Escape from yourself or a mission: why do people go to Africa, where their lives are at risk

Oncologist Anatoly Atasov from Orenburg (in the center) is surrounded by children from Cameroon. Russian dentists and orthodontists from Dagestan, Shamil Magomedov (left) and Askerkhan Magomedov (right), treated the young patients' teeth / Photo: Alexey Mostovoy

It is commonly believed that people who have experienced something difficult in their lives, such as violence or the loss of a loved one, tend to participate in various volunteer missions. This is because traveling to dirty villages in countries like Burkina Faso can be a way to escape from their own problems.

What motivates people who are willing to spend their own money and effort to help others, VM found out from volunteers who, thanks to the new platform Volunteers of the World (an international humanitarian platform created last year to facilitate cooperation between volunteers from BRICS countries with the assistance of the World Christian Association of Parliamentarians), can now expand the geography of their assistance.

The platform has already implemented medical missions in Uganda, Cameroon, Congo, and Zambia: about 500 doctors have been trained, and modern equipment has been provided to hospitals. A new call for volunteers has been announced this summer. Among the areas where volunteers can contribute, there is assistance to residents of Golaya Pristan and Alyoshkino in the Kherson region, drilling wells in Tanzania, feeding and educating children in Kenya and the Turkana Desert, and providing moral support to girls in Indonesia, as being Indonesian is not always a lucky ticket.

In Indonesia, there is no social security system, and all adults work on a seven-to-zero or six-to-one schedule.

— Because of this, only boys who can bring bread to the house are valued in the families of this country. If a daughter is born, parents think that they are very unlucky — " says Vladislav Yantovsky, a volunteer of the Youth in Mission movement, an interior designer from St. Petersburg. - There are simply no ideas about family values and children's rights there — girls are beaten, raped, given to orphanages. We work with these children and try to change the worldview of adults, to explain to them that there are family values. This is very difficult, because people are used to living very differently. They are afraid and anxious about giving up old habits and traditions that often harm them.

Egor Karshakov, a volunteer from Vladivostok and a construction worker by profession, says that he faced a similar problem in India.

"My wife and I went to work at an orphanage in the city of Siliguri. As it turned out, the orphanages there have been overcrowded since the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, because many parents, having lost their jobs, started selling their children to buy alcohol, food, and drugs," says Egor with a sad voice.

According to the volunteer, when interacting with Indian children, volunteers try to entertain them in order to somehow compensate for their lack of love, but most importantly, to teach them the necessary English.

"In India, you need to know English to get a good job, such as in a shopping mall," says Egor.

Guntars Dankbars, a Latvian-born Muscovite missionary in Kenya, says that he and his wife had planned to stay in Kenya for a year, but ended up staying for eight years. He says that there was a lot of work to be done. He gives an example of a recent incident. Guntars had to take a man with malaria to various hospitals: "We went to a good clinic by local standards, but it turned out that it was no longer operating because it had been shut down for organ trafficking."

The Dankbars are opening schools in the Turkana Desert. One of them is on Mount Elgon, near a huge volcano, and two are in villages, with land allocated by the elders. They are building the schools with donations from their blog readers and with their own money, which comes from renting out their home in California, where his wife is from.

"My volunteer girlfriends and I often go on trips to towns and villages, where we 'educate' people by telling them basic things. For example, that water comes from a river, not a cup. People don't know this, and this kind of ignorance leads to tribal wars. We also talk about family values, children, their health and education, and most importantly, that children should not be beaten. The traditional method of parenting here is through physical punishment," continues Guntars Dankbars.

In his opinion, eight years have brought about tremendous changes.

"People started selling their goats to treat their children. Before that, they didn't care where their children were, as long as they were sleeping in the desert," the volunteer concluded.

"Africa is a stunningly colorful world, and its people are incredibly grateful, because in their own countries they are often considered expendable and are not cared for at all," says Ekaterina Glock, the head of the Volunteers of the World mission, a midwife with twenty years of experience and the mother of eight children. "It's just that all medical care is paid for. If you lose an arm or a leg, you will lie there bleeding, and no one will touch you until you or your family pays for it..."

One of Ekaterina Glock's most impressive stories took place recently, during her very successful mission to Uganda, with the support of the State Duma (Deputy Dmitry Kuznetsov helped to use administrative resources), a local deputy, and volunteer doctors who traveled for their own money, including Alexey Mostov and Anna Karpova, the heads of the neonatal unit at Moscow City Hospital No. 67.

— We came to a village in the north of the country, and there are two small sheds: one is a clinic, the other is an operating room. They asked me to call the doctor, but the midwife won't let me in, she says he's having an operation-he's doing a Caesarean. We wait an hour, we wait two, we wait three, we understand that something is wrong here, we ask for help, but not in any way. And suddenly the doctor himself runs out, almost throwing himself on his knees: "Help!" In the operating room, a woman lies in a pool of blood. She's really sick. Her eyes were huge and wide open. A group of men was praying behind the barn. It turned out that she was the wife of a local pastor and a mother of many children. I also started praying that we would be able to save her. Our doctors, who brought their equipment, medications, and supplies, performed a miracle. However, the level of medical care there is very low. We have been traveling for many years, giving lectures and conducting workshops on performing cesarean sections, intubating premature babies, and applying stitches. In African countries, child and maternal mortality rates are extremely high, says Ekaterina Glok.

