Sabs does a productive thing

[sabotabby]

I spent a few hours volunteering at the East Toronto Families for Syria hub this afternoon. It was a few hours well spent. Like everyone there, I have been wanting to do something, anything (well, I've gone to some benefits and rallies, but that's not very direct) and then this opened up, which is kind of perfect.

It's repetitive, non-thinky work. I spent half the time sorting through coat hangers. There were about six bags of coathangers, taking up valuable floor real estate. So I sorted out the good coathangers from the dry cleaner coathangers that someone thought would be useful, and bundled them into child-size and adult-size and skirts and suits, and within the hours, all the bags were gone. Coathangers aren't something that you think about people needing, but of course people need them. You don't carry coathangers with you when you flee your war-torn country. A lot of the refugees are still living in budget hotels so most of them went there with one of the drivers.

I spent the rest of the day helping the refugees who came in find what they needed, wrapping dishes in plastic bags and newspapers so they wouldn't shatter, restocking the shelves, bringing back boxes of new donations to the back to be sorted, taking out boxes and bags to be loaded into vans and sent out to wherever the refugees are. Sorting out the garbage that people think is helpful to donate. Smiling at the little kids and making small talk with the other volunteers, translators, and sponsors. The refugees didn't speak much English but they knew "thank you" and I know "shukraan." They were all so grateful; it was almost embarrassing. I'm just a person who showed up for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon.

All of the volunteers save one were women, the vast majority working age, with jobs and families. It's not glamorous work, but they didn't have a shortage of people flailing around and asking what they could do, people showing up with armfuls of donations. I think we all felt like we weren't doing enough. One woman was there with her 13-year-old daughter. The girl was going through a stage where she was very into Greek myths, and we had a discussion about Sisyphus and Prometheus, and whose fate was worse (I recommended that she read Camus) as we sorted cutlery and knick knacks.

It's not often that you can do a thing that's uncomplicated good. So much of organizing is sitting in meetings debating, or doing work where you can't see an immediate payoff or maybe you haven't done anything useful at all. Sometimes you just need to sort coathangers.

Comments

[stormdog.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a really fulfilling experience. When I was still living in Chicago, I was volunteering with an organization that helps get bikes to the poor, including refugees, so they can get around the city to work and such. I helped a woman who I think was an African refugee learn how to replace an inner tube, and I felt so good about it. It still makes me smile.

[sabotabby]

That sounds like an awesome organization. I wish I had some more applicable skills (like fixing bikes) that I could use to help people.

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

You're a native English speaker and you have teaching experience! I know that sounds really bullshit, but a lot of groups that help kids (both refugees and not) sometimes look for people who can help them learn the local language and/or English, catch up on school stuff, or just have activities to do. Sometimes for adults too, to help with stuff like IT skills and languages.

[sabotabby]

True. I don't have ESL training, though. And I think that's important to learning English. Otherwise they'll come out sweary and pronouncing words incorrectly because I've only seen them written down.

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

Oh, ESL training is definitely important (though if you have more free time, you can get that sort of certificate) but sometimes they really just need someone to help practice the language (or help with stuff like homework or media in that language), since when talking to native speakers irl, they're going to have different ways of speaking.

[sabotabby]

True! I imagine they'll set up something like this when the families are more settled.

[marrythebed.livejournal.com]

<3

[sabotabby]

<3

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

This is so awesome, and it sounds like a good thing to do. I really want to volunteer as well, but I have no idea how (I don't think anything's happening where I live and the site that has information has a form rather than a list). You're the best! <3

[sabotabby]

I was just lucky because it's right near my house. If you have a local community org (that's what's running this thing) you might want to ask with them.

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

I think you think too highly of my community, lol. I might look into nearby areas, though, and see if something's going on. Thank you!

[sabotabby]

Hah. Well, my community wasn't much up until recently, but now it's full of earnest well-meaning people for some reason.

