Balkan Sunflowers' Seeds
of Hope:
A Volunteer's Story
By Douglas Williams
Two years after my graduation from the College of Business Administration
in 1996, I landed it. My dream job. It had all the hallmarks of success:
a great salary, great benefits, in a solid company with rapid growth and
a record of inside promotions. I was ecstatic. But as the months quickly
passed and I toiled away from dawn to dusk, I found myself becoming less
and less satisfied, until one day, I woke up and just couldn't go in. I
couldn't do it anymore. The question "What does it all mean?"
ran through my head over and over. What did it matter how many office supplies
I sold? What did it matter how nice a catalog I could create? Who cares?!
I'd had enough.
Shortly thereafter I was lying in bed, watching CNN. I was dumbstruck
by the plight of column after column of refugees, mostly women and children-since
most of the men had been killed-streaming from the province of Kosovo.
They had been beaten and raped, their family and friends massacred, their
homes and belongings burned, their lives destroyed. "What is next
for them?" I muttered. They would be herded like cattle into a filthy
tent city resembling the aftermath of yet another Woodstock concert, where
they would do nothing but sit and wait. Sit and think about their plight.
Sit and feel their despair. Sit and contemplate the revenge that will spin
the wheel of violence for yet another generation.
As I continued to watch this stream of cold, stark images, a thought
quietly surfaced. "Oh, well, these are refugees. They should be used
to this, shouldn't they? This is what refugees do." The realization
of what I had said jolted me from the trance I was in. I was appalled at
the ease with which this thought had come to me. What had I meant by "that's
what refugees do"?! These were not just empty images; not actors on
a film set or in a sitcom. These were real people. These people had lives
like mine. They had families, friends, jobs; they went to universities,
went out for groceries; they had feelings, had doubts and dreams. These
people had the right to have these things. This was not what refugees do;
this was what regular people, like me, had been forced to do.
I thought for a second. What would it be like? If one day uniformed
men-many of them having been my neighbors for most or all of my life-came
to my house and raped my sister, shot my father and uncle, and, in front
of my very eyes, murdered or imprisoned all of the men aged sixteen to
sixty in my neighborhood, and forced me to walk west towards the New York
border 100 miles distant, as the house I grew up in, containing the recently
mangled and bloody bodies of my relatives, burned to the ground behind
me? If I made it to New York, if I were allowed to cross the border, if
I did not become separated from my remaining family members-what then?
And what could be done about it?
That afternoon I scoured the Web looking for any organization involved
with the relief effort. I'm smart, a veteran adventure traveler, good in
a crisis, a psychology buff-somebody had to give me a job or at least pay
my expenses so I could join in the relief effort. All in all, I contacted
250 organizations asking how I could help. I figured they must be desperate
for volunteers willing to help.
Wrong. Every reply I got said the same things: we need medical personnel,
we want people with refugee experience, you don't speak the language, a
crisis is not the time to recruit green volunteers. I was turned down by
all of them. But attached to one of the rejection letters was a copy of
a message sent by a man named Wam Kat in Belzig, Germany. It was addressed
to anyone who would listen. He had launched several grassroots relief projects
during the Bosnian war and wanted to organize another relief project for
the Kosovars. No experience necessary.
I contacted Wam, he replied, and two weeks later other concerned people
around the world joined in and we began to formulate a plan. Offers of
help came in from all over. Wam's e-mail had inspired thousands to action.
That was last March. Within a few weeks, we were two thousand strong with
a headquarters established in Belzig. My original intention was to join
Wam and four others on a "pathfinder" mission for reconnaissance
and preparation. By the end of May, however, I found that I had been so
busy in planning projects and operational details, sending out press releases,
answering up to 100 e-mail inquiries a day, and communicating with HQ that
I had not raised my own funds to finance my participation. What I had done,
however inadvertently, was become the coordinator for the U.S. arm of what
was to be called the Balkan Sunflowers. The group's name arose from sunflowers
that Wam had planted in sandbags in Zagreb, Croatia, during the war there
in 1992. As the seeds sprouted and blossomed, so did people's hopes for
recovery and normality.
As the crisis wore on, I found myself getting busier and busier until
I had no free time left at all. And I loved every minute of it. I was using
all of the marketing and business skills I had learned at Northeastern.
I squeezed every bit of knowledge and experience out of my life and diploma
and poured it into the relief effort. I was my own boss, I was at the top
of an international organization, and, more important than anything, what
I was doing meant something. This time it mattered. Knowing that my efforts
would benefit thousands of war victims was worth more than any salary I
could have earned in the corporate world.
I am now the founding director of Balkan Sunflowers USA, which was legally
incorporated as a nonprofit organization last month. I function as the
group's marketing director. Balkan Sunflowers now has offices in Tirana,
the capital of Albania; Skopje, the capital of Macedonia; Pristina/Prishtine,
the provincial capital of Kosovo/a; and Dakovica/Gjakove and Pec/Peje,
two cities in Kosovo/a. (Why two names? The former spellings are used by
Serbs, the latter by Albanians, who are the majority in Kosovo/a. Each
term carries a political connotation. To avoid the appearance of taking
sides, we use both names together.)
The Sunflowers are now 150 volunteers from all over the world, serving
in the Balkans on more than thirty projects thus far. We have bettered
the lives of the Kosovar Albanians stuck in refugee camps in Albania and
Macedonia and, working with NATO, CARE, and the International Rescue Committee
(IRC), have rovided safe havens along the roads leading back to Kosovo/a
during the mass return after the war. We have set up community centers
in Skopje to serve the new wave of Serbian and Roma (Gypsy) refugees fearing
reprisals from the returning Kosovar Albanians. We have stayed behind in
Albania when all of the other relief organizations have left, to begin
new projects in this country, which in many ways is worse off than Kosovo/a.
