might avoid death. But each has need of particular care. In this race for life, the number that indicates the balance drives the selection. Only fifteen among them can benefit from provisional shelter and appropriate care. The others wait for the distribution of medicine. Through the railings, mothers push, holding the health card that identifies them and gives them a right to a consultation. Some of the children cry. Others don’t even have the strength.

Leaving the centre, I see, in the city, men on carts, tradesmen of all kinds, piling up in front of the stalls. It’s hardly an indifferent judgment, but I can’t stop my anger for all those women who take to the road, some walking more than four hours to reach their village. Some of them live alone. In this Bangladeshi society, where you need to belong to a family if you want to exist socially, disadvantaged women and children do not elicit the slightest empathy. There are so many to save.

I feel helpless. I return to the guesthouse in tears. I look at the delegates, the nurses, the teachers. Their hope, their fight - when will their strength be exhausted?

Manuella Maury - journalist - Tdh volunteer - 2008

You can download the whole of Manuella Maury's travel notes