[ironed_orchid]

That sort of hands on help sounds great.

I'm going to a rally tonight. I have no idea how much good it will do, but I just want to be counted.

[sabotabby]

Rallies are important. They shift the discourse, if nothing else.

[ironed_orchid]

I'm glad I went, there were at least 300 people there, which is a good turn out for this town, on a 42 C day, with only 3 days notice.

[sabotabby]

Awesome!

[resonant.livejournal.com]

Would they be interested in a volunteer with OCD to help sort? Not me, but someone from my support group is looking for something to do.

[sabotabby]

I bet they would. It definitely appealed to my "everything must be organized and sorted" tendencies, which are quite mild compared to someone with actual OCD.

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

By now, you could also work at hm or other cheap clothing chains which is basically factory work, badly paid (usually a cent above minimum) but better than those who produce the things over in macau etc. with the nice parts of it (talking to people) diminished by their not being as friendly.

Besides that (you are now trained) I think you picked the better choice (I can tell, as I have worked at hm but I hear, there is also good work rowing boats across the mediterranean sea which I'd prefer, all things considered and I might pick up one or the other person on the way, dead or alive).

[sabotabby]

I'm terrible at sewing, though. I wish I weren't.

Rowing boats is heroic work.

[howlin-wolf-66.livejournal.com]

It's the small things that make a difference, and it's great that you're conscious enough to do them. :-)

[sabotabby]

I do try.

[joysilence.livejournal.com]

"All of the volunteers save one were women"
Is this something you've noticed a lot with charitable work? I ask because you seem to have done a lot, and I had an unpleasant experience once when I was at Durham University (of evil memory.) I went to this big university-wide meeting at the start of term which was meant to be about all the exciting opportunities there were for student volunteers, and when I got there this massive hall was packed to capacity with eager students. Unfortunately on closer inspection they all proved to be women, and I had a bloody good look around, I can tell you, trying to spot a stray man. To my lasting shame, this annoyed me so much I just went home (though to be fair, I also had a lot of gender issues at the time and was actually really upset by the way every fucking thing in the world had to be gendered in the 90s.)

Duffy thinks that my fears are unfounded and that it is more a case of rich young men not giving a shit about anybody (Durham being a posh university), whereas the rich young women have always been expected to do charitable works as part of the whole Lady Bountiful thing. I sincerely hope this is true and that there isn't such a gender skew among normal people - and I have certainly met male members of Amnesty etc. so I'm not trying to tar all men with the same brush. But I would still be interested in your experience of this.

[sabotabby]

I guess I haven't done as much charitable work. I've done a lot of activist stuff, which tends to be pretty gender-balanced (but I'd say the women do the majority of the scut-work there). Definitely in high school the social justice clubs are female-dominated.

In general, the more glamorous or exciting or high-profile the work, the more men you find in it. So if it's occupying a thing or throwing a brick through a Starbucks window, it'll be mostly guys, but if it's making banners or taking care of toddlers or doing something boring and menial, there will be no peen in sight.

[joysilence.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's exactly what Sara Paretsky said in one of her V Warshawski books featuring activitists - that the women often get to do the shitwork. Still I suppose it's a bit optimistic to expect things to be more egalitarian among protestors than in the mainstream world. Perhaps we can make everybody happy by having some of those hard-grafting female protestors make human firebombs out of those men who don't pull their weight, then sling them through the windows of banks. That way the men get the attention they crave and the women get to enjoy the intoxicating smell of burning patriarchy. Everybody wins.

[sabotabby]

I like your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

An uncomplicated yay for this! Go you!

I've texted that I'd like to help with the big clothing distribution that our church/mosque double act is doing as our next project. Not heard back yet, and don't know how much time I'll have, but sure I can manage some.

[sabotabby]

Clothing distro...oh, I don't envy you. Fabrics are kind of the worst (although maybe people in Sweden are less gross about what they donate than people here). Good luck!