We are helping those still in camps and those whose homes have been destroyed
prepare for the unforgiving Balkan winter. And we are still going strong.
"There
are not many African-Americans in this line of work. I am often asked,
'Why are you helping these people? Why aren't you helping our youth and
our inner cities?' My response to this question is that I am doing what
best fits my skill set. The world is larger than your own ethnic group.
I am proud to be part of an international humanitarian effort and to show
that African-Americans are more than what foreigners see in movies like
Boyz N the Hood and New Jack City, which is often the only impression that
many of them have of us. (I am actually African-American, Cherokee Indian,
German, Russian Jewish, and Amish, but not many people can tell.)"
Doug Williams
Upon arriving in the Balkans in late September, I assumed the position
of country coordinator for Albania, and, soon after, Balkan regional coordinator.
I am writing now from Dakovica/ Gjakove, in southeast Kosovo/a, where I'm
on a fact-finding and troubleshooting tour. Although I was briefed in advance
on the differences between Kosovar Albanians and Albanians, I was still
surprised by the severity of the difference. Kosovo/a is a semideveloped
country with a standard of living nearly ten times that of Albania. Fifty
years of isolation during the repressive Communist era stripped Albania
of its cultural heritage and spirit of self-determination and destroyed
its economy and infrastructure. As one Kosovar Albanian put it, "They
are our brothers, we know that, and we thank them for their support during
the conflict. We want to help them to recover from the transition to democracy,
but we have been separated for so long, we are very different. We are civilized
in Kosova, [in Albania] they are crazy."
For the time being, Kosovo/a is the dominant news story. This is the
story that people want to hear. Americans know little, if anything, about
Albania. However, I would be neglecting my duties as a relief worker to
focus only on the situation in Kosovo/a. Albania is absolutely poverty-stricken.
The country is in a state of anarchy that the government can do little
to correct. A near civil war in 1997 provided every family in the country
with at least one Kalashnikov machine gun and many with hand grenades,
rocket-propelled grenades, and even shoulder-fired missiles. The law here
is the law of the gun, as a strong belief in defense of the clan and clan
feuding and revenge pervade this society. Albania is in great need of international
assistance.
The situation in Kosovo/a is different. Walking around at night, you
feel completely safe as long as you do not stray from paved areas, for
fear of mines. The UCK-the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) in English-is still
a strong presence here and the resurgence of the Kosovar Mafia insures
that, as in Albania, there is gunfire on a nightly basis. Although the
people have gone through indescribable horrors that will smolder in their
minds for generations to come, the order and infrastructure in Kosovo/a
is strong enough to have facilitated an incredibly fast recovery. The presence
of more than 250 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) has speeded up the
process.
Albania, on the other hand, remains in a state of crisis and anarchy.
People there are well aware that the world's focus is on Kosovo/a and not
on them and they are truly jealous of their Kosovar brothers, and with
good reason. The Albanians are in greater need of assistance. This fact
eludes coverage in the international media.
Because of this situation and the location of our Balkan headquarters
in Tirana, I have chosen to focus my time on projects there. The Sunflowers
work at an orphanage and at one of the remaining refugee camps, where we
conduct children's activities and give English lessons; we work at one
of the collective refugee centers in Tirana; we have built Tirana's first
community center; and we work with children at the children's hospital,
the only pediatric hospital in Albania and Kosovo/a. Child victims of the
war have to make the long journey to Tirana in order to receive care. Although
I am responsible for all of the projects in Kosovo/a, Albania, Macedonia,
and now Montenegro, one project has captured my heart with particular strength:
our flagship project, Bathore. I love Bathore.
Bathore is an unofficial suburb of Tirana with some 60,000 inhabitants,
economic refugees from northern Albania. Eight years after the fall of
Communism, property issues are still paramount. There is not a piece of
land in the country not claimed by at least two parties. Bathore was a
collective farm and its ownership has not been established. Thus the entire
community is illegal and without utilities, government recognition, or
much employment. The living conditions are horrifying.
By the time I arrived, Balkan Sunflowers had already set up two children's
programs in Bathore. Through teamwork and dedication, we have gone on to
establish sanitation and sewage systems, rehabilitate Bathore's school,
distribute over sixty tons of food and supplies, and get eighteen NGOs
and governmental agencies to work together to solve Bathore's problems-an
unprecedented task. The things we have been able to accomplish (without
a budget) have amazed the city and the NGO community.
I can claim some personal accomplishments, too. I have discovered that
your career is what you make of it. The skills you have and the skills
you are learning can be applied to whatever you want to do. A degree in
international business and marketing does not mean that you can't become
a refugee relief worker. A degree in political science does not mean you
can't become a musician. And I have learned that success is not measured
by the size of your wallet, but by the size of the smile on your face.
Is anything worth more than that?
Balkan Sunflowers has been organizing projects with refugees in Macedonia
and Albania since the conflict arose in March and will continue to do so
for the coming decade. We have been asked to continue our work in Kosovo/a,
since so many people are coming back to burned houses and unstable situations.
This does not mean that the work in Albania and Macedonia will stop. We
will continue to organize projects with orphans, disadvantaged children,
and Roma and Serb refugees in both countries. We are always looking for
volunteers to serve, both at home and in the field.
Douglas Williams, BA'96, is the founding director of Balkan Sunflowers
USA. For more information on Balkan Sunflowers, visit their Web sites (<www.balkansunflowers.org>
and <www.usbsf. org>) or call
202-726-3317.
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