Susan’s Story:  As a therapist and a teacher, I have chosen to work with the most vulnerable and powerless children, particularly the children that society shuns.  One of my professional interests is learning about cultural and ethnic diversity and providing appropriate services within a specific cultural context.  Various experiences with short term international volunteer work, my love of travel, and my passion for children led me to realize that what I want to do is international crisis work with children.  I am especially drawn to Afghanistan and Darfur.  I came to see that becoming a United States Peace Corps volunteer was the perfect way for me to gain experience living and working for two years, immersed in a foreign culture.

I worked in an orphanage in a small town in Bulgaria.  I worked with 75 children who are literally and figuratively starving for everything in life.  When I rubbed their backs, I could feel their bones.  When I walked the streets, I found them digging through trash bins for food.  My orphanage is a five story crumbling building with serious water damage inside.  All of the bedrooms are dark and covered in mold.  Inside, it is painfully cold in the winter and just as painfully hot in the summer.  It’s unbearably loud and chaotic with screaming children and staff and blaring music.  The “playground” is a paved lot covered in broken glass and garbage with a broken volleyball net and two rusted soccer goal posts.  The few toys they have are broken and developmentally inappropriate.  The children wear old, ill-fitting, ripped, and dirty clothes.  At times, their shoes are nothing more than shredded plastic.  None of the staff care enough to tell the children to take showers and as a result they are encrusted with dirt.  They always have lice.  The orphanage staff members loath the children.  They have minimal contact with them, hit them, and on a daily basis tell them that they are “bad.”  My work was made all the more challenging as the staff made it very clear to me that they did not want me there.  They were not interested in working with me.  In fact, they literally thought that I was a spy, placed there to report on them.  In spite of these immense challenges, I persevered for two years because I had made a commitment to my children, and I was not going to abandoned them as they had been abandoned by their families and society.

Of the many stories I have after two years at this Bulgarian orphanage, one that particularly stands out for me because it so clearly shows the lack of care these children receive and also the extent of my love and commitment to my children is the story of Alosha.  Alosha is a 12 year old boy who was hospitalized during the Christmas holidays.  He was allowed to return to the orphanage for several hours for the Christmas party, but was required to return to the hospital later that night.  It was very cold.  The sidewalks and streets were covered with thick layers of ice and snow.  I was very sick myself.  As I was leaving the party to return home, I saw Alosha on the road wearing a thin denim jacket with no hat and no gloves, clutching his little bag of Christmas treats.  Despite his dark complexion, he was pale as a sheet of paper.  He was sent out, alone, to walk himself back to the hospital.  So, I took a deep breath, gave him my scarf and gloves, and said that I would walk him to the hospital.  The roads were very dark.  We got lost and had to ask for directions twice.  After an hour in the cold, we made it to the hospital where he was welcomed by a warm bed and a television with cartoons.  I made sure that he was taken care of, and then I made my way back down the hill toward home, crying.  I don’t take being a volunteer lightly.  I have made a commitment to provide the best services I can to my children, and I take this volunteer commitment very seriously.  I joined the U. S. Peace Corps expecting to be welcomed and taken in by people who were willing to share new ideas and work together to improve children’s lives.  However, I found that I was not wanted at the orphanage.  Along with my children, I was ostracized by the community for working at the orphanage.  The work was more challenging and demanding on a daily basis than I expected, but I received a huge gift of being touched by the spirit of generosity, kindness, and love from my children.  I thought I would be going from this experience to a new job at a non governmental organization (NGO) in Afghanistan.  Now, I am going to Afghanistan, but as a film maker, not as a NGO worker.  Finally, I have come away with a new dear friend that has taught me to trust the unspoken.

Jason’s Story:  After five years of working in Hollywood, I became disillusioned and frustrated with the poor quality of stories being told.   I could not stand to work any longer in a system that dedicates so many resources in such vast quantities –time, money, work hours, etc. –to create content which serves only to distract, mislead, placate, and anesthetize audiences.  I am passionate about making this film because I feel that media creators have a huge responsibility which they are not, for the most part, living up to.  The media, in all of its forms, has great power.  With great power comes great responsibility.  The turning point in my life as a film maker came after working extremely long and difficult hours for days on end on a mindless and ridiculous reality dating show for children.  I decided that I needed to find a new direction if I was to continue to follow my dream of being a film maker.  Right then and there, I wrote a goal for my professional life: to find a way to use media to make the world a better place.  I wanted to feel like I was doing something beneficial for the world.  I knew I wanted to do an overseas volunteer experience.  So all of these things combined led me to the United States Peace Corps.  As a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer, I was placed in an orphanage in a small village in the former communist block country of Bulgaria.