Now, with the development of the volunteer runet, it is not so difficult to find yourself in one of the missions, and before it was a separate adventure. There was the Red Cross, there were foundations, but, according to the experience of volunteers of the older generation, they were always difficult.

"My wife and I had offers from American charities, and even with good funding, but we refused: they planned to dictate what we should do and what we shouldn't," Guntars Dankbars recalls.

Ekaterina Glock adds that before she could fulfill her dream of traveling to Africa, she had to call dozens of organizations and write hundreds of letters, but none of them responded.

— While gathering information, I learned that it was impossible to get a work permit in Africa, that there were no doctors, that midwives took care of childbirth, and that they would curse white people. However, exactly one month later, I saw a photo on the internet of my friend posing with a dark-skinned young man, with the caption, "This is Modi from Cameroon, and he loves Russians and wants to learn Russian." I asked if they needed medical volunteers, and he immediately replied, "The medical situation is dire. We will provide housing and food, just come."

The doctors collected money for a trip to the Idul settlement for a whole year — they calculated and found out that the budget was more than a million — they needed rather expensive plane tickets, medical equipment, medicines, and consumables. Initially, a large company was planned, but there were fewer and fewer people who wanted to get to the point. After all, Africa is dangerous. Diseases, wild animals.

"I was very scared — I have a liver disease, and I can't get yellow fever or malaria! I was in tears as I prepared for my first trip, but I knew I couldn't give up on my dream," says Ekaterina.

The answer to the prosaic question of why, for one's own money, and not a small amount at that, one would go to the ends of the earth in the heat to deal with complete strangers, is formulated in different ways, but the essence remains the same. Doctors admit that in such places, the doctor's mission takes on a different meaning, as they are truly saving lives rather than providing medical services, as is often the case in modern megacities. Guntars Dankbārs was inspired by his wife's faith and support. It was an adult Christian marriage, and the couple “wanted to do something for people,” despite their good career opportunities. “I studied in Jurmala and lived in Moscow until 2013, where I worked in real estate and for an organization that built large facilities such as thermal power plants, hubs, and roads.” Olga and I met in Jerusalem and agreed that we wouldn’t live only for ourselves... Young people like Vladislav, Egor, and his wife, Daria, are coming because they believe in their own abilities.

"The people we work with have only recently started to adapt to normal life. In the past, they used to hunt wild boars, but now that the number of animals is decreasing, they have turned to a life of crime because they are not accustomed to working. The missionaries are trying to change their worldview and teach them about Christian values. However, it may take years for the results to be noticeable," says Vladislav Yantovsky.

However, according to young people, this is a unique experience, one that you will never get working in an office. Because it is a way to test yourself for strength, courage, and faith in the higher purpose of man. And, of course, most importantly, it is a sure way to find new like-minded friends.

And Guntars Dankbars is calling right now to teach in Kenya. He says they have a real brotherhood there, and life is real.

"Volunteers of Peace" is an international humanitarian platform created in 2024 by the World Christian Association of Parliamentarians. The platform has already implemented medical missions in Uganda, Cameroon, Congo, and Zambia.

The activities of the Volunteers of the World were supported at the First BRICS Forum "Traditional Values" in Moscow. All interested parties can join the projects. The nearest dates for the start of missions are July and August this year. Locations and activities: Tanzania - construction of wells. Kenya - feeding, building schools, and educational changes. There, you can conduct lessons, workshops, organize leisure activities, help feed and wash children, and bake bread - the project is called "God's Bakery."

— The initiative to unite BRICS volunteers was launched last year at the forum "Traditional Values of the BRICS Countries". Cultural and economic agreements were already reached at that time, but we decided that it would be great to create a volunteer movement as well. We were supported by many large existing platforms: <url>, Rosmolodezh, and Moscow Volunteers. We continue to actively cooperate with them, but at the same time we decided to create our own community-for people who share traditional values and are interested in questions of faith. After all, working with like-minded people is more interesting. We have many projects related to the Church. "Volunteers of Peace" work not only in exotic countries, but also in Russia, for example, they need people in Golaya Pristan (Kherson region). Another priest is building a center for drug addicts in Chuvashia.

It is encouraging that in the short time it has been around, our project has become a two-way street. In fact, students from Africa will be visiting us in the near future to help restore new territories.

As for the question of whether people volunteer to escape themselves, I can say from my many years of experience that they don't. Typically, these people have a lot of emotional strength and are so filled with goodness that they want to give back, but they feel constrained by their usual self-centeredness. I spent several years working as the director of a rehabilitation center for addicts, and it's believed that former alcoholics and drug addicts often come there. This is true to some extent. However, if you give to others out of a lack of resources rather than an abundance of energy, you will quickly become exhausted.

Meanwhile, half of the world's population is already facing water shortages, and this number will increase as the climate crisis worsens, according to a report by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water Resources. By the end of 2029, water demand will exceed supply by 40 percent. Experts predict that water wars will break out in the Middle East. Russia will start selling water to China. Millions of migrants will flock to Europe due to water scarcity, reduced crop yields, and hunger. For more information, please visit the "Evening Moscow" website.

Written by Daria Yefremov