why I chose to work for nothing

Hauling myself onto the back of a pick-up truck and squeezing in among the freshly picked papayas felt a far cry from last winter!

Twelve months ago I was stuck in the university library dreading final exams. I had a brilliant three years studying English at Cambridge - but I can’t deny that riding around Nicaragua in a pick up beats revision hands down.

So how did I end up half way across the world to enjoy a November of 30 degree weather rather than just 3 degrees? It’s because I’m taking part in Christian Aid’s GAP year scheme.

When I finished my degree I felt it was time to get out into the ‘real’ world. With 2005 being ‘Make Poverty History’ year it has been an exciting time to get involved with an NGO.

At sixth form college I had the chance to visit Swaziland and meet children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Since then it has been my ambition to work for a charity, and the Christian Aid GAP year seemed like a great option. The scheme lasts for ten months and I am based in London, visiting youth and student groups to raise awareness of the issues surrounding global poverty.

I was excited to find a GAP year which allows me to stay in the UK but also included a short trip overseas. I travelled to Nicaragua in Central America with the nine other GAP students who work in local Christian Aid offices throughout the UK. We spent two eye-opening weeks meeting people and groups which Christian Aid supports.

The first partner organisation we met was SOPPEXCCA, a coffee co-operative based in the town of Jinotega. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, over 70 per cent of the population lives on $1 a day or less. A major factor keeping Nicaraguans in poverty is the unfair trade rules imposed upon them by richer nations and multi-national companies.

Coffee is one of the country’s major exports. Christian Aid gives the SOPPEXCCA coffee producers money and business training to enable them to get a fair price for the coffee they grow, rather than being at the mercy of fluctuating market prices. This also means that they can pay their workers a fair and reliable wage.

When we arrived at the co-op headquarters we took part in their impressively strict quality control process. I†had a go at professional coffee tasting before jumping onboard the lorry to be driven into the hills to pick our own coffee. Each GAPPER teamed up with an expert coffee cutter and had a basket strapped around their waist. We headed into the jungle of coffee and banana plants and began pulling the red berries off the plants.

We were under strict instructions to pick only the red ones and to make sure no stalks got into our harvest. I couldn’t believe the difference between coffee plants and the jars of instant we have in our kitchens at home. Ronaldo, my picking companion, congratulated me for filling my basket in one and a half hours before cheekily explaining he could have picked the same weight of beans in half an hour.

After a well-earned lunch of rice, beans and tortilla (which we ate everyday, three times a day), we moved onto the wet processing plant which Christian Aid helped SOPPEXCCA to build. The coffee we’d picked was weighed, washed and shelled whilst I, with the help of a Spanish translator, chatted to Ronaldo about his life as a Nicaraguan coffee producer. A school has also been built with help from Christian Aid, but for Ronaldo, the most important feature of the co-op is the guaranteed price he gets for his coffee.

Our second week in Nicaragua was the most challenging. We spent three nights staying, in pairs, with families in an extremely rural village. We’d bumped along what is officially known as the worst road in Nicaragua, to reach Achuapa, which has one telephone, a doctor (but no medical supplies) and got its first internet connection last month!

When we arrived on the doorstep of our hosts, Lucy and I wished we’d learnt a bit more Spanish. But we soon learnt how to get by with gestures and lots of smiling. Christian Aid has been working with the Achuapa co-operative, Juan Francisco Silva Paz (JFPS), for nearly ten years.

The main product of JFPS is sesame oil. Like the coffee producers, members of JFPS can sell their sesame seed to the co-op for a fair and stable price. We toured the machinery in the co-op which grinds and refines the sesame oil, which is then sold to The Body Shop, which uses it in many of its beauty products.

In Achuapa we chatted to young people who had enjoyed the rare opportunity of studying at university and now had jobs on the JFPS ‘technical team’, working for the co-op visiting farmers to advise them on how to grow the best sesame.

I was really impressed by the young employees’ enthusiasm for their jobs. Most of them hope to do even more studying to improve the qualifications they already had in business and agriculture.

Now that I am back home my task for the rest of the GAP year has taken on a much greater significance. I can now use my experiences from Nicaragua when I talk to young people about poverty, trade justice and debt.

Having seen concrete examples of how Christian Aid  resources and money are making visible improvements to the lives of Nicaraguan people, it makes sense for me to work on convincing my generation to  start thinking about development.

I’m even keener to get a job in an NGO next year and I think the Nicaraguan adventure will boost my chances. There are no strict criteria for getting work in a charity, but you have to prove your commitment to the cause.

Volunteering when you could be earning money is a challenging but totally worthwhile way to show an NGO you share their vision.

For more information on the GAP year scheme and Christian Aid, go to:

www.pressureworks.org.uk/gap and www.christianaid.org.uk