Living and working for two years in the orphanage, I became part of the lives of the children and they became a part of mine.  This was made clear to me by my friend, co producer, and fellow volunteer, Susan Chestnut when she pointed out that in the beginning of my service I referred to “the children” and towards the end I began to refer to them as “my children.”  One story that I feel illustrates for me the extent of my impact on their lives is the story of Petio.  Petio, though 13 years old, had the emotional maturity of a ten year old.  He was a member of the children’s rock and roll group I created.  In the beginning, his behavioral problems, including being socially withdrawn almost overpowered his desire to be a contributing member of the band.  During the year that the band was together, Petio became more focused, disciplined, and confident, ending up being the lead singer of the band.   In fact, he was feeling confident enough about himself that he was able to perform live in front of 200 people.  The day that Petio left the orphanage to attend high school in another town, a staff member came to me and thanked me for working with him, helping him to realize his worth, and to become a young man.  I realized that in sharing my passion for the American culture, particularly Rock and Roll, with my kids, I was able to inspire, improve self esteem, and hopefully change their lives for the better.  I joined the U. S. Peace Corps expecting to be digging ditches and building bridges in the middle of nowhere.  Instead what I got was 40 hours a week of teaching English, computers, and music classes.  Also, I did not expect to have such an emotional connection with my children.  I also came away with a new friend and partner, production company, and goal as a film maker.  I gained a new empathy for people living in countries that are not their own who have to speak a foreign language, adapt to a new culture, and to make a life in a foreign land.

As U.S. Peace Corps volunteers, we learned the true value and need around the world of people who dedicate themselves to helping others and how that selfless effort helps to foster a sense of community beyond geo-political borders.  We have very high hopes that this film will act as a catalyst, an inspiration if you will, toward volunteer action, be it big or small, by the audience.  We want this film to show what people all over the world are courageously doing everyday without thought of fame or fortune.  Our intention is to open the minds and hearts of our audience; to hopefully shine a light on the fact that we are all connected.  We come together, a film maker and a therapist, combining our different skills and similar passions, to raise the consciousness of others.  Our experiences have shown us that we can persevere under extremely stressful circumstances.  We adapt to difficulties and change. We are able to work effectively and develop relationships within different cultural contexts.  As a film making team, we have learned to work together and respect each others differences and skills.  We are both committed to the success of this film.  Our story as Peace Corps volunteers is the foundation upon which this film builds the stories of courageous people doing extraordinary work in extraordinary places.

Presented in an accessible and entertaining way, the film intends to simultaneously raise awareness and inspire a commitment toward action; not just to talk the talk, but to walk the walk.  According to United Nations Volunteers, a division of the United Nations, “volunteers play an enormous role in improving health, preparing for and responding to disasters, and promoting development throughout the world.”  For example, the United Nations awarded a grant to the International Labor Organization and the John Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies to “jointly develop a method for putting volunteer work on the world’s economic map.  Hopefully, this relationship will create a method to document the significant expression of civic engagement.” (Philanthropy News Digest; May 2, 2007: http://foundationcenter.org)

Why A Volunteer? sheds light on the psychological processes of what leads a person to volunteer.  How did this person get to be at this place at this time?  This film highlights the histories, tragedies, victories, and passion of individuals and small groups that took matters into their own hands and committed themselves to improve the human condition, frequently at great personal cost to themselves.

            Filming takes place at four distinctly different locations where grass roots organizations are working on the front lines of critical world problems.  The film makers spend time with each group of volunteers, documenting the specifics of the issues and the people who have dedicated their lives to making a difference in each particular area.  Through this first hand experience, a rich, genuine story about these courageous people unfolds.  A special emphasis is placed on the question of why someone would dedicate their life in such a way and how that information can be used to inspire others toward similar, if not as dramatic, action.  We, as film makers and volunteers, want to meet the people who we think are the real heroes in this world; not the rock stars and sports icons, but the people giving of themselves everyday to help improve the quality of life for others around the world.